New Yankees hitting coach, former major leaguer Sean Casey, spoke to the media Wednesday and he immediately explained what he’s seen out of his new team so far, and it’s not very good.
The Yankees are hitting .231 as a team this season, the third worst in the sport, tied with the Detroit Tigers and ahead of just the Oakland Athletics. They also have the second lowest hits in baseball (690), ahead of just the A’s.
Casey, sporting a Don Mattingly-esque mustache, told reporters over Zoom that he hasn’t seen much film on the team yet but caught a few of their games before the All-Star break and the biggest takeaway, to him, was that there was “some tension” at the plate.
“I know in this game, when you struggle, the anxiety kind of creeps in a little bit and you’re chasing a little bit more,” Casey said. “Maybe you’re swinging earlier than you would like because you kind of want to do so well.”
Casey added that he’ll be preaching attacking the zone when the team returns in the second half, and to limit the “quick outs.”
“I’m seeing a lot of maybe five-, six-, seven-, eight-pitch innings,” he said. “From the outside looking in, I’m like, ‘That’s very unlike the Yankees. That is not the Yankee way. That is not the way these guys go about it.'”
The new hitting coach said he has had contact with the players on the team, and extensive conversations with Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson, Harrison Bader and Anthony Volpe.
But despite his lack of coaching experience, Casey believes his time as a player will benefit the Yankees, especially in turning around the team’s first-half struggles.
“I’ve been there. I’ve been there at a point where I’ve had underachieving first halves. I’ve had those struggles,” Casey said. “I know I’m going to be able to tap into these guys and get their talent out. We’re too talented. This team is too talented. This team is loaded with professional hitters. I always think the back of the baseball card doesn’t lie. Eventually, we got to figure out a way to get it going. I feel like I’m the right guy to tap into these guys and get this cast hot in the second half.”
The 49-year-old, whose contract with the Yankees is for the rest of this season, said that when he was a player it gave him comfort knowing his coaches were former players and hopes to impart that on the Yankees, and they need it .
The team has hovered around six or seven games above .500 and is currently out of a playoff spot. The low offensive numbers and the team’s current malaise forced general manager Brian Cashman to make an in-season coaching change for the first time in his tenure.
Out was Dillon Lawson and in comes Casey. But the first-time coach knows that he’s not the answer to all the Yankees’ problems right away and that it’s a process.
“I’m not crazy enough to think that I’m going to come in and all of a sudden all nine guys are going to start hitting because I’ve arrived,” Casey said. “Collectively, every guy’s got to look at themselves and say, ‘What do I need to do to get going? What do I need to do to get hot?’”
With Judge on the IL, the offense has taken a nosedive. Donaldson is hitting below. 200, Giancarlo Stanton is hovering above the Mendoza line and the hit machine, DJ LeMahieu is batting just .220. It’ll be Casey’s job to try and get the most out of this lineup until the trade deadline and/or Judge returns to try and make a playoff push, because Casey knows, as a Yankee, the mission is to go all the way.
“We’re here to win a World Series. That’s the bottom line,” Casey said. “Anything less than that is a failure in New York, and I understand that and I understand what that means.”
The Yankees’ second half begins Friday with a three-game series against the Rockies in Colorado.