Yankees hitting coaches could be on sizzling seat

Hal Steinbrenner recognized a Yankees downside in not just 2026 but 2025: a lineup that “twice now,” he said, “just hasn’t lived up to their end of the bargain.”

And so after sparing basic supervisor Brian Cashman and supervisor Aaron Boone, the Yankees proprietor shifted his gaze toward the hitters and the group that leads them.

“I’m going to look at all the coaching, like I do every year, and yes, I’m definitely focused on the offense and on the hitting,” Steinbrenner said at the postmortem information convention Wednesday, when a potential goal was positioned on James Rowson and the workers under him.

For each of the previous three seasons, Rowson has been the membership’s hitting coach and Casey Dykes has been assistant hitting coach. Before last season, the Yankees moved on from another assistant, Pat Roessler, and added Jake Hirst.

Rowson, Dykes and Hirst led a 2026 attack that is troublesome to assess. In the common season, the Yankees completed tied for ninth in runs scored largely on the back of the second-most home runs slugged.

As has become expected, the Yankees were robust in drawing walks (fifth) and poor at gathering hits (a fifth-worst .235 batting average) while putting out too usually (fourth most). In the postseason, the Yankees lineup was unbelievable against the Red Sox and inept against the Rays.

Of course, the above numbers were gathered with just 383 whole plate appearances from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, who left large voids that are unattainable to substitute and, thus, were not changed.

Nonetheless, the Yankees expected more from Jazz Chisholm Jr., whose regular-season OPS dropped 102 factors from 2025. And from Trent Grisham (108-point plunge), Ryan McMahon (58) and Austin Wells (88). Anthony Volpe and Jasson Domínguez stagnated.

The only true step ahead belonged to Ben Rice. George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones debuted with promise, but was that more a reflection of the Yankees’ player-development system or main league coaches?

“We do feel like there were guys that I feel like had, call it ‘down years’ or whatever — not to what I believe they’re capable of,” Boone said before exempting Wells, who started brutally but discovered his stroke by August. “Some of that is young players that go through it. … But there were a handful of guys that I feel like probably underperformed expectations. So you’re constantly looking into that.”

In Boone’s thoughts at least, Rowson is not to blame.

“I think James leads a great hitting group,” he said. “I’ve been really impressed with the culture that he’s created year in and year out over the last few seasons. So there’s a lot of reasons that go into why there’s underperformance in certain areas of the club, and you try and address those all as best you can.”

Rowson took over for Sean Casey, who had taken over midseason in 2023 for the hit-strikes-hard, analytically minded Dillon Lawson.

The personable Rowson, a former Yankees minor leaguer and minor league hitting teacher, is standard in the clubhouse and regarded less for a hitting philosophy and more for his connection with the gamers.

His biggest connection could be his biggest lifeline. Rowson is close with Judge, whose relationship dates back to Rowson’s days as the Yankees’ minor league hitting coordinator while Judge was just an intriguing prospect.

Judge vouched for Rowson upon being employed and definitely will be heard before the Yankees make choices regarding their teaching workers. Steinbrenner said he and Judge “had a great conversation [Tuesday] over a number of subjects.”

In Rowson’s first two seasons as Yankees hitting coach, the membership won the American League Silver Slugger award. Last October, the Yankees were knocked out by the Blue Jays predominantly because their pitching, and not hitting, failed them, but Steinbrenner believes the downside with the offense was not remoted to 2026.

“It wasn’t just a one-year deal,” he said of a membership that led baseball in runs scored in 2025, but also struck out the third-most occasions and then fell to a workforce that hit higher for contact. “It’s two years now, and I’m seeing some of the same issues.

“And yes, we need to get to the bottom of it.”

There were more points (and more vital accidents) in 2026, though Rowson, like all Yankees, will be finally judged for his offense’s efficiency in the postseason.

The Yankees scored 18 runs in a two-game sweep of the Red Sox. They then scored 5 runs on 12 hits in a three-game sweep at the Rays’ palms, when the long ball could not be discovered and there were little traces of small ball.

For the majority of the playoff run, Rowson was not around the workforce because he tended to a household medical emergency.

Steinbrenner said the workforce would look into “everything” regarding the hitting points, which could imply personnel — the Yankees could conceivably add a new third baseman, second baseman and perhaps middle fielder that could change the dynamic of their lineup — and could imply the coaches in charge of that personnel.

“I feel like overall, our offensive preparation is very good and how the table is set and kind of the program that J-Row leads,” Boone said. “But we didn’t perform what I believe is up to our capabilities offensively, and we got to look into certainly all of that.”