Sean Casey's MLB experience a big factor in him landing Yankees' hitting coach job

Sean Casey was on-brand but seemingly script-free on Wednesday.

The Yankees' new hitting coach came out hot and stayed hot in a Zoom call that served as his introductory news conference, showing all of the enthusiasm, personality and personableness that were major reasons he landed such a high-profile job with no previous coaching experience.  

“We’re here to win a World Series, that’s the bottom line,” he said, one of many from the parade of hits spoken by Casey that almost assuredly endured him to fans (at least before a game is played and the first man is left in scoring position).

Some others:

“Anything less than that is a failure in New York.”

“I know how to lead men.”

“We’re going to figure out a way to get these guys going … we’ve got a 70-something-game sprint, and we’re going to be ready for it.”

And on it went.

But what struck some inside the Yankees' organization as most potentially significant — even among those expressing skepticism of the hire given Casey’s lack of coaching experience — weren’t the rah-rah comments.

It was the directness of his answers relating to two subjects that in some ways have become third-rail issues on the inside: the importance of coaches, at least in Casey’s experience, that had played in the majors, and the use of analytics.

“Refreshing,” one staffer said of the remarks.  

The Yankees of recent ilk, as they’ve become an organization steered overwhelmingly by its analytics department, have increasingly devalued big-league experience — playing and/or coaching — when it comes to coaching hires.

It is something that has been a gradual concern in multiple sectors of the organization, including in the clubhouse.

Though Casey may be a coaching neophyte, his 12-year career in the majors were clearly seen, along with the infectious personality, of course, as a significant asset, an apparent reversal in thinking.

By whom and why?

Probably not by the analytics department, which in general does not do introspection well. And, ultimately, it was that group pushing Lawson as the replacement for the highly-respected Marcus Thames in December 2021.

There likely were other voices expressing concern but, in the end, it is the call of general manager Brian Cashman. It is fair to speculate if he was receiving word, either directly or through back channels, from the trenches that major-league experience, and the understanding that comes from it, might not be the worst attribute in the next hitting coach.

It would be inaccurate to say players didn’t respect Lawson or had completely tuned him out. Lawson, the club’s minor-league hitting coordinator from 2019-21, did not have those issues and saying he was scapegoated here isn’t an unfair charge. But it is also not a coincidence that multiple players last year more and more gravitated toward the accomplished Hensley Meulens, the assistant hitting coach who is now the Rockies' hitting coach, and then this year toward Brad Wilkerson, one of two assistant hitting coaches on Aaron Boone’s 2023 staff.

Meulens, who played seven seasons in the majors, won three titles as Bruce Bochy’s hitting coach with the Giants (2010, ’12, ’14). Wilkerson, though without those coaching chops, played eight seasons in the majors (2001-08).

“I feel like a lot of guys that I crossed paths with that had been in the big leagues, I know that for me, that gave me some comfort,” Casey said.

He added later: “I’ve been there [in the majors] … I’ve had those struggles and I know I’m going to be able to tap into these guys.”

Casey’s hiring does not signify any kind of seismic organizational shift. It, as of now, signifies only this: an unorthodox, though highly defensible, move by a desperate team. It is a shotgun marriage for the next 2 ½ months that both parties will reevaluate in the offseason to see if it will continue into 2024 and beyond.  

Oh, and Casey’s thoughts on analytics?

He paid the requisite lip service to them (he would not have been hired without being fairly fluent and overall supportive of their use and application), saying, “You’d be crazy not to take the information, you’d be crazy not to take the scouting reports from some of these guys that are so brilliant.”

But he made clear a certain independence as well, expressing that with a former player’s touch.

“I don’t want to just give you all the information that you have and it’s like drinking out of a fire hose where you’re like, ‘Whoa, this is too much,’ ” Casey said, echoing a sentiment expressed by more than a few players over the years. “I want to know what these guys need. I want to get them all the information they need.”

Whoa, indeed.