The Miami Marlins have made a notable change in their hitting department, and the move comes with a fair amount of intrigue.
After two seasons with Pedro Guerrero in the role, the club decided not to bring him back at the end of the year. Team president Peter Bendix made that clear at his season-ending press conference, and since then Miami has elevated Dillon Lawson, who arrived last July as a roving hitting instructor, into the job.
The thinking, at least from the organization’s side, appears to be tied to finding a “new voice in the hitting space,” as Fish On First reported. And there is some evidence the Marlins liked what they saw from Lawson once he joined the staff. Miami’s offense did tick up in a few key areas, jumping from 154 home runs, 677 RBI and a .708 OPS in 2025 to 168 homers, 685 RBI and a .727 OPS.
Still, that improvement didn’t happen in a vacuum, and Guerrero deserves credit for part of it. The broader offensive rise also stretches across two seasons, not just one.
In 2024, before Guerrero took over, the Marlins were 27th in runs, home runs and RBI, and tied for 29th in on-base percentage. This past season, they moved up to 18th, 23rd and 18th in those categories, while finishing sixth in OBP.
Guerrero’s run also included development work with several young hitters, including Kyle Stowers and Xavier Edwards. He also helped Otto Lopez break through in 2026, when Lopez earned an All-Star nod and led the majors with 191 hits.
Lawson’s own recent résumé is less convincing. The Yankees let him go in 2023 after a season in which New York ranked 28th in batting average and 21st in OPS. Even Aaron Judge went through one of the lower bWAR seasons of his career that year, finishing at 4.6 bWAR.
After that, Lawson landed with the Red Sox, but that stop didn’t last long either. Boston hired him late in November of 2024, then moved on after a little more than a season during a sweeping coaching shakeup this past April, when the club was sitting at 10-17. The Red Sox went 77-58 the rest of the way and reached the playoffs without him, and the reaction in Boston suggested there wasn’t much heartbreak over his exit.
Meanwhile, Guerrero has already moved on to a much different situation, joining the Los Angeles Dodgers as hitting coach. The Marlins may believe Lawson can give them the fresh perspective Bendix wants, but on paper, the switch does not look like an obvious upgrade.
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