Dodgers Team News

Dodgers Lose One of Their Hitting Coaches to Miami Marlins

The Dodgers’ three-headed hitting coach is down to two heads, as the Marlins and new manager Skip Schumaker are hiring Brant Brown as their new hitting coach. Ken Rosenthal tweeted on Sunday that it was a possibility, and within a couple hours it was a done deal.

L.A.’s hitting coach situation has been complicated the last few years. Prior to the 2019 season, Los Angeles hired Robert Van Scoyoc as hitting coach, promoted minor-league hitting coordinator Aaron Bates to assistant hitting coach, and promoted Brown from assistant hitting coach to hitting strategist.

Now Brown heads to Miami in another promotion, which leaves the Dodgers in an interesting situation. Do they promote Bates (as Bill Plunkett says is likely) and hire a new assistant? Do they stick with just two hitting coaches? Or do they go full Hydra and replace Brown with two new coaches?

It’s hard for the public to really know what specific role Brown played as hitting strategist, so it’s hard to know how big a hole he leaves with his departure. L.A.’s approach has been somewhat unique since they hired Van Scoyoc, who never played professionally but was instrumental in helping Chris Taylor and JD Martinez go from mediocre hitters to legitimate stars. Bates and Brown both played in the big leagues, but neither was a star.

The other shoe may drop soon as we see how the Dodgers respond to the loss of Brown, but congratulations to him on the new gig.

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Jeff Snider

Jeff was born into a Dodgers family in Southern California and is now raising a Dodgers family of his own in Utah. During his previous career as an executive at a technology company, he began writing about baseball in his spare time. After leaving corporate America in 2014, he started doing it professionally. Jeff wrote and edited for Baseball Essential for years before joining Dodgers Nation. He's also the co-host of the Locked On Dodgers podcast, a daily podcast that brings the smart fan's perspective on our Boys in Blue. Jeff has a degree in English from Brigham Young University. Favorite Player: Clayton Kershaw Favorite Moment: Kirk Gibson's homer will always have a place, but Kershaw's homer on Opening Day 2013 might be the winner.

3 Comments

  1. Over three years no hitting coach was able to help Cody Bellinger. His dad was not able to connect him with anybody he knows. His agent Scott Boras and all his in house team was not able to help him. I’m sure every hitting coach in the world has spent time looking at the MVP vs the recent player videos, knowing if they could solve the problem there would be an enormous payday. He should have been left to figure it out in A,AA or AAA after his injury before being called up.

  2. Injuries are Cody’s problem. He hasn’t forgot how to hit this year we’ll see an big improvement though he’ll be playing somewhere else

  3. Look closely at the rather stressed elbow.
    Its forcing him to yank his upper body. He also needsto give up on laying the bat on his shoulder and getting on too of the ball.

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