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Hal Steinbrenner identified a Yankees problem 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 general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone, the Yankees owner 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 news conference Wednesday, when a potential target was placed on James Rowson and the staff under him.
For each of the past three seasons, Rowson has been the club’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 difficult to assess. In the regular season, the Yankees finished tied for ninth in runs scored largely on the back of the second-most home runs slugged.
As has become expected, the Yankees were strong in drawing walks (fifth) and poor at collecting hits (a fifth-worst .235 batting average) while striking out too often (fourth most). In the postseason, the Yankees lineup was incredible against the Red Sox and inept against the Rays.
Of course, the above numbers were accumulated with just 383 total plate appearances from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, who left massive voids that are impossible to replace and, thus, were not replaced.
Nonetheless, the Yankees expected more from Jazz Chisholm Jr., whose regular-season OPS dropped 102 points 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 forward 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 major 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 began brutally but found 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 mind 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 instructor, is popular in the clubhouse and regarded less for a hitting philosophy and more for his connection with the players.
His greatest connection could be his greatest 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 hired and certainly will be heard before the Yankees make decisions regarding their coaching staff. 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 club 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 problem with the offense was not isolated to 2026.
“It wasn’t just a one-year deal,” he said of a club that led baseball in runs scored in 2025, but also struck out the third-most times and then fell to a team that hit better for contact. “It’s two years now, and I’m seeing some of the same things.
“And yes, we need to get to the bottom of it.”
There were more issues (and more significant injuries) in 2026, though Rowson, like all Yankees, will be ultimately judged for his offense’s performance in the postseason.
The Yankees scored 18 runs in a two-game sweep of the Red Sox. They then scored five runs on 12 hits in a three-game sweep at the Rays’ hands, when the long ball could not be found and there were little traces of small ball.
For the majority of the playoff run, Rowson was not around the team because he tended to a family medical emergency.
Steinbrenner said the team would look into “everything” regarding the hitting issues, which could mean personnel — the Yankees could conceivably add a new third baseman, second baseman and perhaps center fielder that could change the dynamic of their lineup — and could mean 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.”