The Dodgers announced Tuesday that they have hired Pedro Guerrero as hitting coach. He will replace Aaron Bates, who surprisingly chose to leave the organization despite being offered a multi-year contract to stay. Guerrero spent the last two seasons as the Marlins’ hitting coach. The 37-year-old previously worked as an assistant hitting coach with the Giants and Phillies organizations.
Although of course it’s not the same thing Pedro Guerrero who made five All-Star teams with the Dodgers in the 1980s, the new Guerrero is no stranger to the Dodgers organization. He spent his entire minor league playing career there and was a bench coach in the lower levels of their system in 2016-17 – his first professional coaching gigs. From 2006 to 2013, Guerrero played in 411 minor league games and totaled 1,524 plate appearances. He reached the Triple-A level and recorded a career batting line of .236/.287/.351. Of course, as we’ve seen over the years in MLB, a poor record as a player doesn’t preclude a successful coaching career.
Marlins hitters hit .249/.326/.400 as a team in 2026. Miami ranked in the bottom third of the league with 168 homers, but posted middle-of-the-pack run totals and ranked top-10 in batting average and on-base percentage. Hitters like Liam Hicks (traded to Tampa Bay at the deadline), Otto Lopez And Javier Sanoja had road rashes in South Florida. Of course, other young people like Owen Caissie And Connor Norby struggled a lot.
The overall performance of a team – and even the performance of individual players – can rarely be attributed to a single coach. This has been the case for a long time, but it’s more true than ever in an era where teams are deploying much larger coaching staffs than in the past, not to mention the contributions of analytics departments, advanced scouting teams, and personal/private coaches in the off-season.
After the season, Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix praised Guerrero as a “wonderful human being” who “did a tremendous job for us” but said the organization felt it was time for a new voice to guide its young hitters. Guerrero’s free agency lasted only a few weeks. He will now fill the position left vacant by Bates’ departure to team up with fellow hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc in Los Angeles. The rest of the Dodgers coaching staff, under Dave Roberts, is expected to remain intact.
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