Yankees Name Hensley Meulens New Assistant Hitting Coach
The Yankees are yabba dabba done looking for an assistant hitting coach.
New York has hired Hensley Meulens to fill the void left by Eric Chávez, who became the Mets’ top hitting coach after briefly holding an assistant position with the Yankees earlier this offseason. Muelens, nicknamed Bam-Bam after the Flintstones character, will work alongside fellow assistant hitting coach Casey Dykes and under top hitting coach Dillon Lawson.
This will not be Meulens’ first go-around with the Yankees. He was originally signed by New York as a non-drafted free agent in 1985. The knighted former outfielder began his big league career in pinstripes in 1989, becoming MLB’s first player from Curaçao. Meulens stayed with the Yankees until 1993 and hit .221 over 159 games for the club. Meulens did not play in the majors again until 1997. He appeared in 16 games for the Expos that season before playing seven last games with Arizona in 1998.
Meulens was also a managerial finalist before the Yankees hired Aaron Boone in 2017.
A speaker of five languages – English, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and Papiamento – Meulens most recently spent the 2020 season as the Mets’ bench coach. Prior to that, the 54-year-old spent 11 seasons with the Giants, including 10 with the major league team. He was part of three championship teams in San Francisco, where he served as bench coach for two seasons and hitting coach for eight. Meulens also worked with Giants outfielders.
Meulens has additional coaching experience in the Pittsburgh and Baltimore organizations. He managed Team Netherlands during the World Baseball Classic in 2013 and 2017 and coached the squad in 2006 and 2009. Meulens was part of the Team Netherlands staff that went to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
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