Well, the Miami Marlins went out and acquired a new hitting coach with an aggressive mindset. Dillon Lawson wants the Fish to be aggressive at the dish in 2027, and he made no bones about it in a recent discussion with MLB.com

Lawson, 41, was hired on July 1 as a roving hitting coach; now, he will take over for Pedro Guerrero, who was dismissed from the club at the conclusion of the regular season. He's got plenty of experience as an instructor and a longstanding friendship with Marlins director of hitting Joe Migliaccio, whom he once hired as a hitting coach in the New York Yankees' system.

"We’re excited to welcome Dillon to the Miami Marlins," Migliaccio wrote in an official announcement to MLB.com. "He’s an excellent fit for our organization and our vision for player development. He combines a strong understanding of hitting with an innovative, collaborative approach and a commitment to continually evolving how we develop players.

“When you talk about a process, [there are] some things that you can control,” Lawson said. “We want to control the strike zone. We want to control our approach. Ideally, we want to control our swing mechanics. There's quite a large variety in what can work, but we want to be consistent with that. The goal is to hit strikes hard."

"Without going too deep into how we got it that simple, but it was several iterations, and I think it's something that even if you don't know much about baseball, you can understand what we're trying to say there with hit strikes hard."

So, essentially, Lawson is kicking it old school, adopting the aggressive hardball adage: 'Let the Big Dogs Eat'.

That aggressive approach will hopefully pay off for the Marlins, who weren't awful in 2026, but have areas that need improvement. The Fish were seventh in Major League Baseball in hitting, with a .249 composite average, and tied for fifth with a .326 on-base percentage.

The Marlins were one of the better base-stealing teams in the game with 163 swipes (fourth in MLB), but they would like to see more thunder to go with that lightning. Lawson believes moving to a more balanced attack makes the club more effective.

“You can be a very productive individual player with two completely different styles,” Lawson said. “Now we need to really think about how this works as an entire lineup. And so instead of just thinking about this individual and then that individual and stacking up individuals, nine of them, and just hoping for the best, we're going to help everyone maximize their own abilities, and in turn, that's going to help the team. But we're also going to play and try and score as a group.”

As the Marlins look toward 2027, fans can expect them to be ramping up their aggressiveness at the plate. How that might turn out is anyone's guess, but for now? It seems like a reasonable plan.

The days of late-count lazy singles and stolen bases as the offense's calling card are over. And while the team won't be expected to bash home runs at a record pace, the plate will be laid out for them... free to dine on whatever pitch they choose.