Along with promoting Brandon Gomes to director of player development, and making the hire of Ron Porterfield as director of player health official, the Los Angeles Dodgers added Brant Brown and Luis Ortiz to the organization.
They each will serve dual roles of assistant hitting coach and Minor League hitting coordinator. Brown and Ortiz in some sense replace Tim Hyers, who became the hitting coach of the Boston Red Sox, and former Triple-A Oklahoma City hitting coach Shawn Wooten, who was not retained.
Brown, 46, is a former Major League who spent parts of five seasons with the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates and Florida Marlins from 1996-2000. After he retired as a player, Brown became a Minor League hitting coach in the Texas Rangers organization in 2007.
Brown remained with the Rangers in that capacity until 2012, when he took over as Minor League outfield and baserunning coordinator for the Seattle Mariners. He spent the past two seasons as the Mariners’ offensive coordinator.
Ortiz, 47, played four big league season with the Boston Red Sox and Rangers from 1993-1996. He then played in Japan and in the Minors until 2004, before retiring and going back to school at Union University in Tennessee.
Upon receiving his degree, Ortiz became the first player from the Dominican Republic to play in the Major Leagues and graduate from college. Ortiz has gained plenty of coaching experience in recent years, first as a hitting coordinator with Rangers from 2009-2012.
He then served as the Lower Level hitting coordinator and the cultural development coordinator for the Cleveland Indians in 2013, and was promoted to assistant field coordinator while also holding the role of development coordinator.
In 2015, Ortiz joined the San Diego Padres, where he worked as a field and hitting coordinator. San Diego made him the Major League hitting coach for the final month of the 2017 season.
