The Seattle Mariners have reportedly hired CJ Gillman as a hitting coach to join their 2027 big league coaching staff, per Ken Rosenthal, Chandler Rome, and Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic. Seattle is still searching for their manager for the upcoming campaign, but felt strongly enough about Gillman to bring him on regardless.
It’s not a complete surprise, given the organization’s familiarity with Gillman. Though he spent the 2026 season as the Director of Hitting for the Washington Nationals, Gillman spent 2022-2025
as a Minor League Hitting Coordinator for the Mariners organization. Prior to that, he served in a similar role for the 2020-21 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, after assistant coaching roles for over half a decade at both his alma mater of Dayton University and the Air Force Academy near(ish) his hometown of Littleton, CO just outside of Denver.
Gillman is a junior, Charles Junior, to be precise, whose father “Chuck” coached baseball for decades at Columbine High School, leading CJ to a state title in his time there. CJ took on the same mantle, and was led to the Air Force Academy in part to coach his younger brother Tommy, after a stint of undrafted free agent time with the Colorado Rockies and two years with the indy ball outfit, the Windy City Thunderbolts of the Frontier League.
The perspective from Gillman has long been “Do Damage” when working with hitters, and as The Athletic notes, the Nationals made massive strides in just that. The Nats have had a reputation of laggards for years developmentally, which was transformed in the past season as their big league and minor league bats took consistent, noticeable strides forward. Seattle hopes to see similar improvements, as well as the added benefit of familiarity, as Gillman has already worked with many of the key players who’ve since graduated onto the M’s roster from the minors, including Cole Young, Colt Emerson, Lázaro Montes, and Michael Arroyo.
