Southeast Missouri State baseball hitting coach hired by Astros' Class-A affiliate

Shortly after Southeast Missouri State hitting coach Dillon Lawson was offered the same position with the Tri-City Valleycats of the Houston Astros organization, he called up former Redhawks' pitcher Alex Winkelman.

Winkelman, who was drafted by the Astros in the 21st round of last year's MLB Draft, was promoted to the Class-A Valleycats during his first professional season.

Winkelman's review coupled with encouragement from Southeast baseball coach Steve Bieser to seize the opportunity led to Lawson accepting the position. The Astros announced Lawson's hiring on Tuesday evening.

"I called him right after I was offered the position," Lawson said of Winkelman. "I didn't tell him that I was offered the position, so it was just a casual conversation, picking his brain about the Tri-City area, the organization, the people that he came across. And he just had a great review of everything, loved every part of it, and so that was one person's opinion that weighed very heavily in my decision."

The decision wasn't an easy one for Lawson, who's been on Bieser's staff for the last three seasons.

Lawson called Bieser the "easiest person in the world to work for" and said pitching coach Lance Rhodes "is great at what he does but he's an even better person."

"That's why I say it's a really tough decision because I'm so happy here and I'm very comfortable here, and it's tough to leave people like that," Lawson said. "The direction the program's going, the amount of outstanding human beings that are playing in this program, the amount of players that are just genuinely good people is off the charts here. When you're coaching good people it makes the job enjoyable. Not everyone's fun to coach, but we've got a group of guys here now that make you want to come in early, want to stay late and want to do anything and everything to help them get better."

Lawson wasn't searching for a new position but had conversations with the Astros' minor-league hitting coordinator over the past couple years about hitting and offensive development. He received a text message late this summer asking if he'd be interested in the position.

"Quite honestly I hadn't ever really imagined getting into pro ball," Lawson said. "I love college baseball, so my dreams and aspirations didn't really involve the pro scene."

Lawson spent three seasons prior to Southeast as an assistant at Ohio Valley Conference foe Morehead State.

"A lot of positive things have come from his hiring here at Southeast," Bieser said, "and it was kind of a situation where we got caught and had to hire somebody pretty quickly, and just by good luck, we stumbled onto Dillon and had a chance to hire him and bring him here to Southeast.

"... We've always had a hitting philosophy in our program, and I think every college out there, they teach mechanics really well. Most of those guys can teach mechanics, and what we were looking to do is try to find what's going to set us apart from other universities and give our players a little bit more of a platform to be a better player, a better hitter than other programs. Dillon was very good with working in the framework, but what sets him apart is he's able to go outside the framework and do research. And he just continued to be a student of the game, and he's really done a great job of kind of taking what we wanted in our program and even expanding on it and making it better."

Lawson credits Bieser and the Redhawks players he's coached, and the success the team had winning the OVC regular-season championship the past two years, for the chance to even be considered for the job.

"Just the fact that this wouldn't be possible if Coach Bieser didn't trust me in trying some different things, so his open-mindedness and willingness to push the envelope has opened the door for me, and the players, how hard they worked and how dedicated and persistent they are to honing their craft," Lawson said. "Those are the two reasons why this is even possible."

The Redhawks now have two coaching positions available with about six weeks until they begin the season.

In addition to the hitting coach position, Bieser also has to find a volunteer assistant.

Matt Borgschulte, who served as the volunteer assistant last year, took a job with Tusculum College in August. Former Advance and Southeast standout Trenton Moses filled the position, but recently took a job as a scout with the Chicago Cubs.

"To lose both of those guys at once is a big task, but with Dillon's situation, it wasn't a blinded situation," Bieser said. "We knew and we've been talking about this for awhile, and I encouraged him to continue to seek out that opportunity and stay in touch with the Astros and continue that conversation to just always give yourself options. We had a pretty good idea that it could happen and for several months we were just kind of waiting as it got down to him being in the finals [for the job], so it's not something I was totally unprepared for."

Lawson's last day at Southeast is January 15, the same day as the team's third annual First Pitch Dinner, which will be headlined by former MLB manager Bobby Valentine and raises money for the program. Ideally Bieser will have his new coaches in place the following week.

The Redhawks begin their season at Lamar in Beaumont, Texas on Feb. 19.

Bieser doesn't think there will be a problem filling the position and already has been contacted by several candidates. After the news was announced on Twitter Tuesday night, he heard from 20 more people interested in the job.

"The biggest challenge for me is the timing of trying to make sure we get our guys in place so we don't miss a beat from a training standpoint and that familiarity with your hitting coach and your offensive guys," Bieser said.