Hall of Fame
Gary Denbo, born December 9, 1960, is a former Major League Baseball front office executive. He was the director of player development and scouting for the Miami Marlins. Previously, he served as a hitting coach for the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays and for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball. He also worked in the Yankees’ front office.
Denbo attended Princeton Community High School in
Princeton, Indiana, where he was a standout baseball player for the Tigers. His performance earned him a scholarship to play baseball at Oakland City University, where he again was highly successful.
He was drafted as an infielder by the Cincinnati Reds in the 17th round of the 1983 Major League Baseball draft, leaving school to pursue a career in baseball. Denbo played in Minor League Baseball for four years.
His first season was played with Billings of the Rookie League, followed by two seasons with single-A Cedar Rapids, then a season with double-A Vermont.
After retiring as a player, Denbo became a minor league coach and manager, taking his first
coaching position in 1986 as a player-coach for the Cincinnati Reds Double-A club in Vermont. He remained with the Reds organization through 1989.
In 1990, Denbo joined the Yankees organization. He served as a hitting coach and manager for minor league teams in the Yankees organization through 1996. In 1997, he took over as the hitting coordinator for the entire Yankees organization, and in 2000 was also the Assistant Minor League Director.
In 2001, Denbo was promoted to the major league hitting coach for the New York Yankees. He also served as the hitting coach for the American League All-Star team in the 2001 MLB All-Star Game in Seattle.
Denbo was a scout for the Cleveland Indians in 2002, then was a hitting coach for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Pacific League in Nippon Professional Baseball from 2003 through 2005. He rejoined the Yankees organization in 2006 as the organization’s hitting coordinator.
In 2008, he became the hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays. Then, in 2009, Denbo returned to the Yankees as a player development consultant and continued in that position, working in scouting and player development. While in a slump during the 2011 season, Derek Jeter worked on his swing with Denbo, which Jeter
attributed to his improvement later in the season.
In June 2014, Denbo was named as the hitting consultant for the 2014 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team.
The Yankees named Denbo Vice President of Player Development in June of 2014. Denbo began the “Captain’s Camp”, an opportunity for the team’s best prospects to interact with former players.
In October 2017, Denbo was named the Vice President of Scouting and Player Development for the Miami Marlins, working with the
organization until June 2022, months after Jeter had divested from the team’s ownership group.