The Cincinnati Reds have announced the 2026 coaching staff for the Dayton Dragons. This is the second farm club to announce their coaching staff, with Single-A Daytona announcing the Tortugas coaching staff on Wednesday.
Julio Morillo is returning to Dayton and this time around he will serve as the manager of the Dragons. Last season he was on the Triple-A coaching staff, and the two years prior to that he was the manager of the Daytona Tortugas. This past fall he was the manager of the Peoria Javelinas in the Arizona Fall League, managing the Reds prospects that were representing the organization. He also managed the 2022 ACL Reds. Over his three seasons as a manger he’s 152-155.
As a player Morillo was with the Reds as a minor leaguer from 2010-2015. Almost all of his time came as a catcher, with just two starts at first base. He played nearly everywhere in the organization, starting his career with the now defunct Venezuelan Summer League Reds before spending time in Arizona, Billings, Bakersfield, Daytona, Dayton, Pensacola, and Louisville. When he retired as a player he joined the big league club as their Spanish language translator and a baseball operations assistant.
Troy Gingrich is back with Dayton as the hitting coach. 2025 was his first season in the organization, but he’s now in his 22nd year as a minor league coach after spending much of his coaching career in the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals organization. As a player he spent 2000-2003 as an outfielder in the Expos farm system where he played 369 games.
Willie Blair is also back with the Dragons, returning as the pitching coach for his second with the club. He began his coaching career in 2010 with the San Diego Padres and even served as their bullpen coach in the big leagues for multiple years. After that he joined the Detroit Tigers organization and was a pitching coach in their farm system for six years before coming over to the Reds in 2023. He was the Daytona pitching coach in both 2023 and 2024.
Blair spent parts of 12 seasons pitching in MLB. He threw nearly 1300 innings in the big leagues for the Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays, Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Mets, and Cleveland. His best season came in his 1997 campaign where he threw 175.0 innings in 29 games and had an ERA of 4.17. That was good for a 3.8 WAR season.
Eric Richardson is back with Dayton, but this will be his first time with the club since 2023. He’s simply listed as a coach on this year’s staff. In 2024 and 2025 he was in Arizona where he served as the hitting coach for the complex league team. That’s the same role he was in with the Dragons back in 2023. He has been as minor league coach since 2003, working in the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox organization.
Gustavo Molina is joining Dayton for the first time and like Richardson he is simply listed as a coach. For the previous three seasons he served as the manager for the complex league Reds, starting out as the manager with the DSL Reds in 2022. As a player he started his career in 2000 and played his final game in 2018. He spent time in the big leagues with the White Sox, Orioles, Mets, Red Sox, and Yankees between 2007 and 2011.