In my last article on the Marlins—which you can read here —I stated that I felt the Marlins should promote in-house and bring Reid Cornelius or Scott Mitchell up from one of their minor-league affiliates to fill the pitching coach vacancy created when they moved Mark Wiley to another position within the organization.
Other names on the short-list to be hired for the position I mentioned included former Marlins pitching coach Rick Kranitz (whom I was adamantly against the Fish rehiring), Dave Wallace, Leo Mazzone, Bryan Price, Chuck Hernandez, Rick Peterson, and of course, Randy St. Claire.
I felt the Marlins really needed to make a good choice in this hire, as it would greatly affect how well Florida’s young starters do next year. I stated that although I preferred they hire in-house, I wouldn’t have minded had they chosen Rick Peterson, and although I didn’t elaborate on it, I also felt the same way about Dave Wallace and Randy St. Claire.
In the end, the management of the Marlins chose St. Claire, and I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the choice.
Despite some of the negative feedback that has come from the hire, as many are voicing incredulity with the Fish hiring someone who was just recently fired by the lowly Washington Nationals, I am of the opinion Florida made a sound choice.
As has been pointed out by some of the writers at the Miami Herald St. Claire’s resume with the Nats is surprisingly pretty impressive; especially when compared with the Marlins staff over that same six-plus-year period St. Claire was coaching the Expos/Nationals.
Over that time-span, while St. Claire’s pitching staffs had a slightly inferior ERA (4.50) than the Marlins (4.33), he was working with pitchers like Livan Hernandez (125 starts), Tony Armas (65), John Lannan (64), John Patterson (50), Tomo Ohka (49), Tim Redding (48), Zach Day (42), Claudio Vargas, Javier Vasquez, and Esteban Loaiza (34 each).
The Marlins’ staff?
Dontrelle Willis (162 starts), Scott Olsen (97), Ricky Nolasco (85), Josh Beckett (76), Josh Johnson (71), Carl Pavano (63), Brad Penny (53), A.J. Burnett (51), Brian Moehler (46), and Chris Volstad (43).
I think any objective observer would say the Marlins’ staffs over that time frame were far more talented than the Nationals. Yet, St. Claire was able to keep them as competitive as all those boys the Fish put out on the mound.
Considering all that, I think Randy is going to have a wonderful time dealing with the young pitchers the Marlins will be fielding next year, including Josh Johnson, Ricky Nolasco, Chris Volstad, Anibal Sanchez, and possibly Andrew Miller, Sean West, Rick VandenHurk, and others.
I’m still convinced the Marlins need to go out and spend some money on a big-name starter to bolster their rotation, and if they do I think they’ll actually be able to live up to all the hype that surrounded them this past season and have one of the best staff’s in the majors. Even if they don’t, I think Randy St. Claire should be able to get the most from those young arms, and just might have us competing with the best in baseball.
He should be helped by the fact that while the Marlins didn’t hire Reid Cornelius for the position of pitching coach, he has been promoted in the organization to be the new bullpen coach. I look forward to seeing what he does with our relievers this coming season. There are a lot of great arms in that bullpen, too, and Cornelius might just work his magic to make them one of the best in MLB as well.
Another hire by the Fish is Josue Espada, who takes over for Andy Fox as the new infield coach. Espada, who has been the Marlins’ minor league infield coordinator the past two years, joined the Fish in 2006 as the low-Class A Greensboro hitting coach, and was then promoted to the Hammerheads in 2007. He played 10 years of professional baseball, including with the Marlins’ Triple-A affiliate in Calgary back in 2001, but never got to “The Show.”
Notes: Former coaches Bo Porter and Steve Foster have landed on their feet in Arizona and Kansas City . Foster signed on as the bullpen coach for the Royals and Porter was hired as the third-base coach for the Diamondbacks.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
- Login to post comments