During their search for a pitching coach, it was believed the Pirates were willing to look past a candidate's limited major league experience if they felt they were the right fit. It turned out they are doing just that.
The Pirates are replacing former pitching coach Ray Searage with Rangers bullpen coach Oscar Marin, a 37-year-old who never played professionally and has one year of MLB coaching experience.
A source confirmed the hiring to DKPittsburghSports.com Monday.
Marin just completed his first season in the majors. Like new bench coach Don Kelly, he has a player development background, serving as the Mariners minor league pitching coordinator from 2017-2018. Before then, he spent six seasons as an instructor in the Rangers farm system from 2010-2016 and five years in the high school and collegiate ranks from 2005-2009.
He also coached in the Puerto Rican Winter League in 2012 and was named the 2015 South Atlantic League Coach of the Year when he was with the Rangers' A-level affiliate Hickory Crawdads.
When in San Diego during the MLB Winter Meetings last week, GM Ben Cherington said he was looking for a pitching coach with the "right experience" over major league experience.
Derek Shelton said he wanted his pitching coach to be a relationship builder with "advanced knowledge of how the game is played."
“I think the one thing we have to be very cognizant of is that where guys played or where they coached anymore is not as important because players in the today’s game, they want information,” Shelton said. “They want to get better. They want to know how they’re going to get better. So we have to have somebody that’s very well versed in all these things.”
Marin will be tasked with fixing a pitching staff that finished with a 5.19 ERA in 2019, which was the second highest in the National League. It was also the third highest team total since 1900 for the Pirates. They surrendered 241 home runs as a team, 58 more than the previous franchise record.
The Pirates went into 2019 with a promising staff, but Jameson Taillon was quickly lost to a forearm injury that eventually led to Tommy John Surgery and Felipe Vazquez was arrested. Chris Archer and Trevor Williams suffered career-worst seasons, and Kyle Crick and Richard Rodriguez regressed from their 2018 breakouts. In addition to trying to help those four pitchers their form, Marin will also have another key project in top prospect Mitch Keller, who had terrific peripherals and strikeout rates in his first big league season, but went 1-5 with a 7.13 ERA.
The Rangers finished with a 4.25 staff ERA in 2019, including a 4.73 ERA from their relievers. The Rangers bullpen had the ninth best Win Probability Added total in baseball last year, according to FanGraphs.com.
Additionally, the Pirates will make Justin Meccage their bullpen coach. Meccage was the Pirates assistant pitching coach the last two seasons under Searage. Cherington previously announced he was coming back to the organization in some capacity in 2020 and was being considered for pitching coach.