Offishial News, 1/24/24: Marlins hiring pitcher strategist

[Ely Sussman]

Here’s what you should know with 64 days to go until Marlins Opening Day…

🔹 Tuesday's winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, 3B Vidal Bruján went 2-for-4 with a run scored. The best-of-seven championship series between Estrellas Orientales and Tigres del Licey is tied up at 2-2. In Panamá, Christian Bethancourt's team, Federales de Chiriquí, advanced to the Probeis finals.

🔹 Per SportsGrid's Craig Mish, the Marlins are hiring Brandon Mann to be their new pitcher strategist. Mann briefly pitched for the Rangers in 2018 after spending years gaining velocity at Driveline Baseball. He then went to work for Driveline, assisting players with data-driven pitch design. Fascinating stuff. The Marlins have obviously been effective at cultivating homegrown pitchers in recent years and finding ways to further their development even once they've reached the majors, but doesn't hurt to bring in somebody with additional tricks for getting the most out of their arms.

🔹Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Gary Sheffield fell short by 11.1% in his final year of eligibility on the writers' ballot. Alex Carver eloquently disputed each of the commonly cited objections to Sheffield's candidacy. He'll have to wait two more years before getting a look from the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee.

🔹 Sheffield got emotional discussing his relationship with Jim Leyland, who's going into Cooperstown this year. Worth watching even though they won't be inducted together:

🔹 The Marlins Fan Confidence Poll is going to be a new monthly tradition around here. On a 1-10 scale, tell us how you feel about the direction of the franchise. I'll be tracking the ebbs and flows of the mean and median poll results.

🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Rhys Hoskins (2/$34M) signed with the Brewers, Matt Moore (1/$9M) signed with the Angels and Joey Gallo (1/$5M) signed with the Nationals.

🔹 Our own Kevin Barral was at Florida International University on Tuesday where free agent pitchers Yoan López and Vladimir Gutierrez threw in front of MLB scouts, including one from the Marlins. Those right-handers could likely be had on minor league deals. Marlins prospect Paul McIntosh did the catching for López. McIntosh says his focus this offseason was improving the accuracy of his throwing and "everything catching-wise."

🔹 Peter Bendix feels "pretty comfortable" with the Marlins' current shortstop-by-committee situation, he tells Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. Bendix reiterates that "there’s still a lot of offseason remaining" to fortify the roster.

🔹 In compliance with Major League Baseball's player development standards, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos are installing a new tarp and giving away their old one. To be entered to win it, make a quick video stating the case for why your school or baseball program deserves it and tag them on social media.

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[Sean McCormack]

Im not sure if maybe this hasn't been reported. But I am very curious if there has been any minor league coaching or philosophy changes since Bendix has taken over with our hitting development. I know apart of our lack of hitting development does come from poor amateur scouting, which with the hiring of Pilierre I believe its spelt coming it I do have faith that’ll change he has a nice track record. I just know the marlins need philosophical change. We saw it with Brant brown at the major league level and how much more analytical he was than anyone else. Seeing us hire a driveline guy is great and gives me hope. But I really hope we change our hitting development. Our guys in the minors have poor approach. We lead the minors in Swstr%, O-zone%, among other concerning stats. Also lead in K% and low in BB% among all our minor leagues. Clearly a bad mix of poor drafting and 0 hitting development and poor hitting philosophy being taught.