Marlins hire Driveline alum Bill Hezel as director of pitching

[Ely Sussman]

A couple weeks after tabbing Joe Migliaccio as their new director of hitting, the Miami Marlins have added Bill Hezel to be his pitching counterpart, Sam Blum of The Athletic reports.

Hezel (rhymes with "diesel") spent the previous two seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. In 2023, he served as their assistant pitching coach. This past year, he moved to the front office and took on the title of pitching integration strategist.

The 38-year-old Hezel had a very brief collegiate pitching career. "I was basically the same player I was in high school in college," he said on the Driveline R&D Podcast episode embedded below. "For someone who wanted to work hard, I always felt lost and felt like I was never close to reaching my actual true talent level, and that's the thing that pushed me to get into coaching."

As recently as 2018, he worked as a retirement plan analyst and salesman while trying to advance his baseball career as a volunteer pitching coach at Northhampton Community College. He moved next to DeSales University, which is where he caught the attention of Driveline Baseball. He was Driveline's director of pitching when the Angels poached him.