How Marlins bullpen roles could change under new management

Jupiter, Fla.—Clayton McCullough doesn’t want to rely on one traditional closing pitcher this year.

But the first-year Marlins manager knows a few guys that can handle the role when called upon.

“(Jesús) Tinoco, (Calvin) Faucher, (Anthony) Bender have pitched in high-leverage moments in the past and have done well,” McCullough said. “Declan (Cronin) as well. So I think those guys have some experience and some history in those leverage-type moments. But again, that might not always be the eighth or ninth inning.”

McCullough subscribes to the new-school line of thinking, where pitching decisions are based on leverage as opposed to having a setup man followed by a closer. It was something we saw the last two seasons with former manager Skip Schumaker. On a couple of occasions early in 2023, he’d pitch A.J. Puk in the eighth inning despite being Miami’s de facto closer.

If tomorrow was Opening Day and the Marlins found themselves up by a run late in the game, how would McCullough and his staff make the decision on who closes the game?

“I think we would talk through where we are in the lineup, who we think best matches a particular portion of hitters, what they are going to do, potentially, pinch-hitting wise in those spots,” McCullough said. “So conversation beforehand to at least try to plan out what we think is the optimal way to deploy each particular individual.”

But, of course, tomorrow is not Opening Day. McCullough and first-year pitching coach Daniel Moskos still have over three weeks before the Marlins open up against the Pittsburgh Pirates at loanDepot park. For now, they can rely on the precious few in-game reps their pitchers get, along with past regular season performance. 

In Saturday’s game against the Washington Nationals, Tinoco allowed one run and two hits in his lone inning of work, while Bender pitched a perfect inning. 

After Scott was traded to the San Diego Padres last year at the deadline, there was a revolving door of guys pitching in high-leverage situations. 

Faucher was the first to get the closing role, pitching to a 3.60 ERA and 2.17 FIP in 15 games after Scott was dealt. He made six saves in eight opportunities. Unfortunately for him, he was sidelined in early September with right shoulder impingement and would miss the rest of the season.

Tinoco was next in line for the job, converting on three of four save opportunities in the final month of the year. Hitters made 35 plate appearances against the 29-year-old right-hander across all of 2024. They collectively mustered four hits, only one of which was for extra bases, and struck out at a 34.3% clip.

Bender, coming off Tommy John surgery that knocked him out for all of 2023, didn’t have the best results in 2024, but his pitches still showed the sharpness that made Marlins fans fall in love with him in 2022. His sweeper—a variation of his slider that was his calling card before the surgery—had a .170 batting average against last year. In the same breath, however, the whiff percentage from the slider in 2022 to the sweeper in 2024 went from 40.5% to 31.4%, and the putaway percentage went from 27.0% to 20.6%. 

For what it’s worth, in limited Grapefruit League action thus far, Bender has posted the highest fastball velocity of the Marlins' main high-leverage candidates, averaging 95.4 mph.

Cronin, like Bender, was mostly utilized as a middle reliever last year, but made the most of his opportunity. Used in mostly low-leverage spots, he put up a 4.35 ERA, but his FIP of 2.58 would suggest he should have fared much better.

You never want to fall in or out of love with a guy in spring training. But with the lack of true veterans on this team—especially in the bullpen—the staff’s evaluation of pitchers and hitters will be a combination of past regular season success and how they look in camp this year.

“What someone has done in the past would give me a bit of a predictor and indicator of what was under the hood that led to that type of success,” McCullough said. “You've got guys, pitchers in particular, can come back from an offseason and their stuff has changed. They're throwing harder, they've added pitches. So in some ways, it's a different pitcher out there.”

"Some of it is past performance," he continued. "And then, maybe not get caught up too much in just the results of these spring training games. But what things do we believe, over a longer period of time, is going to lead to results?”