Marlins hire Rachel Balkovec as director of player development

As first reported by Christina De Nicola of MLB.com, the Marlins have hired Rachel Balkovec as director of player development. She adds her name to Peter Bendix's ever-expanding baseball operations department alongside Gabe Kapler, Vinesh Kanthan, and Frankie Piliere. A team announcement is expected in the coming days.

Widely regarded as a trailblazer in baseball, Balkovec has worked her way up through the ranks to become the first woman in history to manage an affiliated minor league team full-time, a position she held with the Low-A Tampa Tarpons for the past two seasons.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Balkovec played Division-I softball at Creighton University and the University of New Mexico. She graduated from New Mexico in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science and earned a master's in kinesiology from Louisiana State University.

Balkovec began her baseball career with the Johnson City Cardinals as a temporary contract strength and conditioning coach in 2012, winning the Appalachian League's award for strength coach of the year. In 2014, she took on a full-time role as Johnson City's S&C coach, becoming the first woman to ever hold that role in baseball.

She was hired by the Houston Astros in 2016 as their Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator—another milestone for a woman in baseball—and promoted to AA Corpus Christi Hooks' strength and conditioning coach in 2018. She then enrolled in Vrije University in Amsterdam, where she earned her second master's degree.

In November 2019, the New York Yankees announced that Balkovec would be the newest minor league hitting coach for their complex league team. This role was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which canceled the 2020 minor league season. During the subsequent offseason, Balkovec coached in the Australian Baseball League. She was part of the coaching staff for the 2021 All-Star Futures Game.

On this day precisely two years ago, the Yankees made more history as they announced that Balkovec would become the Low-A Tampa manager. She posted a 122-136 record (.473 W-L%).

Balkovec takes on the previously vacant director of player development role, most recently held by Geoff DeGroot, who was let go at the end of the 2022 season. She faces an uphill battle, inheriting a poorly regarded farm system in an organization notorious for being unable to develop hitters.

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