The Reds announced Thursday the hiring of Oscar Marin as their new bullpen coach. Marlin, who served as the Pirates’ pitching coach from 2020-25, will succeed Matt Tracy, who was promoted from bullpen coach to assistant pitching coach. Simon Matthews, last year’s assistant pitching coach, was hired as the Nationals’ new pitching coach earlier this week.
Marin entered professional baseball with the Rangers in 2010, serving as a coach and assistant in their minor leagues for seven years. He then joined the Mariners as minor league pitching coordinator in 2017-18 before returning to the Rangers in 2019 as bullpen coach.
The Pirates have had a lot of problems during Marin’s tenure, although generally speaking, the pitching staff has been far from one of the team’s problems. Pittsburgh’s offense and efforts to develop young hitters are well-known flaws in the organization, but the Pirates have done a good job drafting and developing young pitchers. While many of the Pirates’ top hitting prospects have stalled in Triple-A or the majors, pitchers like Paul Skenes, bubba chandler, Jared Jones, Braxton Ashcraft, Mike Burrows, Mickey Keller Others have had great success at the Major League Baseball (MLB) level with Marin as the head pitching coach.
Marin was one of the first players hired by the Buccaneers after they originally named Derek Shelton as head coach. Shelton was fired in May and has since been hired as the Twins’ new manager and replaced with a bench coach. Don Kellywhose contract was extended at the end of the season. Although Kelly and Marlin have worked together for a few years, the Buccaneers chose not to re-sign Marlin. The Pirates hired former Astros pitching coach Bill Murphy late last month to fill the pitching coach vacancy.
The 42-year-old Marlin (who turns 43 next month) will now join Terry Francona’s staff and brings more than five years of pitching coaching experience (some of which was spent with the well-respected Brent Strome) to a Cincinnati staff that has deep pitching talent (albeit more in the rotation than in the bullpen at the moment).
