The Marlins announced after tonight’s game that they have fired hitting coach Mike Pagliarulo from his post, as MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro as among those to report (Twitter link). He’ll be replaced by Jeff Livesey on an interim basis, with the role of assistant hitting coach to be filled by Eric Duncan.
Pagliarulo had taken the helm in advance of the 2016 season, marking his first MLB coaching role. The former big-league third baseman had previously worked as a Triple-A hitting coach. Livesey, the former assistant hitting coach with the Pirates, was added to the Miami staff before the current campaign. Duncan, once a lauded Yankees prospect, never made it to the majors but had been moving up the chain as a hitting coach in the New York farm system.
President of baseball operations Michael Hill explained the decision (via Wells Dusenberry of the Sun Sentinel, on Twitter), calling the Marlins “an easy team to pitch to.” With the organization determining that “the necessary adjustments” hadn’t been made, it was decided that “it was time for a new voice and subsequently a change needed to be made.”
While expectations were low for the Marlins entering the season, the club has certainly scuffled more than might have been hoped. Through 680 plate appearances, Miami hitters were carrying a cumulative .216/.275/.332 batting line with the league’s second-worst walk rate (6.6%) and fourth-lowest wRC+ (65).
The leagues fourth lowest wrc+ is 65? That seems really low. I haven’t looked at a leaderboard for that but hopefully it doesn’t get that much lower at the bottom.
Yea was going to say article should have named the three lowest, too…seems ludicrously low.
It’s actually fifth lowest.
Fish- 65
Reds- 62
Tribe- 61
Giants- 60
Rox- 50
It will all normalize as the season goes on though- the lowest last year was 79(SFG)
What do they expect ? Jeter traded all their decent hitters away!
Yes, of course it’s his fault Jeter. Make silk purses out of shows ears. Oh, and I am truly sorry to have learned what a self centered jerk you are. May have worked as a ball player, not here. Jeter, you should have gone to Wall Street. You would have fit right in. This franchise needs to move, ANYWHERE! And the stadium? Repurposed condos. Free advice, no need to pay.
Uh I mean he doesn’t have much to work with but they’re doing horribly. The little bit of young talent he has is doing awful. That is what needs to be developed. Sure, Martin Prado is hitting the ball and that’s great and all but they really need Lewis Brinson and Brian Anderson to be doing that. He’s had the job since 2016 and they haven’t exactly shown much. It’s certainly not an easy job but you can’t be mad about him getting canned.
“Jeter, you should have gone to Wall street” Good God you hit the nail right on the head. The other thing “what a self centered jerk you are” again you are spot on. You being the foremost authority on all things Jeter the MLB higher ups will start the dismantling of the Marlins Monday. What are your thoughts on this barring Jeter from the HOF?
Relax
Shouldn’t you have posted this under the originator?
Jorge, you are correct. Next team to move is Marlins. Mark it down.
San Jose did not work out for the A’s. Maybe the giants will be fine with the Marlins moving to San Jose. Sharks have the same teal color.
This should fix everything.
Something tells me it wasn’t the hitting coach. Perhaps something about being cheap and lacking talent….
Yeah, the AAAA organization gave away all that talent and expects miracles with what they have left. A true embarrassment to the game…
Like clockwork, the village idiot comes out and says stupid things, I love it.
And there is our true embarrassment to this forum…
he must have been making more than minimum wage!
fire ausmus! he is really terrible with the pen!
I’m wondering if Donnie had any input in the firing, since him and Pags are buddies, and was the reason he got hired in the first place. Usually when you start seeing the manager’s buddies getting axed, the seat of the manager gets pretty warm.
Mattingly is a terrible manager anyway. I was ecstatic when the Dodgers did not re-sign him.
Agreed. Bochy used to bend him over a barrel and show him the 50 states on a regular basis when Mattingly coached LA
Seems to add up. Hired by the previous regime with one of the worst team hitting results in MLB. Maybe it’ll kick some of these guys into gear. Maybe they’re just terrible regardless. Stay tuned Marlins fans.
Marlins fans???
Fan
All three dozen that sit in the park and listen to the games on their 9volt transistor radios…
Do you actually watch MLB games from whatever commie block that you crawl out from or do you just say your third world opinion?
Hey look at that I have a stalker responding every comment I make thank you…I’m flattered…
Are you allowed to work for that team if you aren’t a former Yankee?
Ill never understand why Jeter gets to make baseball decisions.
Playing baseball and being an executive are 2 completely different things.
I guess the next hitting coach will be luis sojo
Fact checking things is difficult, isn’t it Boog? Pags was a yankee. So your dig missed the mark just a little bit
Pags worked for the Marlins. He was a former Yankee. Did I miss something?
Reading comprehension is hard.
Charlie Lau couldn’t save that bunch.
Why they didn’t hold on to Bond will never make sense to me
Right!? He was doing well for them all. Bonds should go follow Stanton to the Yankees.
Because Barry Bonds was a terrible hitting coach.
Bonds is too old. He can’t play anymore.
Hahaha
Problem solved…
“The Marlins are an easy team to pitch to” as a complaint is rich. Yes, they are, because they sold off all their best players and are fielding a team that probably wouldn’t win a triple-A championship.
The Marlins, by the way, are valued at 1 billion dollars. Billion with a B. They are profit-taking perhaps more than any team in baseball. Why even bother trying to win when the profits are rolling in, right?
“Sold off” is being polite, too. They had a friggin giveaway over there!
The marlins revenue was pegged at 219 million. Second lowest in baseball to the A’s. A’s are spending about 20 million more dollars but they also have a good team. I don’t see how this marlins team could field a competitive roster even if they did spend 30 more million dollars. It’s more of the same from the Loria group but they were dealt with what they have. They couldn’t have built a team around Stanton he at minimum had to go. They weren’t any good with him either. Unfortunately after Jose Fernandez’s death this team was sunk. The Yelich deal was a horrible failure and he could’ve been a cornerstone to turn it around but other than that there wasn’t a lot of options with a bad team like this.
The deals have all turned out poorly so far but it wasn’t as if they acquired nothing prospects for these guys. All 3 they got for yelich were top 100 guys at the time. As was alcantara. It’s hard to get anything back for Stanton when you owed the guy a quarter of a billion dollars for the next decade.
Not sure why anyone would want to get involved with this pathetic organization.
“not sure why anyone would want a job” Uh huh
Arod was right about Jeter, he needed a team around him to win. Donnie carried the Yankees on his back in the 80’s!
Yankees in the 80s sucked…
And A-Rod won all those titles in Texas by himself…oh wait
Any post that starts with “A-Rod was right” is bound for trouble
No, the Yankees weren’t bad. The Tigers, Jays, and BoSox were much better. The Boss was seriously interfering and they didn’t address their lack of pitching.
The Yankees had the highest winning % in the 1980’s. They may have had a shot at a championship if they had wild cards then (they won 95 games in ’85, but no wild card)
By ’89’ the magic was over, but they didn’t suck
Which is exactly why the wildcards were put in and then expanded; can’t have Boston and the Yankees spend crazy amounts of money on salary and not make the playoffs.
There is no good reason to spend on a team in Miami. When they were good and won flags, they still didn’t draw.
With most games, the visiting teams fans are the ones in the seats.
Wayne Heizinga (sp) said he would spend what ever it took to put a winning team on the field, and if the fans didn’t come, he sell off the lot of them.
He did exactly what he said. They won a Workd Championship and the fans didn’t show up.
It marked the first of many Guppie sell offs.
Baseball will never work in Miami. Never!
It’s all about “The U”. Nothing else works there.
Sorry for the typos. On my phone and it wouldn’t let me edit.
Marlins are worth one billion dollars. One billion dollars. This is a bogus take.
All those Cuban people love baseball of course they love baseball let’s go to a team spend a fortune win the championship and blow it up oh let’s do it twice let’s build a gorgeous stadium to bring out the fans and when you don’t come out will blow up the team again. Yeah those Cubans love baseball but they’re not paying $100 a ticket to go watch it.
Get used to this. After the unfortunate death of Jose Fernandez they lost a huge piece of their young core. I believe the Marlins could have contended for a wild card in 2017 had he been there. Then the firesale (again) happened after 2017. That means 5-year plan.
If the Marlins aren’t a top-flight team by 2022, hate on Jeter and company. As some have pointed out, they could spend to contend right now in the short-term. They’d rather secure a top 3 or 5 pick the next couple years and hit on future superstars (their hope). That would build a long-term contending team which is the goal.
An actual smart comment, this team has a ton of pitching depth in the minors but the offense is sparse throughout. Jeter needs to hit it big in these next few years with the offensive prospects if he wants to succeed.
The Marlins are worth, according to Forbes, one billion dollars. So they can afford to run a competitive team on the field. But they are profit-taking, as long as they can until MLB forces them to move. Good for the owners, I guess.
With concern to the Marlins I don’t see why they need to hand out long-term deals if the goal is to find out if prospects in their system can be long-term solutions.
Yes, they can spend more. Yes, teams are making a lot of money. I still argue the profits should warrant more jobs within the organization. I am aware the players bring all the attention. They are the salespeople/account managers at a company selling millions and taking in 10% commission, give or take.
I’m not agreeing with the methods of the Marlins. The idea of giving homegrown talent a chance to play, succeed and win is fine. Trading players prior to free agency when you are close to contention, not so fine.
And all of that was going to change with Jeter on board, LOL! He’s done the same as his predecessors.
The Giants need to look into doing the same thing, it’s embarrassing to watch them on TV. They almost been no hit a few times already, they hit no homeruns, all weak ass hits. One good thing the Marlins+Giants got going for them is, the race for worst record in all of MLB and who’s getting that #1 pick in 2020 🙂
Christian Yelich
Giancarlo Stanton
J.T. Realmuto
Marcell Ozuna
If these four were in the Marlins lineup they wouldn’t be easy to pitch to.
Also the team would be bankrupt paying their salaries with nobody watching in the stands and on TV
Nope. The Marlins are incredibly profitable.
David come on. How do you propose the marlins pay for that? Marvell Ozuna 12.25 MM Giancarlo Stanton 26MM. Realmuto 5.9 Yelich 9.75. Gordon 13MM. Take their current payroll and that’s 140 MM on a team that generates ~220 million in revenue. ML average is ~48% on payroll. That’d put the marlins at 63% and the team would suck. They’d still have no bullpen and no rotation. Are they taking profits in now? Sure they are. But they could not have fielded a playoff team with their old core. Maybe you think they didn’t get enough talent but what you’re saying they could easily do is nonsense.
This is 2017. reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/7sq2j1/mlb_payroll_… Throwing out blanket statements like team A could spend more and they’re raking in yada yada yada just completely ignores any specifics of the situation. The marlins aren’t doing anything differently than the padres or the Phillies or the white Sox. Except their revenue IS lower. They sold off assets in order to tank. There’s the data right there when they had a payroll they were up with the orioles for highest % spent on payroll per revenue dollars. It was not working. Period. They were at a point where they couldn’t make significant additions and they had no pitching. Could you argue that they didn’t get enough talent back? Sure. Could you argue tha they could’ve kept Yelich and tried to extend Realmuto? Yeah, but they couldn’t stay the course and keep adding payroll to a middling team. This team had no farm at the time. Still has a very weak one but it has NO farm. There was no way to add talent other than signing players. And no, there really wasn’t many dollars to spend there.
The Giants need to follow up by letting their hitting coach go. It’s quite embarrassing to watch them on TV. Reminds me of low A ball games I watch.
Literally leaves him 15 little leaguers to work with. Fires him.
Pags is lucky. Now he can get a job with a real organization that is actually trying to win.
At least he lasted longer than Billy the Marlin before getting fired…
What did they expect with a triple a roster at the mlb level? The marlins are so horribly managed it’s pretty sad that the rays with no fans or resources can compete in the AL east
Aren’t they in the NL???