What will be the Marlins’ New Managerial Identity?

This is, arguably, the Marlins’ most important offseason for the foreseeable future.

After an n extremely disappointing season, in which they lost 100 games for the 4th time in their 31 year existence, losing their Manager of the Year, and trading away a ton of major league assets, the Marlins are forced to find a new identity, alongside many other pieces, to try to build towards success. As it stands, the Marlins are a team with a ton of unproven talent, a middling minor league system, a starting rotation returning from injury, and manager-less. Even without making waves in free agency, this offseason could stand to be the most influential in the team’s potential future success.

The Marlins seem to have a knack for being in continual need for managers to lead the team. In their 31 years in the majors, they have had 17 different managers, with the longest tenured being Don Mattingly at 7 seasons. They need to be able to find that consistency if they want to continually find success. As of October 30th, the Marlins were down to two finalists, being Will Venable, Associate Manager of the Rangers, and Craig Albernaz, the bench coach of the Guardians. Both were highly sought after managerial candidates, but both ended up declining the job with Miami. Albernaz decided to remain in Cleveland as their bench coach under manager Steven Vogt, and Venable taking the job with the Chicago White Sox.

This unfortunate series of events puts the Marlins back at square one on their replacement to the beloved former manager, Skip Schumaker. The team has interviewed many different coaches to potentially replace the aforementioned Skip, but only pulled Albernaz and Venable to do in-person interviews in Miami. As it stands, the current front runner for the managerial spot is Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough, who is coming back fresh from a World Series victory. McCullough, a former catcher, was a manager for the minor league system of the Toronto Blue Jays from 2007-2014, before joining the Dodgers organization. There’s not much to his coaching repertoire, but if a multi-All-Star and MVP endorsement has any weight, Mookie Betts has claimed that McCullough is the “best coach I’ve ever had”. 

Other people who were being considered or have interviewed this offseason were Tigers Bench Coach George Lombard, Giants Assistant Coach Alyssa Nakken, and Marlins former bench coach Luis Urueta. The Marlins are looking to fill this position as quickly as possible, at least prior to the GM Meetings occurring next week. Oddly enough, reported on Halloween, Giants assistant hitting coach Pedro Guerrero has interviewed for an unnamed position with the Marlins. Normally, the coaches are hand-picked by the upcoming manager, so with Guerrero being interviewed, it’s seeming as though even with the setback, the Marlins are closer to another skipper than they may be letting on.