Oscar Marin Looking to Take Pitchers to a New Level in Year Two
At this time last year, Pirates Pitching Coach Oscar Marin's life was a whirlwind of different events. He was managing Los Antenienses de Mantai in the Puerto Rican Winter League and was coming off his second season as the Texas Rangers bullpen coach. In the midst of all this, the Pittsburgh Pirates requested an interview with the 37-year-old. The Pirates ended up liking what they heard and hired Marin to replace Ray Searage as the Pitching Coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It started another whirlwind of events for Marin as not only was he getting a promotion, but he had the task of building relationships with a brand-new pitching staff while implementing his pitching philosophies into a new team.
When all was said and done, it was not the best year for the Pirates as they finished an MLB worst 19-41. However, after struggling early the pitching staff, and especially the starting pitchers seemed to turn a corner at the end of the year. The staff finished the year 19th in Major League Baseball with a 4.68 ERA, which improved by almost 100 points over the final month of the season. During his first year, five different pitchers made their Major League debuts and he was essential in helping them transition from Minor League ball to the Major Leagues. Now that he has a year under his belt, Marin has two main jobs to focus on in 2021. Helping those young guys find their potential, and tweaking the veteran's mechanics to make them more effective.
Helping Get The Most Out of Veterans
With the Pirates being a young rebuilding organization, Oscar Marin probably won't have any veteran players to work with. However, the ones he does have, he will have to get the most out of that he can. If the season were to start today, the two main veterans Marin would be working with our Jameson Taillon and Joe Musgrove. Both have more than four years of experience in the Big Leagues and are looked to as leaders of the starting pitching staff. However, Taillon has only pitched two full seasons in the Major Leagues due to Tommy John Surgery and a battle with Testicular Cancer. Each of these players has gotten a year to work with Marin, and he has made an impact both on and off the field.
For Jameson Taillon, a lot of the work he did with Marin is shown through his off the fieldwork. As he has been recovering from Tommy John Surgery, Marin and the Pirates training staff has been working with the 29-year-old through his recovery. One new thing that you'll see from Taillon when he returns to the mound is a much more compact arm motion. Instead of reaching all the way back like he used to, Taillon has since brought his arm closer to his body, putting less stress on his elbow than he did in the past. It is a move aimed at keeping Taillon healthy and, for the Pirate's sake, hopefully, the adjustment doesn't hurt the right-hander. Taillon has only made 30 or more starts once in his career, and hopefully, the adjustments allow him to do that again in 2021.
The other veteran that Marin has already made an impact on is right-handed pitcher Joe Musgrove. Musgrove is another guy who dealt with injuries last season and had time to slow down and focus on his mechanics. After two rough starts, before he was injured, the work showed through in the month of September when he posted a 2.16 ERA through his final five starts. He pitched 13 consecutive scoreless innings spanning two starts to end the season and finished going 1-5 with a 3.86 ERA. Three of those four outings were shutout appearances for Musgrove and, if it wasn't for a four earned run outing against the Cincinnati Reds, his ERA would have been even better. He began to find his strikeout pitch and set down 21 batters over his final 13 innings of work while walking two. If Musgrove is still a Pirate in 2021, it will be interesting to see if the adjustments he made transfer into next season.
Helping the Young Guys Thrive
The other big part of Oscar Marin's job in 2021 is going to be to help the young guys get adjusted to a full 162-Game MLB season. Of Marin's five projected starting pitchers, three of them have never made 30 starts in a single season. The closest in that group is Steven Brault, who made 19 starts during the 2019 season. 2021, will be the first opportunity for guys like JT Brubaker to play in a full season and Brault and Mitch Keller are both beginning the transition into full-time starters. Even though Keller is in his third season, and is looking to become the ace of the staff, he has never made more than 11 starts in a season. Now that Marin has a relationship with these players, he can take it one step further and begin working on their mechanics.
In the little time that Mitch Keller was on the field last year, he looked a lot better than he did in his debut. He made five starts for the Pirates and went 1-1 with a 2.91 ERA over five starts, 21.2 innings of work. Of those five outings, three went down as quality starts and the two that weren't were the game he got hurt and the game he returned from injury. While he was still using his fastball as his primary pitch, 55.7%, he started to learn how to mix in his two best off-speed pitches, his slider, and his curveball. His curveball usage went up almost five percent in 2020, and it turned out to be one of his best pitches as opponents hit just .118 against it. The off-speed pitches accounted for 10 of his strikeouts and give him another weapon that he can use aside from his high-powered fastball.
The other challenge facing Marin is getting guys like Brubaker and Brault ready to be full-time starters. Brubaker made his MLB debut in 2020, but only got to appear in 11 games, nine starts, for the Pirates. While he showed good numbers, 1-3 with a 4.94 ERA, it is yet to be seen if he can make adjustments when the batters begin to figure him out. At the end of last season, he started to get knocked around in the month of September, with a 5.27 ERA, as hitters began to see more of him. His challenge is to work with Marin and figure out just what he needs to tweak to get back to the dominance he saw at the beginning of 2020. For a guy like Brault, the work is going to be getting his arm ready for a 150 plus inning season. Brault's career-high for innings pitched is 113 back in 2019, and Marin will be tasked with getting his arm ready to log a full schedule of games for an MLB starting pitcher.
For Oscar Marin, the job will not be easy, but he gets to mold young pitchers into Major League players. Ben Cherrington and his team are looking for growth this season and pitching and defense are at the heart of their plan. If the pitching staff can turn things around, that will take some pressure off of a Pirates offense that has shown they can stay in games. If Taillon, Keller, and Musgrove can be dominant front end starters, and Brubaker and Brault show a little improvement, it will be a job well done for Marin. Players seem to like Marin and the job he did in year one, and now it is time for them to put in the work and turn those bonds they have formed into results on the field.
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