Skip Schumaker’s plan for coaching staff, front-office structure and more Marlins notes
Two members of new Miami Marlins manager Skip Schumaker’s coaching staff are already in place.
Schumaker is retaining pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. and bullpen coach Wellington Cepeda from the Marlins’ previous staff.
The rest of his field staff at this point, Schumaker said, is “a work in progress.”
But Schumaker did make it known that his goal is to bring in coaches who he is familiar with and has a personal relationship with.
“I don’t believe in arranged marriages,” Schumaker said. “You should know what kind of coach is coming on your staff. High character, quality person is what I care about and then high baseball IQ is third on the list because I believe having good people around you makes everything go and relationships matter.
“The guys on my staff,” Schumaker continued, “will be guys I’ve known already in some way. Either I played with, coached with or have known from being on the other side.”
Marlins general manager Kim Ng said the selection of Schumaker’s coaching staff will be “very collaborative.”
“It starts with Skip knowing a lot of coaches out there in the industry,” Ng said. “We start with that list. I’ve added a few names for people I’d like him to interview. .. I told somebody earlier, the second day he’s with us, he and I were talking about staff and it was a very easy conversation. It was as if I had known him for 10, 15 years. I don’t see any issues on that front.”
As for retaining Stottlemyre — which the Marlins viewed as a high priority — and Cepeda, Schumaker said he “needed that pitching culture to stay the same.”
“That’s been one of the successes here,” Schumaker said, “and that was important to me.”
Marlins introduce Schumaker as manager. His task: Instill winning mentality team has lacked
Front-office reinforcements
The Marlins’ hire of Houston Astros front-office executive Oz Ocampo as an assistant general manager is one Ng hopes will play a role in expediting the team’s turnaround.
Ocampo, who was in attendance at loanDepot park for Schumaker’s news conference Thursday, has held various roles as an MLB executive during the past two decades. Most recently, he was with the Astros as an international crosschecker this past season. It was his second stint with the Astros. Previously, he led Houston’s international scouting department from 2012 to 2017 before spending two seasons as a special assistant to general manager Jeff Luhnow. He left for a job with the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 2019 season before returning to Houston this season.
During his first stint with Houston, Ocampo had a prominent role in the Astros signing starting pitchers Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia — all of whom are part of the club’s starting rotation — as well as first baseman Yuli Gurriel. That group has been part of the core that has helped Houston reach six consecutive American League Championship Series and three World Series over the past six years.
“Oz was there in the early years of Houston’s run,” Ng said, “so to bring that type of experience and to be able to use him as a resource and understand some of the bumps they hit in the road can help us expedite our curve as much as we can.”
So now the Marlins have three assistant general managers, with Ocampo joining Brian Chattin and Dan Greenlee in the role directly under Ng in baseball operations.
“Four minds are better than three,” Ng said.
This and that
▪ A good quip from Schumaker at the end of his opening statement on Thursday: “I couldn’t be more excited to see Sandy [Alcantara] on this side now every day.” Alcantara is under contract with the Marlins for at least the next four seasons and is the frontrunner to be the National League Cy Young Award winner after a breakout 2022 season in which he led MLB in innings pitched (228 2/3) and complete games (six) while also having a 2.28 ERA that ranked as the fifth-best in baseball. Alcantara will be a cornerstone piece of Schumaker’s roster.
▪ Schumaker on how he thinks his experience as the St. Louis Cardinals’ bench coach last season will help him as he transitions to manager: “I need to be in that [bench coach] seat first. Learn the game, navigate the game, be the co-pilot for the manager and learn the hard way on some decisions. I think the main thing and Tony [La Russa] told me this, trust your gut. That was a big deal to me and a learning lesson along the way.”
▪ Ng, on the managerial search overall: “I think we did an extensive search. It started with a very long list and then you try through the vetting process to cull your list down to a more manageable number. I can tell you between several staff members and I, we probably talked to 150 people between the several of us on all the candidates. We tried to be extremely thorough. We did not exempt any type of profile from the process. We interviewed people from organizations that had not done as well recently to very good organizations that had sustainable success. We felt that we talked to a good number of people about those candidates. We spent a lot of time with the candidates themselves, and I think ultimately got to a great fit.”
