ESPN: The brilliant son of a Yankees great was fired for housecleaning.
Mel Stottlemyre Jr., the pitching coach, is one of the coaches that the Miami Marlins are gutting.
The Miami Herald and MLB.com have reported that Peter Bendix, the president of baseball operations for the Marlins, fired the entire coaching staff, which included a number of players with expiring contracts. There was one year left on Stottlemyre’s contract. He is the son of former Yankees pitcher and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre.
Skip Schumaker, the manager of the Miami Marlins, was sacked at the conclusion of a dismal 2024 season in which the team ended 62-100, despite winning NL manager of the year in 2023. That indicated significant changes were about to occur.
It is now certain that Bendix and the new manager will appoint new coaches.
Based on his work in Miami, Stottlemyre—who disclosed in 2021 that he was battling prostate cancer—should be able to find another position with a different team during the offseason.
From MLB.com: Stottlemyre, 60, had been Miami’s pitching coach for six seasons. Pitchers for the Marlins have established a number of single-season club marks in his first four years, including 1,437 strikeouts and a 1.27 WHIP in 2022. In ’24, injuries beset the starting lineup, causing significant absences for Sandy Alcantara, Eury Pérez, Jesús Luzardo, Braxton Garrett, Edward Cabrera, and Ryan Weathers.
Stottlemyre’s dad Mel pitched for the Yankees from 1964-74 and was their pitching coach from 1996-2005 when New York won four World Series. In addition, Stottlemyre was a 1986 champion pitching coach for the Mets, where he worked from 1984 to 1993.