Sources: Pirates to hire Oscar Marin as pitching coach

The trend in the major leagues recently has been for teams to hire pitching coaches with varied backgrounds who haven’t necessarily played professional baseball.

That fits the description of Oscar Marin, whom the Pirates will hire as their pitching coach. Two baseball sources confirmed to the Tribune-Review on Monday that Marin will be the replacement for Ray Searage, who was fired at the end of last season.

He is considered to have outstanding knowledge of biomechanics and analytics after having coached at the high school, college and professional levels.

Marin has plenty of work ahead.

The Pirates’ 5.18 team ERA last season was 14th among the 15 National League teams.

The Pirates will be without Jameson Taillon, their Opening Day starter, in 2020 while he recovers from Tommy John reconstructive elbow surgery. Two-time All-Star closer Felipe Vazquez is highly unlikely to return as he is in Westmoreland County jail awaiting trial for child sex charges.

Marin spent last two season as the Texas Rangers bullpen coach, his first experience at the major league level. That came on the heels of a two-year stint as the Seattle Mariners’ minor league pitching coordinator.

Rangers relievers had just the 11th-best ERA in the American League at 4.66 in 2019. Texas was also 11th overall with a 5.06 mark.

The 37-year-old Marin began his professional coaching career in 2010 with the Rangers and spent seven seasons working in their farm system before joining the Mariners.

He did not play professionally.

Marin started coaching as a graduate assistant in 2005 at Arkansas-Little Rock, his alma mater. He was also the pitching coach for two seasons each at Los Angeles Valley College (2006-07) and Harvard-Westlake (2008-09), a prep school in North Hollywood, Calif.

Marin is a native of Chatsworth, Calif.