‘The Future of Baseball’: Will Marlins’ Pitch-calling System Become the Norm?

A month into the season, the Miami Marlins’ polarizing pitch-calling system has received both commendation and criticism. But it has gone mostly to plan. From the dugout, assistant pitching coach Rob Marcello uses his fingers to relay his desired pitch type and location to the catcher, who checks his wristband for the corresponding number before transmitting the selection to the pitcher via PitchCom. The premise is simple: Pitching coaches do most of the preparation leading into a series and have more information at their disposal than the players on the field — literally on a card in their hands in the dugout. So, why shouldn't they be the ones suggesting the pitches, too? "I don’t think you’re ever going to solve pitch calling — that’s not what this is about," Marlins pitching coach Daniel Moskos told me. "We just decided there was a way we felt like we could make it better." It’s an innovative idea that bucks tradition, and one that most veteran catchers accustomed to calling games are sure to despise, but it’s hard to argue with the results so far. A year ago, the youthful Marlins ranked 25th in ERA and 20th in opponents’ batting average; they currently rank ninth and fourth, respectively, in those categories. Their pitchers have also gone from the seventh-lowest whiff rate in MLB last year to the eighth highest early in 2026. It’s hard to know with any certainty how much credit their new system deserves, but it’s not changing anytime soon. "I’m committed to us running this play out," Marlins manager Clayton McCullough told me. "We’ll never know if we had … continued the other way how much different it would have been, but I do have a belief that doing this is going to yield the results that we want — giving up the fewest amount of runs that we can." The Marlins tested their dugout pitch-calling apparatus in the minor leagues last year, when Marcello was calling pitches as the team’s Triple-A pitching coach, before bringing the trailblazing concept to the big leagues for the final nine games of the 2025 season. Alon Leichman, the Marlins’ assistant pitching coach last season, was calling the pitches over those nine games — during which Miami had a 3.11 ERA — and believed enough in the process that he took it to Colorado as the Rockies’ new pitching coach this year. Colorado's unsightly 5.97 ERA last year, by far the worst mark in MLB, has dropped to 4.19 early this season. Other teams have experimented with the idea in spring training and in the minor leagues. Soon, many Marlins players and coaches believe, more clubs will start to adopt the practice. "It’s the future of baseball," Moskos said, "until there’s a better way to do it. I envision a future where there’s someone in the dugout with a pitcher transmitter PitchCom relaying it that way, and you’ll see the numbers system go away." For now, though, this is what the Marlins believe works best. Over the offseason, they informed every free agent they spoke with about their intentions, laying out their reasoning for calling pitches from the dugout. They were willing to live with the result if a player decided it wasn’t for him. "We knew we were going to get a lot of questions about it, and there’s going to be a lot of noise surrounding it," McCullough said. "And I felt that for us, to try to get a competitive advantage, if it helps us win two more games this year, then it’s worth it. You get two or three more wins over the course of a season by doing some different things, that might be the difference in us continuing to play beyond the regular season or going home." Last year, an inexperienced Marlins group far outpaced projections by winning 79 games. Miami finished just four games out of a playoff spot. A better first half could have changed the outcome. The Marlins ended April 2025 on a five-game losing streak after getting swept at Dodger Stadium and surrendering 34 runs over their three games in Los Angeles. This season, the Marlins ended April with a series win at Dodger Stadium, during which they held the high-powered Dodgers lineup to eight runs over three games. Was their new pitch-calling system responsible? And how will they judge its success? Those are questions they’re still discussing. Once or twice a series, they’re holding pitch-usage feedback calls with front office staff and analysts to discuss trends and what others might be seeing from a distance that coaches on the field might be missing. "You want to track numbers, metrics, key performance indicators that we value internally as an organization," Moskos said. "We’re using a usage model, we’re evaluating how much we’re adhering to that usage model, and then grading out how the games go and making adjustments and little tweaks along the way." For the process to operate efficiently in the pitch-clock era, swiftness is essential. "You do it enough times, Rob knows how much time he has to give me a pitch, and I know how quick I need to be," said catcher Liam Hicks. "Sometimes I get it with more time on the clock, and I’ll really take my time and check. But as I’ve gotten familiar with the card, it’s pretty easy." As the pitching coaches discuss strategy and look over reports throughout the game, Moskos is careful not to distract Marcello when it’s time to relay pitch calls. "I know that I have a window after he puts up his fingers," Moskos explained. "I know that I’ve got 10 seconds to be able to get a conversation in or ask a question. And then if there’s a new batter, I’ve got 30 seconds to potentially talk about what we feel like we want to deploy. But at the end of the day, he’s done a phenomenal job and cares deeply about this. I couldn’t be happier with how it’s gone so far." On Tuesday night, Marlins starter Janson Junk held the Dodgers scoreless over six innings. Last September, he was on the mound when the Marlins first took the new pitch-calling operation into a big-league game. Miami won that game 6-4, and Junk threw seven innings of one-run ball. "I feel like people overanalyze it a little bit, just because it’s a very up-and-coming thing," Junk told me. "I know personally a lot of teams either are starting to implement it or want to do it." For Junk, it doesn’t matter to him whether the catcher or the pitching coach calls the pitch. "The only thing is in-game stuff," Junk said. "A catcher might be able to see if you missed arm-side, and you can’t really see from the dugout where the miss is." That’s where communication between innings becomes vital. "But you can see a decent amount of stuff from the sideline — if a guy’s late, if a guy’s early, if it looks like they’re diving out over breaking stuff or sitting on a certain pitch," Junk said. "At the end of the day, it’s up to the pitcher to execute the game plan that we go in talking about. Overall, I think it’s been a pretty smooth process, and I think the catchers here don’t mind it, either." Between innings, the pitching coaches often check in with the catcher to receive input and discuss strategy for the upcoming stretch of hitters. Hicks said the process has gotten easier and more efficient over time, and he still believes his opinion is valued, even though he’s no longer the one calling pitches. "I don’t feel like I’m someone sitting back there having no effect on the game," Hicks told me. "I think there’s a lot that I have during the game to say about the pitcher that they take into account, so that’s really good." Hicks no longer has to scout opposing hitters the way he did coming up through the minors. While some question whether that might hinder the development of the Marlins’ young catchers — Hicks, 26, and Agustín Ramírez, 24, are both in their second big-league seasons — the team views it as taking something off their plates. For what it’s worth, Hicks now sports a .941 OPS that ranks second among all qualified catchers. "Whether it’s receiving, throwing, blocking, hitting, it’s freed up some bandwidth for them to go use that in other areas to help them become a better player," McCullough said. "They’re involved in every pregame meeting. They’re involved in the between-innings meetings. They’re very much involved in this." The Marlins’ coaches have also tried to make the new concept as palatable as possible for Miami pitchers by explaining the benefits. "We can’t read their minds," Moskos said. "That’s the one layer of complexity that we didn’t really have a solve for when rolling this out. We can’t tap into the pitcher’s mind and what he’s feeling out there. We can’t see through the catcher’s eyes what’s happening as the ball’s coming to home plate or maybe what the hitter’s doing. "We’ll get that in-between innings, but we might not get it in the middle of an at-bat. So we’re trying to figure out a way to glean as much of that as possible, ultimately knowing there’s going to be some things that slip through the cracks." Junk said the pitching coaches don’t mind if he shakes off a selection, and he feels like he has enough time to do that if he wants, though he rarely does. Other pitchers are more wary. "It’s been done another way for a very long time, so we knew there were still going to be challenges even with the members of our group who were here last year and knew we were going to be rolling this out," McCullough said. "I think that’s OK. We continue to take those on, and in a lot of ways it’s forced us to communicate more." So far, the Marlins have three pitcher pitch-clock violations, which puts them in the top half of MLB teams. The Angels have the most at six, followed by the Astros and Orioles with five apiece. The only Miami starter who has been penalized is Eury Perez. In early April, Perez hit Yankees star Aaron Judge with a pitch to bring in a run and then immediately got called for a pitch-clock violation as a frustrating inning began to unravel. Perez told me he has since stopped shaking off pitches out of concern for time. "Sometimes, I think you have to obey the signals and whatever they’re giving you," Perez said through an interpreter. "But sometimes you get upset because they give you a pitch that you might not want to pitch. It’s hard because they’re not in your mind, so it’s difficult sometimes to be on the same page." The Marlins' coaches, however, are steadfast about sticking with the concept. They know it’s on them to create the buy-in, and they know it’s not perfect. But the operation has gotten cleaner with time, and they believe it’s the best way to win games. "We’re still working through the kinks," Moskos said. "We’re a month into the season. No one’s got anything solved, but I do like the trend that we’re on." __ In "Touching Base," we check on the top players and topics making headlines around baseball and what comes next.