The Miami Marlins have interviewed Astros executive Oz Ocampo for an Assistant General Manager position, reports MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (Twitter link).
With Derek Jeter’s surprise departure as the Marlins’ CEO back in February, and manager Don Mattingly’s announcement that he would not be returning to the Marlins for the 2023 season, General Manager Kim Ng has been tasked with both rebuilding the Marlins’ organization and roster. Miami currently has two other Assistant GMs — Daniel Greenlee, who joined the organization in 2017, and Brian Chattin, who has been with the organization for over a decade.
Ocampo began his baseball career as a scout for the Cardinals in the Dominican Republic. He then worked directly for the league in an International Baseball Operations role before joining the Astros and helping to develop their international scouting and player development pipeline, signing four key pitchers currently on the Astros’ roster: Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Luis Garcia, and Jose Urquidy. He then left the Astros and joined the Pirates in a special assistant role before returning to Houston this past offseason.
If he’s that good at identifying pitching talent, hire him.
That’s four excellent starters lol probably more in the pipeline. Hopefully for marlins fans they will spend good money for good people.
He is just a great scout. 28 current and Astros farmhands that he was instrumental in signing.
I thought OZ was trying to be the next US Senator from Pennsylvania
Is this a fall back in case he loses??
@Ployed – you think though that the Marlins have all the pitching they need. Appreciate this is a longer play that what is immediately available but wouldn’t the Rangers – as an example – be all over this guy.
Peter In London
There is never ever enough pitching
The fish were 15th in pitching fWAR and 4th in their division, and, as you noted, this is a longer play. Pitchers are more injury-prone than position players (34% more in a 2011 study based on 7 years of data), so having a good appraiser of pitching talent can come in handy at any time. As the truism goes: “You can never have too much pitching.”
His twitter avi features him working on a laptop while airing himself out on a dumbbell rack. If you know, you know
Sounds like the Marlins could use some new blood in their front office. This guy has some solid bona fides.
Marlins cut ties with Jeter and his group, Denbo and Mattingly, and are trying to hire FO and on field coaching personnel that are more in line with Ng’s philosophy instead of Yankees philosophy.
Which makes perfect sense since the Marlins will never be able to spend like the Yankees do.
Hedging their bets that this individual could be the primary decision maker behind the scenes. If it works out, they can have Kim Ng quietly tender her resignation to accept an assignment inside MLB headquarters and avoid the egg on the face for firing the first female GM regardless of her level of competence.
Ng is going no where anytime soon. Now that Jeter and his abusive flunky Denbo and Mattingly are gone, she will finally be able to put her staff and her team together.
nottingham – If she should be fired then about 10 other (male) GM’s should go before her. After all, they’ve been making mistakes for a lot longer. Wonder why you overlooked them, hmmm?
Marlins clearly need to boost their analytics dept.
Taking a guy from Houston would be a good start.
Ocampo is on the scouting side. Specifically international.
Yeah. They need to take someone from analytics too.
That would bee a great hire for the Marlins. He has headed up the international scouting for the Astros and brought in some amazing talent.
Everyone hates the Astros and yet here we are again. Another team trying to hire their coaches, sign their players, and hire their front office staff.
No one with half a brain hates the Astros.
I love the Astros (among other teams).
Best organization in MLB for years now. Some are catching up, but they have a ways to go.
That’s right, it doesn’t matter who the coach, GM, or players are on HOU, their hitters keep performing at all star levels. It’s almost like they know what’s coming. I know they can’t be cheating though because theyve been punished for it before.
Joe Espada as manager and Ocampo as AGM. If she can pull that off, Ng is putting together a powerful brain trust.
Not much action on the boards tonight…Everyone still in church?
I’m reduced to reading Yankee fan comments on New York Post articles
Not bad…These days I see 90% “Real Housewives” articles on there. Everything else ain’t half bad.
There was a world.. back in 1998… where Don Smiley and Dave Dombrowski were about to buy the team and Huizinga wouldn’t let them….. on today of all days…. sigh…….