The Marlins called pitches from the dugout -- exclusively. How did that go?

MIAMI -- After a quick taste of pitch calling from the dugout at the Major League level in 2025, the Marlins became the first and only team to go an entire 162-game season doing so in '26.

At the center of it was first-year assistant pitching coach Rob Marcello, who held the same responsibility as Triple-A Jacksonville’s pitching coach in 2025.

MLB.com chatted with Marcello about the experience. Below are some of the highlights.

How do the Marlins evaluate if the right pitch was called?
To start the year, Miami held review sessions for about 30 minutes to discuss the previous day's game. Toward the end of the season, they took place about three times a week.

In those meetings were 12 members of the organization, including Marcello, president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, general manager Gabe Kapler, director of pitching Bill Hezel, pitching coach Daniel Moskos, bullpen coach Brandon Mann, assistant director of baseball operations Jordan Jackson and vice president of baseball solutions Ryan Plunkett.

Much like the chicken/egg causality dilemma, it’s tough to determine if the end result was due to pitch selection, execution or both. For example, Marcello could call the right pitch but it led to a poor result due to execution or vice versa.

“It was eye-opening in a way,” Marcello said. ‘‘Is it the right pitch?’ And I think we always would revert back to, ‘Was it his best stuff if we're trying to get a punchout? Is it his best strike pitch? Is it all this in these counts?’”

Moving forward, Marcello wonders how the process might evolve. Could there be more people involved? How do you review games with players? Is it talking through game situations?

How far ahead would Marcello think of a pitch?
“I would tend to go pitch to pitch in the game, but a lot of the pre-work was making sure we're not throwing a certain pitch in a certain count, so the other team was ahead of us,” Marcello said.

In-game conversations would happen inside the dugout, oftentimes detailing what a player was seeing on the field from a batter’s swing or a pitcher’s stuff. That could then lead to tweaking the game plan.

How often did guys shake?
Ten or fewer times a game, with 10 being the extreme high.

Tyler Phillips shook the least, while Ryan Gusto fought a bit in the beginning with sequencing. Calvin Faucher would shake and mention afterwards that he didn’t have that pitch working while warming up in the bullpen.

Eury Pérez, who was trying to gain confidence in some of his secondary pitches, would shake more than others. Marcello later found out why by having a conversation with him – just like he does with the rest of the staff to build trust.

“‘When you call a pitch and I throw it for a ball, and you call something else,’” Marcello recalled Pérez saying, “‘I lose confidence in that you think I can't throw the sweeper for a strike.' I was like, 'Oh, OK, that makes sense. That's a real emotion.’”

In order to get pitchers to buy in, Marcello and Moskos would show them objective data as to why certain pitches were being called.

When pitchers shake, what happens?
The next pitch would be decided between the catcher and pitcher.

“That's another talking point of mine this offseason,” Marcello said. “I don't think it'll happen, but do we give the pitcher a PitchCom so he can just click the next [pitch]?”

Marcello also had to switch up the numbers and hand signals so the opposing team couldn't pick up on them.

How mentally draining was doing this for 162 games?
Since what the Marlins are doing is unprecedented, Marcello couldn’t fall back on asking others how they managed. He did find the closest equivalent, reaching out to 11-year veteran catcher A.J. Ellis for advice.

“Obviously from last year you understand it's going to be a lot,” Marcello said. “It's not just coaching, and then I think just being on the Major League level, it just adds in so much mental wear knowing every game does matter. … I think about a long winning streak, and even those are draining, and then losing 12, those were just as draining.”

How much credit and blame does he take for how a pitcher performs?
“I'll take all the blame when they do bad, and they took all the positives when they did good,” Marcello said. “That’s honestly how I felt at the end of the day. 'Where did I mess up? Where could this have gone wrong?' They do good, it's them. At the end of the day, it comes down to pitch execution. I'm not throwing the ball. Eury’s really good when he throws his offspeed for strikes.

“When they're on a roll, it's enjoyable because there's a rhythm to it. When they do bad, you're just trying to help them through it the best way possible.”