Miami Marlins announce seven additions to Professional, Amateur, and International scouting staffs

November 22nd, 2019

MIAMI -- The Miami Marlins today announced seven new hires to their Professional, Amateur, and International scouting staffs. These additions bring with them a combined 58 years of scouting and coaching experience in professional baseball.

Hadi Raad has joined the organization as Director, Professional Scouting, and Bill Masse has joined the Pro staff as a Special Assignment Scout; Shaeffer Hall, James Vilade, and J.T. Zink have joined the Amateur staff as Area Scouts; Clifford Nuitter has joined the International staff as Venezuela Administration Coordinator, and Sahir Fersobe has been hired as Santo Domingo Area Scout.

Raad spent the last two seasons as the Director of Minor League Operations for the New York Yankees. He also served as Pro Scout (2017), Assistant Director of Minor League Operations (2015-’16), Video Coordinator (2014), and Baseball Operations Intern (2012) over his seven years with New York. Raad interned with the Texas Rangers’ Baseball Operations department in 2013 and served as their Amateur Video Scout in 2013 Spring Training. He is a 2011 graduate of Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where he played baseball for four years.

Masse has over 33 years of experience in professional baseball, most recently with the Seattle Mariners. He began with Seattle as a Major League Scout from 2009-’10 before serving as Major League Scouting Supervisor, Special Assignment Scout, and Special Assistant to Scouting between 2010 and 2019. He also has an extensive coaching resume, serving as both a Minor League hitting coach and manager in the New York Yankees (2001-’06) and Montreal Expos (1997-2000) organizations, as a Minor League manager in the Toronto (2007) and San Diego (2008) systems, and as a Minor League hitting coach in the New York Mets (2009) system. He led Single-A Tampa to the Florida State League championship in 2004 and was the runner-up for Manager of the Year in the FSL that year, as well as in the Eastern League in 2006. Masse, a native of Manchester, Connecticut, was a seventh-round pick of the Yankees in the 1988 June Draft and played seven years in their Minor League system.

Hall will be Miami’s area scout for Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. The Lee’s Summit, Missouri native pitched for five seasons in the Minor Leagues, reaching as high as Triple-A in the Yankees and Oakland A’s organizations. He went 39-29 with a 3.86 ERA in his career and won three league championships. Hall, who threw a no-hitter for the University of Kansas, was a 25th-round pick by the Yankees in 2009. He was a volunteer assistant coach for the Jayhawks in 2014.

Vilade joins the Marlins to scout North Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. He was a part-time scout for the Marlins’ in North Texas from 2010-’11 before joining the Texas Rangers as North Texas scout and Double-A coach from 2012-’15. Vilade returned to his roots in collegiate

baseball from 2016-’19 as an assistant coach for Oklahoma State University. Prior to his first stint with the Marlins, he compiled a 384-117 (.748) record as a head coach at the University of Dallas (1997-2001) and the University of Texas-Tyler (2003-’10). He started each of those programs and served as the first head coach for each school. Vilade was a team captain and academic scholar-athlete at Baylor University, where he graduated in 1996. His extensive community work, including the founding of the Keeper of the Game Foundation, which serves those with special needs and disabilities in and around the game of baseball, has earned several accolades, including a United States Presidential Gold Service Award from the George W. Bush administration.

Zink will scout Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee for the Marlins. He spent the last eight years with the Los Angeles Angels, scouting the Deep South territory and assisting in the club’s international scouting department. He was an eighth-round pick of the Boston Red Sox in the 2005 First-Year Player Draft and spent four seasons as a head coach at the Junior College level prior to joining the Angels.

Nuitter has been a scout for 10 seasons and joins the Marlins after spending the last four years with the Los Angeles Dodgers as their Venezuela and Central America Scouting Supervisor. The Venezuela native began his career in 2010 as the Area Scout for Caracas for the New York Mets and became an international scout in Panama for the Milwaukee Brewers from 2013-’15.

Fersobe, a native of the Dominican Republic, is a 2017 graduate of Point University, where he was a right-handed pitcher. He worked for Perfect Game in 2018 and spent 2019 as the Supervisor of baseball Operations and a College Placement Advisor for ULeague Baseball Academy.