Marlins Trade for Christian Bethancourt, Hire Director of Amateur Scouting

The Marlins traded for catcher Christian Bethancourt on Sunday and hired Frankie Piliere as their next Director of Amateur Scouting.

Christian Bethancourt

I don’t think I saw any Marlins fans or reporters predict Christian Bethancourt to be the Marlins catcher in 2024, but here we are. On Sunday, the Marlins gave the Guardians cash considerations in exchange for Christian Bethancourt. The Rays outrighted Bethancourt off their 40-man roster at the beginning of November, so the Guardians claimed him off waivers. Bethancourt recorded an OPS+ of 74 in 2023, making him a slight offensive upgrade over Nick Fortes (52 OPS+) and Jacob Stallings (54 OPS+).

The main reason why the Marlins brought in Christian Bethancourt is because of his defense. Bethancourt had a 1.87 pop time in 2023, ranking second among qualified catchers in MLB. One of the Marlins biggest problems last season was that they couldn’t throw out runners; thus, faster would easily manufacture runs against Marlins pitching. With Christian Bethancourt behind the plate, I can confidently say that the Marlins won’t have a hard time throwing out runners.

Frankie Piliere

The Marlins have found a new Director of Amateur Scouting after parting ways with D.J. Svihlik in October.

Frankie Piliere has been working in the Mariners organizations since 2017, starting as a scout, then being promoted to Coordinator of Advance Scouting, and then being promoted to Assistant Director of Amateur Scouting. Prior to working with the Mariners, Piliere worked for the Guardians and Rangers organization. He was also a prospect writer for several websites, most notably Perfect Game USA, D1Baseball.com, and FoxSports.com.

With the Marlins hiring Gabe Kapler, Vinesh Kanathan, and now Frankie Piliere, they have no excuse to continue having developmental and scouting issues.