Marlins New Third Base Coach Brings Aggressive Approach

Fredi Gonzalez brings a more aggressive approach to the Miami Marlins after replacing Lenny Harris at the new third base coach.

The Miami Marlins have adopted a new, more aggressive approach to base running this year to produce more runs. In the off-season, Fredi Gonzalez was added to replace Lenny Harris as third base coach.

While stolen bases have increased to a higher pace, so have guys being thrown out at home. If you take a deeper more in-depth look at all the outs made at home so far this year. Only one really stands out as being a “questionable” decision by newly signed third base coach Gonzalez.

Good calls that just didn’t work out.

The first one that comes to mind is Justin Bour coming from first base, getting waved on to score. Bour was gunned down on a 6th inning double by Marcell Ozuna back on against the Mets. Everybody’s first thought was “why are you sending Bour from first to try and score?”

The truth in the matter though is that Bour is safe with a proper slide. He was well ahead of the throw before he went into a clunky big man slide that ended in him getting tagged out.

Another example of an aggressive call is when Giancarlo Stanton, on an infield single, tried to score from second against the Mariners.

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We don’t know if Fredi for sure sent him. But, it’s not a bad call anyway. The play was bang-bang. It included a perfect throw by the first baseman along with an outside slide by Stanton.

Unfortunately he didn’t touch home till his whole lower body was past home plate. By Stanton going home though, it applied pressure on the defense to make a perfect play to get the out.

Sometimes you just have to hand it to the other team for making the play. The Miguel Rojas play at the play against the Mets on April 14^th.

Michael Conforto came up from almost 300 feet and threw an absolute dime to home to barely get Rojas in time. The play was so close that the call stood instead of being confirmed.

The final example of Gonzalez applying the pressure is the April 16th game against the Mets. Ozuna tried to score from first on potentially the winning run.

Once again, the Mets made a perfect relay happen and just got Ozuna in time. If any of those relay throws were off the mark, Ozuna scores safely.

A really questionable call.

The only example of Fredi making a bad or questionable call is sending Martin Prado home on an intermediate fly ball in the recent game against the Mariners on April 19^th.

Prado was coming off of a hamstring injury he received in the WBC. He also came out his first game back with calf cramps two nights before. Having Prado try to open up his stride and beat the throw home probably wasn’t the smartest decision.

All in all though, Fredi Gonzalez sending guys home to score on plays that can go either way is a good sign for the most part.  He is playing the percentages that the defense won’t make the perfect play every time.

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Except for the Prado instance, if all the other examples mentioned earlier were safe, which they very well could’ve been, we’d be praising his aggressive approach.