Tino Martinez resigned as hitting coach for the Marlins.
One Marlins player, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said Martinez has been verbally abusive to players on a number of occasions since the start of spring training in February. A few players have complained to Redmond about Martinez’s behavior.
“It’s all shocked everybody,” the player said. “He uses intimidation. It’s been a problem since day one.”
According to sources who have witnessed Martinez’s profanity-laced eruptions, other players who have been attacked verbally by Martinez include outfielder Justin Ruggiano, infielder Chris Valaika and minor-league infielder Matt Downs. Another source said the list of players is much larger than that.
Wow. Tino always came off as one of the good guys. It appears Loria refuse to deal with this early.
When you spend your entire career being a professional and a winner it must be very difficult to deal with players and an organization that are neither
dch — not sure if your comment is tongue-in-cheek, but Tino appears to be far more unprofessional than the Marlins. There’s a difference between a bad person and a fool.
Given that all MLBers are suspects, is it crazy to suggest that Tino may still take steroids to stay in shape and that this is ‘roid rage? Is it possible that he’s not the good guy that all the fans thought he was?
Well of course it’s possible. But it’s kind of irresponsible to suggest it. What are the symptoms of “roid rage”? Did Martinez exhibit any of them? Is there any evidence at all that he is a steroid user? Etc.
I guess he heads back to YES? Guys keeps himself very fit for 45, would not rule anything out. Uncontrolled rage may be one of the best signs of roid use, although its not proof of such use.
I’m sorry, but that’s just not true – the vast majority (research suggests 75-80%) of people who take steroids experienced absolutely no change to their mental state. In research cases where there IS some mood change, it is mostly classified as increased irritability. Significant manic or aggressive behaviour occurs in only about 1-2% of researched steroid users. There has no comparative study to demonstrate the percentages of the non-steroid taking population who may find hypomanic behaviour occurring for reasons not connected to synthetic hormones.
As such, you cannot possibly state that ‘uncontrollable rage may be one of the best signs of roid use’; there is simply no research that corroborates that statement.
James — hate to say it, but there are very few baseball players for whom it is “irresponsible” to suggest ‘roid use. I understand that it was politically correct to bury heads in the sand for a long time, but that time has passed. They are all suspects, and anyone that demonstrates behavior that could reasonably be linked to ‘roid use can be asked about.
I’m more curious as to how the public perception of Tino and his actual personality can (apparently) be so far apart. Behavior like this doesn’t just happen out of nowhere. This is being underreported, in my view.
Okay Eliyahu, so what are the behaviors that can reasonably be linked to steroid use?
And I mean, in real life, with evidence (see Alex Hayes for the right way), not in old wives tales about steroids.
He hasn’t been the same since he was traded for Evan Rust…
“the public perception and actual personality be so far apart” So we have on one hand a guy that has been in baseball for 20 plus years, quite a track record, no? a guy who was considered a winner and a good teammate wherever he went and on the other hand we have a bunch of whiny inexperienced losers who have accomplished nothing and complained about the “abuse” given to them. And based on all of that we are giving creedence to the inexperienced losers. Sounds to me that he was probabl;y the only one that actually got in their grill and told his players they sucked and what they needed to do to get better….what a bad man
DCH: I don’t think it has anything to do with whether or not his management style, his actions, or Tino himself are good or “bad”. If they were winning, nobody would care. They’re not, and that bully sh*t doesn’t seem to have made him any friends, so it’s “see ya.”
Agree totally with dch. Whoever brought up steroid use is wrong; as if a coach can’t get aggressive without taking steroids? I don’t know his history as a player in detail, but maybe he was kind of a jerk to the players, or maybe the Marlins players are like most youth today: totally unable to take criticism because they were raised in the self-esteem era (which is worse than the steroid era by the way)
Did you guys read the article? I know it wasn’t in the part that David culled, but the allegations are that Tino grabbed a player by the neck. While Tino denied this, I find it hard to believe that the Marlins would fire the guy — or that he would resign — based on standard verbal altercations.
I can’t tell from the tone of the responses here if people are dismissing the neck-grabbing accusations or are letting their (probably justified) disdain for the Marlins organization color their assessments.
He gave an interview to Ken Rosenthal where he went over over each incident in detail. A bunch of punk losers, including rookies and journeyman players wouldn’t assist him and others in picking up balls after BP. A practice that Tino says is done by superstars. There is a reason the Marlins suck, they are a Mickey Mouse organization from head to toe. They should have made him the manager and had him in every players grill 24/7