Tino Martinez once enjoyed a position with the Miami Marlins as their hitting coach but resigned after he was accused of verbally and physically assaulting some of the players. Nearly a year later, Martinez is finally speaking on the incident with the team and sharing his side the story basically saying some of the players were ‘soft’ that according to Larry Brown Sports.
“I wouldn’t say there’s bitterness. It turned out to be a bad situation at the end there, but I wasn’t bitter. I was doing my job the best I could do it,” Martinez said, as transcribed by CBS Miami. “I was tough on some of the young players I thought needed to be — not disciplined — but they were walking around like they were 10-year veterans and I was trying to teach them the right way to do things, that’s all.
“In the end, I can’t say I was bitter, but maybe disappointed because I love coaching and was really enjoying that a lot.”
“I was trying to teach these guys,” Martinez said. “These guys had a great opportunity. They didn’t belong in the big leagues. They just happened to be with the right organization that had injuries and got rid of the whole entire team the year before.
“It bothered me that they weren’t working hard enough and weren’t appreciating what they had. I was just trying to get them to understand, take advantage of this and make yourself a better player. They were very soft. They were very soft and that was the disappointing part, but I thought I was doing my job as a coach to get the most out of them.”
It’s no secret that the Marlins organization as a whole can’t seem to get it together, and Martinez has since had job offers from other organization despite the bad publicity his received from his time with the Marlins. It would appear that whatever went down with the Marlins wasn’t enough to keep other teams away from Martinez.