Stan Meek Out as Amateur Scouting Director

Stan Meek had been the Amateur Scouting Director for the Marlins since 2002. His most important responsibility was the MLB draft. While Meek had plenty of success since he took the role by acquiring fan favorites like Christian Yelich and José Fernández, his luck ran dry with more recent classes. While not entirely his fault, Marlins fans have not seen any of his first-round draft picks since 2013 in Marlins major league uniforms.

Meek was actually fired by Jeffery Loria at the end of the 2017 season (h/t Craig Mish, SiriusXM) as pretty much a scapegoat. However, new CEO Derek Jeter retained him throughout the winter. He currently serves as a special advisor to the President of Baseball Operations and expects to remain in that capacity for the remainder of his contract, according to FRS Baseball’s Jon Heyman.

Heyman adds that others in the scouting department weren’t so fortunate—cross-checkers Steve Payne, Steve Taylor and Mike Cadahia are no longer with the Marlins. Two of them were let go despite existing contracts.

DJ Svihlik is Meeks’ replacement. Svihlik had joined the front office this offseason as a baseball operations advisor. He was a scout for the Yankees for 14 years before spending a year at Vanderbilt as the hitting coach.

It is clear that Jeter is creating a front office with people capable of emulating the highly successful Yankees organizational model, in terms of both identifying top amateur talent and developing that talent.

Thank you for reading. Until next time!