Marlins Fire Barry Bonds As Hitting Coach After One Season

Barry Bonds has been fired by the Miami Marlins after just one season as the team’s hitting coach. Jon Heyman broke the news.

Bonds — who is technically baseball’s all-time home run leader — was hired in December by Marlins manager Don Mattingly. The 51-year-old led the Marlins to the fourth-best batting average in baseball (.263), while they finished 13th in on-base percentage (.322). While those numbers look solid, Miami also wound up 25th in OPS (.716), 29th in home runs (128) and 27th in runs scored (655).

On top of that, Bonds’ “commitment level dwindled” as the season wore on, according to Craig Mish.

That’s a recipe for disaster. That idea puts a hilarious image in my head of Bonds being super fired up in spring training, working diligently with the players, and smiling big time. Cut to later in the year with guys coming up to him asking advice and Bonds just shrugs his shoulders and says, “I don’t know man, just inject something. You should be fine.”

We all know Bonds doesn’t exactly have the world’s bubbliest personality, so I can’t imagine having him as a coach for an entire season was a blast.

Frank Menechino shared hitting coach duties with Bonds this year and it appears he will be retained.