Giants reportedly decide new pitching coach hire after J.P. Martinez exit originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
New Giants manager Tony Vitello’s coaching staff is coming together, with San Francisco reportedly deciding on its new pitching coach.
The Giants are hiring Justin Meccage to replace J.P. Martinez in the role, FanSided’s Robert Murray reported Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the situation. Meccage most recently spent last season with the Milwaukee Brewers organization as the Triple-A Nashville Sounds pitching coach.
Martinez had hoped to stay with the Giants, per NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic, but he ended up taking a job as the bullpen coach for the Atlanta Braves after five total seasons with San Francisco and one as the team’s pitching coach.
“With nothing being a guarantee [in San Francisco] for J.P., I think he took the bird in hand,” Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey told reporters last week at the annual General Managers Meetings in Las Vegas. “We were still going through the process with him. We hadn’t told him that he was not going to be returning. I’m a J.P. fan and had a good talk with him when he took the [Braves] job. I told him I think he’s going to be successful and maybe we’ll see him down the road.”
Now, Meccage will join first-time MLB manager Vitello as a first-time big league pitching coach himself. The 45-year-old joined the Pittsburgh Pirates organization in 2011 as a minor league coach before being promoted to minor league pitching coordinator in 2017. He was named Pirates assistant pitching coach from 2018-2019, then became the bullpen coach in Pittsburgh in 2020 until the organization let him go after the 2024 season.
Meccage takes over a Giants staff featuring perennial Cy Young Award contender Logan Webb and two other locked-in starters, Robbie Ray and Landen Roupp. The rest is up in the air between MLB free agency and others within the organization like Carson Whisenhunt, Blade Tidwell, Trevor McDonald and Hayden Birdsong.
San Francisco also reportedly is set to hire Toronto Blue Jays assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense to replace Pat Burrell as the team’s hitting coach, The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon reported last week, citing sources, and former San Diego Padres manager Jayce Tingler is joining Vitello’s staff in a role yet to be determined.
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