Marlins eager to see Jose Urena's progress during spring training
JUPITER, Fla. -- This offseason's flurry of moves didn't just affect the 2015 Miami Marlins roster. It also impacted the farm system, tomorrow's potential stars.
One of them, right-hander Jose Urena, pitched a scoreless first inning in the Marlins' 7-1 victory over the University of Miami in Tuesday's exhibition at Roger Dean Stadium.
Urena needed just 11 pitches (eight strikes) to retire four batters. Carl Chester grounded out to third before Ricky Eusebio reached on an infield single. George Iskenderian popped out to second, and Zack Collins grounded out to second to end the inning.
The 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic went 13-8 with a 3.33 ERA in 26 games (25 starts) for Double-A Jacksonville in 2014, a breakout campaign for the 2008 international signee.
"With the hitters in Double-A, you find more experience, you find better hitters, so it teaches you how to pitch and make quality pitches," Urena said in Spanish. "I feel like my secondary pitches have become more sharp, my changeup has more movement."
President of baseball operations Michael Hill called Urena and left-hander Justin Nicolino the organization's two pitchers who made the greatest strides in 2014 as part of the Southern League championship club.
Urena threw both his two-seam fastball and changeup Tuesday, and the latter pitch is the one that can take him to the next level. From 2009-13, Urena posted a 31-29 record and 4.16 ERA in 96 games (78 starts).
"He's always been a strike thrower, he's always had a good arm, but there was questions going into last year as to whether his secondary pitches would allow him to stay in the rotation, truthfully," Hill said. "To his credit he's one of our hardest-working pitchers in our system, Jose is. And he worked his tail off with all his pitching coaches, with (pitching coordinator) Wayne Rosenthal, to tighten up his secondary pitches to allow him to navigate a lineup for three and four times through a lineup.
"His slider and his changeup were probably both below-average pitches coming into last year, but he found a changeup grip that was comfortable for him and a slider grip that was comfortable for him that really allowed him to throw it with confidence. Once he was able to throw it with confidence, he had a well-above fastball he could attack hitters knowing he had three weapons to get him out."
With the additions of right-handers Mat Latos and Dan Haren over the offseason -- even righty David Phelps from the New Yankees -- the Marlins have the luxury of grooming their young guys rather than rushing them to the majors.
This marks Urena's second big-league camp, and he looks forward to learning from the veteran arms. Listed by Baseball Prospectus as the organization's fourth-best prospect, Urena can gain more experience before being pushed into the fire that is the majors.
"Those are guys that we're going to rely on -- we're not sure when, but getting them up into big-league camp is a great experience for them," manager Mike Redmond said. "I've talked about that a couple years ago making sure we bring a lot of our young guys up here to get them comfortable, to get them some innings so that they know what they're getting themselves into facing good hitters and see where they're at. (Nicolino and Urena) are two guys that we really like and are really high on. These guys are going to help us out down the road, who knows?"
Urena, along with Nicolino, project as members of Triple-A New Orleans in 2015. Their futures will be dictated by both how they perform at that level and the big-league club's situation.
"In this game of baseball, anything can happen, so you never know what's going to happen," Urena said. "It's a matter of being ready."
You can follow Christina De Nicola on Twitter @CDeNicola13 or email her at cdenicola13@gmail.com.
