Who Is Manager Rachel Balkovec? Which Team Is She Joining?

Multiple sources state that Rachel Balkovec will be joining the Miami Marlins as their new director of player development. The newest employee in the Marlins front office has experience breaking ground for women in a field that is dominated by males.

Who Is Manager Rachel Balkovec? Which Team Is She Joining?

Balkovec accepted a temporary position as the strength and conditioning coordinator for the Johnson City Cardinals, the St. Louis Cardinals’ rookie league affiliate, following his graduation from LSU with a master’s degree in kinesiology. She was the first woman in baseball to hold that post when it became full-time two years later.

Balkovec has previously stated that her career goal is to become a general manager, so going from the dugout to the front office would seem to be a step toward that objective.

The 36-year-old Balkovec was a minor league strength and conditioning coach for the Cardinals and Astros before joining the Yankees organization in November 2019 as a hitting coach.

Balkovec most recently managed the Class A club of the Yankees in Minor League Baseball, the Tampa Tarpons. She became the first female full-time manager of a Major League team in 2022 when she accepted the position.

Marlins minor league system

With Miami’s player development department under her control, the former Yankees employee will have her job cut out for her.

In August, MLB Pipeline placed the Marlins’ farm system at number 24 out of 30 clubs. Fangraphs ranks the Marlins’ minor league prospects 26th, which is relatively low.

Just two All-Stars have emerged from Miami’s minor league system in the previous five years: Jazz Chisholm Jr. (2022) and J.T. Realmuto (2018). The only member of the team remaining in is Chisholm.

Miami will choose 16th in the July 2024 MLB Draft following their postseason run.

In April 2022, Balkovec said to The Post’s Steve Serby, “In general, I think that I want to be a head coach, and right now I’m obviously in a role where this is a lot of leadership responsibility, but I want all the pressure.”

“So I want to be a head coach, and I think the GM of most baseball teams is somebody who makes maybe more decisions than the major league manager. I’m also interested in the whole organization and not just one team, so just kind of having the bird’s-eye view I guess.”

The Marlins were the first MLB organization to have a female general manager when they hired Kim Ng in 2020, though Ng left the club after last season, reportedly because it wanted to hire a president of baseball operations above her.

 

 

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