Shelbyville baseball coach accepts position with Miami Marlins

Royce Carlton is going to “The Show.”

The Shelbyville High School educator and baseball coach has accepted a job offer with Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins.

“You never hear about this happening,” said Carlton Thursday, who is still trying to process his move to a MLB organization. “High school to college, maybe, but Shelbyville, Indiana, to … This is wild.”

Carlton, head baseball coach, strength and conditioning coach and physical education teacher at Shelbyville, will move to Jupiter, Florida, later this month where he will assume the role of pitching coach for the Marlins’ Rookie League team – the Florida Complex League Marlins.

Carlton was contacted by Rachel Balkovec, the Marlins’ director of player development, to gauge interest in joining the organization.

“Two weekends ago I got a text message from Rachel Balkovec,” said Carlton. “The Miami Marlins hired her as the head of player development. … She wanted to know if I could be on the phone in two hours. And she asked if I wanted to work in professional baseball. I said, ‘I’m listening.’

“It just went on from there.”

The Morristown native, who has been a baseball coach at Morristown, Attica and Shelbyville since 2014, advanced through several rounds of interviews before receiving an official job offer – one he turned down.

“That was pretty nerve wracking,” explained Carlton. “Honestly, during this whole time I was thinking a high school baseball coach straight to the pros never happens. I figured I was doing all this work not to get it.”

In the end, a second offer was presented and the opportunity to work for a MLB team was to enticing to pass up. Still a newlywed, though, he needed Kelsey Carlton to sign off on the major life decision.

“That was a very interesting conversation at first,” he said. “At least it’s not Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s in a nice place next to a beach. She said if she can sit on a beach, she is willing to try it out.”

While the Marlins organization gains a coach fluent in the modern technology used so frequently in today’s sport, Carlton admits the timing is horrible for a Golden Bears baseball program primed for a strong season.

“The terms weren’t really right for me to leave this amazing thing I have going here,” said Carlton of turning down the Marlins’ first offer. “We have a new infield, an amazing weight room and I am comfortable here. I am having a great time here and I’ve got a great thing going here.

“We went through a couple different negotiations and there came a point last week where I called (Balkovec) and officially declined. About 20 minutes later, I get a text message with a new offer that made it extremely hard to say, ‘No.’”

A visit to the facility in Jupiter followed and Carlton could not walk away a second time.

“They made it really hard to say no,” said Carlton. “This is probably going to be the toughest decision of my life. I truly love it here. I wasn’t expecting this. I wasn’t looking for this.

“The only reason Rachel got my name was through Rapsodo, the technology (company) we use. She reached out to them and asked who are your brightest minds and they recommended me. I wasn’t hunting anything out. I wasn’t remotely thinking about anything else. It is one of those opportunities as a high school baseball coach that you never would have thought about.”

Shelbyville finished 14-14 last season and returns its top two starting pitchers in Gavyn Fisher and Aiden Smith.

Carlton has been the head coach at Shelbyville for six seasons. He amassed a 64-70 record over five contested seasons – the 2020 season was cancelled before it started due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to his hiring in 2017, Carlton won 40 games in three seasons at Attica, including capturing a sectional title in 2017.

In 2014, he led Morristown to a 19-7 mark just four years after he graduated from the northeastern Shelby County school.

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