Philly Front Office

This organization should be given more credit for somehow failing at baseball in the “Capital of Latin America.” Damn near everyone in Miami loves baseball and yet, the Marlins are the Marlins. It’s shameful how purposely diseased this franchise has made itself. They are not looking to compete this season but will still trot themselves out there for 162 games, somehow playing every single one of them on the road.

Payroll

Pop Quiz: how much does the 8th highest paid active Marlin make? Sorry, that’s a trick question. There is a 20-way tie for 7th place at the league minimum. That’s right, only six players on the active roster will be making more than $800k this season. You better believe those six are on the trade block. In total, they are trotting out about $40m in actual payroll to start the season. It’s more for CBA purposes, but the on field product in total would be about the 6th highest paid player in baseball.

Sandy Alcantara is the only player making any real money this season. He signed a 5y/$56m contract that has a $21m team option for year 6. Assuming he is back to being the guy he was before; he will be traded as soon as possible. The Marlins are nice enough to telegraph exactly when they are looking to trade a player. Alacantara’s annual salary jumped from $9m last year to $17m this season. It’s time. They are just looking for him to prove his health before pulling the trigger.

Off-Season Recap

The Marlins did what the Marlins do, traded their best healthy players. Pitcher, Jesus Luzardo, was traded to the Phillies for shortstop prospect Starlyn Caba and others. Their top veteran position player, Jake Burger, was traded to the Rangers for a bag of balls. This was after trading their top position player before the trade deadline last year, Jazz Chisholm. Caba is a top tier defender right now but is still years away from the majors because he has zero power. They did not sign any notable free agents unless you count Cal Quantrill.

Injuries

Former Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara missed all of last season due to Tommy John surgery but has already been named the Opening Day starter this year. He hit 99 on the gun during his first spring action. If he is back to his old self, he immediately joins the list of top Marlins likely to be on another roster by the end of the year.

Former top pitching prospect Eury Perez had Tommy John surgery of his own right at the start of last season. Expect him to come back around the All-Star break. If his repertoire is undiminished, he is the future staff ace. He is that good. Perez and Andrew Painter were neck and neck for best pitching prospect 2 years ago. While Perez wowed in his debut, Painter hurt his elbow. Perez ended up having the kind of season we had planned for Painter. Now things have flipped.

Pitcher Max Meyer is now fully recovered from his Tommy John surgery that cost him all of 2023 and most of last year. Pitcher Braxton Garrett is already out for the year with UCL Revision surgery. I am assuming that is some type of TJ adjacent surgery because all the other guys had elbow issues and required the procedure. Apparently, the Marlins handle their pitchers as well as the Dodgers but with absolutely none of the same success. This is an epidemic of elbow problems.

Pitching Staff

The starters might be the only decent part of the roster, and they might not actually be very good.

• Sandy Alcantara – Lost in the late 2023 elbow injury was that Alcantara was having a down year. It was still solid, but a 4.14 ERA was way up from his regular low 3s and his 2.28 Cy season. It would have been a 4th year right around 200 innings but he obviously never made it. We are going to know pretty quickly if old Sandy is back or not.
• Ryan Weathers – Despite only pitching in 16 games, Weathers wasn’t too bad last year. Granted, he has been regularly hurt and ineffective throughout his young career, but he may have found a little consistency last year. The Marlins hope so at least. A solid start to the year and he might net them someone to trade in 2029.
• Edward Cabrera – The Marlins really want Cabrera to be someone, but he has yet to top 100 innings in the majors and has been just OK when he’s in there. As a not yet arbitration eligible pitcher, expect him to be traded in the off season rather than the deadline.
• Max Meyer – Back in 2022 Meyer made his Major League debut against the Phillies. It didn’t go well. That’s underselling it because he needed TJ right after the game. Last year Meyer made his return, but it didn’t go very well. Hopefully, he can get his career back on track after the early derailment.
• Cal Quantrill (until Eury Perez returns) – A once promising pitcher with Cleveland, Quantrill fell off a cliff 2 years ago and is just not the same guy. The Marlins are hoping he recaptures some of his old ability but there is a reason he signed for very little and with the Marlins.

Roster

Despite the regular rain and sunshine, the Marlins are a barren, desolate wasteland of baseball talent. I follow the Marlins more than I would like to admit, but I can’t tell you much about any of them. Look at this projected starting 9:

• C – Nick Fortes
• 1B – Jonah Bride
• 2B – Otto Lopez
• 3B – Connor Norby
• SS – Xavier Edwards
• LF – Kyle Stowers
• CF – Dane Myers
• RF – Jesus Sanchez
• DH – Griffin Conine

That’s worse than the Cleveland Indians in the original Major League. I only know Norby because he crushed the Phillies last year as soon as he came over from Baltimore. Edwards is very fast and could end up being the best player on the team. Sanchez gets a lot of at bats but isn’t very good. Griffin Conine is probably the son of Mr. Marlin Jeff Conine, but I refuse to look it up to confirm. There is simply not enough to write up on this team.

Bullpen

It isn’t much. Calvin Faucher and Jesus Tinoco are the only two coming off good seasons. Neither exactly have long track records though as Tinoco managed to pitch for 3 teams last year. Anthony Bender and Andrew Nardi are at least names people have heard of, but they are coming off middling seasons. There is no Tanner Scott to save this unit this season.

Minors

There is a very strong chance that top prospect Augustin Ramirez becomes the starting catcher as soon as the Marlins are ready. He will likely earn the job out of camp, but you can be damn sure his service time will be manipulated by calling him up shortly into the season. Ramirez was acquired from the Yankees along with Jared Serna in the Jazz Chisholm trade. Speaking of Serna, he is also close to Major League ready but will likely spend most of the season in AAA. He is small. Very small. 5’7″ 165 pounds small. He does the contact thing though and if he can hold his own in the majors, would be someone for the Marlins to actually rally around. They have other decent prospects including Noble Meyer and Caba, but none are close to the majors at this point.

What’s the Plan?

The plan in Miami is what it always is. Run a roster out there hoping someone becomes good enough to trade before the deadline and collect revenue sharing checks. Do not feel bad for this team. They are purposely not trying as an organization. Anyone worth watching is destined to be traded in order to turn a profit every year. Perez, Meyer, Edwards, and Norby are the only guys more than likely not on the trade block this season. Alcantara and Weathers are good as gone assuming they have ERAs at least in the low 4s. Anyone in the bullpen who is at least semi-effective will be shipped out. I can’t imagine anyone would want any of these position players. This is a sad team.

In a completely non-scientific prediction, the Marlins have the look of an easy 100 loss team. They are there to get beat up on by the Phillies, Mets, and Braves 36 times this season.