I’m taking a detour from my politics and culture posts to provide some thoughts about my favorite baseball team, the Miami Marlins.
Once again, the Marlins are playing way below their run differential, and many of their starting position players are playing well below their career norms, including their free agent acquisition outfielders, Jorge Soler and especially Avisail Garcia, who is now hurt along with several other players temporarily out or landing on the IL with minor injuries.
As in 2021, the starting pitching has been the only area of the team consistently above average. The bullpen has been okay except in the highest leverage ninth inning situations, where the Marlins continue to blow games. The hitting, once again, has failed the most, with only Jazz Chisholm and Brian Anderson consistently perfoming well among starters who have been mostly healthy. Jon Berti, Joey Wendle and Bryan De La Cruz have been very good as utility guys, with Wendle playing a lot until his injury (he’s back now).
Since the new ownership took office and the new front office was consolidated under CEO Derek Jeter (who left before the 2022 season started) and now under Kim Ng and a nucleus that has been in place well before Ng, the organization has been mired in mediocrity. On the plus side, the overhaul of the Loria-era roster has produced a farm system loaded with pitching depth at every level. On the negative side, the organization has been among the worst of any MLB team in developing hitters and in plugging their roster with free agents that add value to the big league club.
The result for the MLB team for 2021 and again in 2022 has been a frustrating mess: in both years, to start the season, the team had outscored its opponents through the first 42 games. Yet, due to low run production and an inconsistent bullpen, the team has produced a woeful 18-24 start (now 18-25 in 2022), well below the pace of what just about all of the best statistical outlets predicted. Fangraphs predicted an 81-81 season. Baseball Prospectus 80-82, individual prognosticators for MLB.com predicted in the mid 70s. I picked 79 wins and a fourth place finish (they are in fourth place now amidst a very slow starting division outside the Mets) and former Baseball Prospectus writer Joe Sheehan predicted 85 wins.
The problems loom large at the major league level for this franchise. The new sabermetrics is all about the ability of major league coaches and the front office to utilize statistical analysis and technology to develop hitters and pitchers at the major league level. As is true throughout their organization, the Marlins have done this very well with pitchers. However, the organization gets a failing grade, from the front office to the manager, in developing hitters. A residue of this has been that the team has a recent habit of going for long stretches with some of the worst players in Marlins history before having finally given up on many of them in 2021. The 2022 team is supposed to have more veteran depth, but the new player acquisitions have mostly hit below their career norms.
I have zero confidence that this team as currently constructed will turn things around. However, the pitching is too good, and the circumstances too recent, to justify anything approaching another rebuild. With all due respect to Don Mattingly–he should not take the exclusive blame for the losses, as he is one of many in the organization who has failed to achieve his stated goals–the beginning of his 7th year is more than enough for one manager to be here without notable success. The team needs a new voice. The front office also could use new voices, especially in hitting development and analysis. I would keep Kim Ng for now, as she has only been here a little over a year and the overall results have been a byproduct of the organization that she inherited.
The time to pivot is now, gradually, but with the realization that the current mix of players is not working. The first obvious step would be to bring up some minor league players to replace veteran 1B/DH Garrett Cooper and Jesus Aguilar, such as Lewin Diaz at 1B and Jerar Encarnacion at DH/OF. Send Jesus Sanchez, a young hitter I still like a lot, to the minors to let him readjust and get out of his own head/slump. Get Bryan De La Cruz more playing time. Put Elieser Hernandez in the bullpen.
Eventually, the time may come to trade Jorge Soler, if he shows more plate consistency and therefore his value increases. Given his four year contract, his current injury and his terrible start, Avisail Garcia is untradable and the team will have to hope he gets better. We may have to get a future OF or potential impact bat through trade of a starting pitcher (Pablo Lopez perhaps when his value is as high as it is now). The organizational depth in starting pitching is still a strength.
Not a pretty picture, but this start is the second worst in team history only behind 2013. The organization needs to show some level of awareness and urgency. My top choices at the beginning of the offseason were for the Marlins to have already signed Starling Marte to an extension and to have acquired Mark Canha. The Mets added them both, which gave them a mix of contact hitters and power hitters that would have worked to elevate the Marlins as well. Instead we add players like Soler and Garcia to an already one-dimensional offense that includes Cooper (who can hit but can do nothing else well) and Aguilar (ditto). The inability to get more significant high leverage bullpen help was also a problem that many of us criticized at the time.
We have at best a C-type organization (which might be generous) when we need an A-type organization. They need to get better and to show more urgency and creativity in the process.
View From Left Field 