Miami Marlins: The Fish stayed afloat, but now it’s time to sink or swim

The Miami Marlins kept their season alive when Covid-19 took more than half their roster. With players now returning, time to sink or swim for Miami.

No team in MLB started their season as expected, but the Miami Marlins 2020 campaign takes the cake for craziness.

Widely projected to be one of the worst teams in baseball again, the Miami Marlins flashed promise during spring training 1.0, before shutting down with the rest of the league to await the fate of the 2020 season. Once the sixty game season was announced, the rebuilding club seemed to have a new lease on life, asking “why not us” even before the playoff field was expanded.

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After all, anything can happen in sixty games.

Unfortunately for the Miami Marlins, that included having more than half of your roster put on the shelf for weeks with Covid-19 just three games into the season. It meant having over a week of games canceled, throwing one more wrench into an offseason ramp up that has seen nothing but challenges for players looking to find their groove. Even many of the game’s elite have struggled this year. How could the lowly Marlins do anything but collapse- especially given the impossible challenge of essentially creating a new team on the fly?

Yet despite what should have been a crippling setback, the Marlins have basically been a .500 team ever since. Yes, the Baltimore Orioles woeful defense played a big part. Yes, there was a recent losing streak almost as epic as the winning streak that preceded it. Nevertheless, with a third of the 2020 MLB season in the books, the Miami Marlins are a playoff team.

Which means the time is now for the Miami Marlins to change the narrative of their franchise.

The Marlins last had a winning season in 2009. They last made the playoffs in 2003. They have been truly competitive in only one of past five seasons heading into this year. Thus far, the new ownership has done very little to distinguish itself from the previous regime. Having a chance, even in a crazily shortened year, to end all those streaks? The Marlins haven’t had a chance at this kind of overnight rebranding since 2012.

Now the Marlins are by no means unique in finding themselves in contention in a season where eight teams from each league will make the playoffs. But the Marlins are unique among current contenders in one critical regard. Every day for the next two weeks, barring illness or injury, they will become an immensely stronger team without having to make a single trade.

Two Opening Day starters have already returned to the lineup in Jorge Alfaro and Miguel Rojas. Those two are the first part of the avalanche of help on its way back from the Covid-19 list. Staff ace Sandy Alcantara could well be next. Top prospect Sixto Sanchez just won his major league debut. The Marlins have plenty of room to build from within. However, the Miami Marlins are rumored to be buyers heading into the MLB trade deadline anyway.

That last bit just goes to show the extent to which the front office gets the value of this opportunity. Which again, is really an amazing gift considering the setbacks encountered so far. Now it’s on the players to respond in kind. Because now, a winning season is starting to be something much less than a pipe dream. It’s starting to be the expectation.

The future is now for the Miami Marlins. Time to sink or swim guys.