The Miami Marlins Front Office Doesn’t Seem To Care Much For 2021
As has been repeatedly mentioned, the Miami Marlins have had a lot of injuries so far in 2021.
Hold my beer, says seemingly the rest of MLB. Injuries, at least injuries to big name players, have been up across the board. Miami is far from alone there. The White Sox are dominating despite the loss of their two best position players. So too the Dodgers.
Where the Marlins do stand out though, at least among the pretenders and contenders, is how they have decided to deal with it.
Currently, the San Francisco Giants sit atop the NL West standings at 28-16. Seeing as how that’s the same division the Dodgers and Padres play in, that would be a trend that precisely no one expects to continue by season’s end. Maybe a few of their moms, but that’s about it. However, that didn’t stop the Giants from trading for Mike Tauchman when outfielder Mike Yastrzemski was looking at a brief IL stint.
The Marlins, in contrast, spent a week with four Opening Day regulars on the shelf with injuries. They will have spent two months without their best offensive player by time Marte is able to return. The WAR value from Miami starting catchers this season? Negative 1.3.
And none of that even speaks to the biggest crime: Miami’s egregious decision to spend the past six weeks using is basically a three-man starting pitching rotation. The trio of Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, and Trevor Rogers has been great. But between the caliber of pitcher Miami has run out there at the back of the rotation, and overall state of the offense, the Marlins have put them in the untenable situation of needing to pitch a shutout every time out. Winning three out of every five games would likely put the Marlins in the playoffs. Obviously then, you only need three good pitchers.
Of course, that’s not how it works. None of this is to say that Tauchman, or say Tanner Roark, are hidden gems capable of an MVP season. But do I think Tauchman will finish the year with a better slash line than Lewis Brinson or Magneuris Sierra? Do I think Roark, or say Anibal Sanchez, would do a better job than Jordan Holloway, and take some pressure off of a bullpen that is racking up the innings so far? Do I think Jonathan Lucroy might have been worth whatever minor league deal he just signed? Yes, yes, and yes.
Unfortunately, that’s not just this writer that thinks so. The division rival Braves ended up being the team to sign both Roark and Lucroy, both to deals that did admittedly cost more money than someone they were already obligated to pay, but also to deals that reflected about the minimum amount of compensation possible.
All of this a long way to say that despite noises being made in the offseason that the Miami Marlins wanted to build upon last year’s winning record and playoff run, that the team wanted to try to get back to the playoffs this year, it really does appear to have just been noise.
Which when looked at through a macro lens isn’t that bad for a team that has not finished it’s rebuild yet. But considering the history of this market, and the overnight ascendance of the team’s starting rotation to best in the division caliber, it’s starting to look criminal and cheap that the front office is this content to let mediocre to busted prospects fill key spots on the roster until their injured players return. If they just wanted to tread water this year, why even pick up Marte’s option? Just feels like they gave up.
Speaking of counting pennies….