Mixed Bag At Closer For Miami Marlins
This third and final Miami Marlins hate for 2021 was hard to come up with. I mean, despite saying it wasn’t worth complaining about at the top of the article, the injuries have been really bad. Fully healthy, this might be a first place team right now. Definitely a winning one.
But it is worth taking a moment to lament whatever it was the organization was thinking when it came to the closer position this offseason.
On the one hand, Miami should have been willing to spend at least $3 million on a closer this season. Ideally, that would have resulted in bringing aboard Mark Melancon. At the very least, it would have resulted in bringing back Brandon Kintzler, who closed for the team last year. Kintzler would have cost the Marlins $4 million to bring back on his original option that Miami bought him out of. If that $ 4 million had just been offered to Melancon instead, Miami might have a winning record right now.
On the other, Yimi Garcia has been pretty great since taking over the closer job. More importantly, Kintzler has been pretty not great since joining the Phillies. So the not paying Kintzler $4 million part of Miami’s offseason looks like the right call thus far.
Except that they were willing to pay him $2 million. Clearly then, the team’s evaluation didn’t determine that he was done. Just expensive. Worse, the team’s evaluation wasn’t even good enough to determine that Garcia was actually their best late inning option.
Instead, they did spend $3 million on Anthony Bass, who has been great…just so long as you don’t ask him to close. Or pitch in too high leverage of a situation.
Signing him as part of the complete offseason overhaul of the bullpen is one thing. But signing him as the bullpen acquisition, to be the top option with the game on the line, that was clearly a mistake. And it was a mistake that suggests some issues with their player evaluation, on and off the roster.
Admittedly, some of the other bullpen signings have seen positive returns, so this could seem a bit unfair. However, when it came to the most important position in the bullpen, they whiffed…costing the team at least two wins.
Hopefully, as players return to form and to health, all of these hates can fall by the wayside. Until then, fans will just have to sit and fret…waiting for the front office to fix some holes in an otherwise promising young team.