Three Things To Hate About 2021 Miami Marlins Season
Despite some flashes of promise, there has been a lot to be frustrated about when it comes to the 2021 Miami Marlins.
As we said the other night, the 2021 season has not exactly gone the way the Miami Marlins drew it up when they started spring training.
There have been bright spots, sure: a case could be made that the Marlins sport the top two contenders for NL Rookie of the Year award. Nothing to sneeze at, right there. Throw in the performance of the rest of the top of the rotation, and there are signs the team just might know what they’re doing.
But it’s not all roses, as evidenced by that 20-23 record and NL-worst .297 OBP. There might be a lot to love….but there has also been plenty to hate.
Now, it should be said, some of Miami’s woes are on account of bad luck. Mostly injuries, and a little bit of awe-inspiring stupidity from a couple umpires. The point of this article is not to take the time to tell you how much I hate that Starling Marte broke a rib. Or how much I hate that MLB rules didn’t necessitate Michael Conforto being forced to do a lap of City Field while wearing the Cone of Shame for his shameless shenanigans on April 9th. Or how much I hate that that sweet, sweet City Connect merch wasn’t on sale yet when I was in Miami last month.
Just color me aggrieved on those counts, and leave it at that.
No, this is going to be about three hates that all have consequences short and long alike for the Miami Marlins franchise. Be it about 2021 production, or future franchise direction, these are hates that should concern every Marlins fan. Very likely, they all already have.
Starting with the fact that…
Miami Marlins Might Need A New Best Player
…coming into this season, the only question about Miami Marlins’ third baseman Brian Anderson was when the team would lock him up with a long-term deal.
Fast forward forty games, and it has become fair to wonder if he should be part of Miami’s long-term plans at all.
Currently, Anderson is sporting an anemic .216/.263/.342 slash line on the year. The fact that those numbers include a three game, 3 for 12 hot streak underscores just how terrible he has been. Needless to say, it feels a lot longer ago than February when I joined a big chunk of the Marlins Twitterverse in calling for a contract extension.
This has been a real blow, as Anderson had really started sporting a baby-Lowell vibe the past couple seasons. Third base was firmly checked off the to-do list for a franchise with plenty of question marks. The one saving grace has been that the defense has stayed stellar. Alex Gonzalez really only had two seasons where he wasn’t borderline useless offensively, but we swallowed that because he kept ending the year as a Gold Glove finalist. Anderson can certainly take a similar path.
The catch is that even during that 1999 All-Star season, no one ever really expected Gonzo to become a heart of the order type guy. The same can’t be said for Anderson. Regression from him at the plate necessitates someone picking up the slack elsewhere. That probably means paying for it in the offseason, which when you consider Miami’s many holes and limited resources, is unfortunate.
Still worth starting, yes. But is Anderson the player you rebuild a franchise around? It’s been a few years since that’s been in more doubt.
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….
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.
Next. Three Things To Love About 2021 Miami Marlins. dark
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.