Derek Jeter making March home run or bust for Miami Marlins

It’s already been a solid offseason, but continued rumors of Derek Jeter leaving over payroll have made this a boom or bust March for the Miami Marlins.

At the end of the day, the 2022 Miami Marlins are already a significant improvement on last year’s model.

Unfortunately for the Marlins front office though, that is not even close to the current narrative surrounding the organization. Partly that’s on account of the nearly 100-day MLB lockout that just came to a close. The rumor mill has been running nonstop for three months, and that’s an awful lot of expectations to have to meet. Granted, that’s a problem 29 other teams share. However, the biggest and uniquely Miami problem remains the departure of former CEO Derek Jeter, and all the noise he has made about the Miami Marlins payroll plans for this 2022 season.

At the time of his departure, rumors circulated about a dispute over an additional $10-15 million being used for payroll being the problem. Recently, a new story emerged where former Jeter teammate CC Sabathia recounted how upset the Hall of Famer was about the situation in general, and the lack of spending in Miami in particular. Sabathia’s story might be the newest, but it just the latest of many examples of Jeter’s version of events getting headlines.

All of this has led to the next couple of weeks essentially being an all-or-nothing proposition for the Miami Marlins franchise. Either they prove Derek Jeter wrong, or they prove they’re no different from Jeffrey Loria.

Ideally, at least in terms of putting this story to bed, they will do so by making it rain in free agency. I know that, for me personally, bringing Nick Castellanos to Miami after all of this might be the funniest thing I’ve seen in South Florida sports this century. Obviously, there are ways to improve without spending money. The team has been frequently linked to Bryan Reynolds, and there was some Cedric Mullins speculation before the lockout began as well. Miami has plenty of pitching depth, and it would make a ton of sense to use some of it to find an impact bat.

Sadly though, it always comes back to money when it comes to how this organization is perceived. There are times it seems as if they could trade Miguel Rojas for Bo Bichette straight up and still get excoriated for shedding salary. To be fair, there have been plenty of times it’s been deserved. This offseason though? When they’ve already extended their best pitcher (Sandy Alcantara) when he had multiple arbitration years left, and acquired potentially as many as three new starters for the Opening Day lineup?

In many ways, it feels pretty unreasonable to expect much more than perhaps an extra relief pitcher. On the other hand, I think the vast majority of Marlins fans would agree that such a lackluster March would really sting … to the point that not doing so would set off serious alarm bells about the team’s direction.

Some of that is the aforementioned months of speculation. Some of that is about the trauma of being a Miami Marlins fan. But a lot of it is about Derek Jeter, and the corner he’s backed the team into.