Best Miami Marlins Third-Rounder #3: Randy Winn
Just because he never played a game in a Miami Marlins uniform doesn’t mean he wasn’t good.
And Randy Winn was very good. His career 27.5 WAR might not sound like much, but it’s more than Marlins legends Jeff Conine, Cliff Floyd, and Mike Lowell produced in their careers. Just one of those consistently solid, reliable players MLB teams were thrilled to have.
Which makes it sting all the more that Miami let him go so easily.
To be fair, the Marlins had a lot going on in November of 1997. Celebrating a World Series championship. Detonating a roster in a massive fire sale, dumping prime veterans for fresh-faced prospects. Still, it has to go down as a big miss when Miami left Winn unprotected in the 1997 expansion draft. Winn was selected by the newly founded Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and would go on to hit .278 in 109 games that very next season. Seems like a useful player to me.
Of course, it’s not as if Miami had any plans on being competitive those next few years. No, where missing on Winn really stings is that stretch from 2002 to 2008 where he had one season batting worse than .286. Obviously things worked out just fine for the Marlins in 2003, but there are multiple seasons in that stretch where Miami could have really used some extra help in the outfield. Just not meant to be.
Winn was Miami’s third round pick in the 1995 MLB draft. He was the sixth player in that round, but the first player taken in that round to ever appear in the majors. Curiously enough, the player drafted right after him by the Texas Rangers would spend more time in Miami than he did: Ryan Dempster.
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