The Miami Marlins Are Smart
But what if everything the Miami Marlins have done is actually part of a grand strategy? A calculated plan. What if…the Miami Marlins are actually being smart?
The Mets weren’t going to be outspent by anyone. The Braves just won a World Series, and were going to be coming into 2022 with a better team. Despite that, at least two teams in the NL West are better than the Braves, and possibly three. Even with an expanded playoff, it was always going to be a very narrow road to October.
Especially when you consider that the total number of players on the Miami Marlins roster they had any reasonable right to feel fully confident in going into the season was…one.
Obviously, that player was Sandy Alcantara, who proved himself so unquestionably elite that the Marlins extended him with two years of arbitration left on his original deal. Pablo Lopez looked legit in 2021, but did nothing to dispel the injury questions that have followed him his entire career. Jazz Chisholm Jr. flashed promise and had a great April last year, but then stumbled his way to the finish line. As for everyone else? Either similar questions, or were best described as a JAG- just a guy- in terms of their value.
That’s tenuous ground to launch a playoff run from if you’re working with limited assets.
Teams like the Miami Marlins can’t afford to whiff on big contracts, or really even on that many prospect centered trades. When the Dodgers or the Red Sox blow it, they can spend their way out of it. Smaller payroll teams could take years to recover from such a stumble. So it stands to reason that the Marlins might have wanted to know that Chisholm Jr. was a budding a superstar before pumping major money into the team. That the Marlins needed to be sure which of their treasure trove of pitchers they were keeping, and who they were comfortable dealing to fill other holes on the roster.
This line of thinking is only helped out by just how poorly this year’s free agent class really lined up with Miami’s needs outside of Marte. That should be a different story in 2023. Throw in that it will be another season removed from both Covid and lockout concerns, as well as after another year of the organization paying off some debt from the purchase of the team…and it all lines up for a better shot at realizing their on the field goals in 2023 than they ever had in 2022.