Miami Marlins slugger Jorge Soler is on a contract year tear, which is exactly how the Miami Marlins drew it up.
In April, the Miami Marlins just missed out on having one of their big acquisitions win NL Player of the Month when Luis Arraez finished second to Ronald Acuna.
Later this week, Jorge Soler just might get the job done for Miami, with 12 homers and 25 RBI to his name in a May that isn’t quite over yet. Soler is mashing home runs at a rate that his him tied for second place in all of MLB. All of which is to say he looks like a certainty to opt out of the last year of his deal this offseason in order to cash in on those lofty counting stats.
Now, plenty of Miami Marlins fans are a bit torn up about this. What will next year’s Marlins do without him? Why all the opt-outs? Why haven’t they extended him? How quickly can he be traded for the next Lewis Brinson?
Okay, that last one is a bit unfair. I’m not actually sure Kim Ng has made a bad trade since she took over as general manager, and Brinson is very much not on her ledger. Plus there might actually come a time when a trade is the prudent course of action. But probably not, as will be covered shortly. As for everyone else though, they are forgetting one crucial point:
This is almost exactly what the Miami Marlins were counting on when they signed him.
It can’t really be put any plainer. This whole deal, with multiple outs, was a prove it deal. The Marlins wanted him to do this very thing, to prove it. To be Aaron Judge for a few months without, you know, making nearly $400 million in the process. The Marlins would get their above average power production. Soler would go on to get paid handsomely by someone with deeper pockets, after Soler proved his 2021 postseason might just be replicable, and a return to something close to his 2019 form where he hit 48 home runs was possible.
The only quibble the Marlins might have with this situation is that Soler didn’t do this last season.
The shape of an MLB offseason is fairly predictable multiple years ahead. This past offseason had far more options than the next one is going to have in terms of offensive upgrades. How different does this past offseason look if Miami either had Soler’s salary to play with after he opted out, or had been able to secure a more favorable extension thanks to a more talent-rich market? If nothing else, the Marlins probably feel better about their outfield depth. If Soler was a healthy offensive force last season, does that parade of outfield prospects the club was forced to rely upon ever happen? Certainly not to the extent that it did. Next offseason though? If he keeps anything close to this pace up, Soler might be the second best thing going on offense after Shohei Ohtani signs.
Understandably maddening for some Marlins fans, but again, the plan was for Soler to do this one of these years. It was a good plan, one that the Marlins can afford, and should try to pull off again in future seasons. The Miami Herald’s Craig Mish has suggested as much during the course of Soler’s recent hot streak. Get someone to spend a year hanging out in Miami, prove their worth to the rest of the league, and then let some other team tie up an excessive amount of money.
The last several years of free agency have proven that the Marlins will need to overpay for the more desirable names on the market. Even then, most players decline. Either players don’t like the park, or they don’t trust the team, or they’d rather sign with more likely title contenders. The result of this has been either overpaying financially for mediocre talent, or overpaying in terms of prospects and MLB players on the trade front.
Contracts like the Soler deal are the closest the Miami Marlins might be able to get to Door No. 3, at least until Miami proves they can be a consistent winner.
The Marlins should just sit back and enjoy the ride with Soler, and see what the offseason has in store. Or at the very least, wait until July 31.