If you’ve been following the transactions taking place this MLB offseason, you’re likely already aware that the Marlins new owner, Derek Jeter, has completely revamped his teams roster this offseason. Because of this, many Marlins fans have been very critical. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reported that in a town hall meeting in Miami with fans, Jeter was asked many questions from angry fans about this offseason. He hasn’t seemed to have made many friends in south Florida during his short tenure that only started at the end of last season.
Lets take a look at who the Marlins gave up in their 4 major deals, and who they received in return:
(Source: MLB.com)
Gave up:
OF Christian Yelich
OF Giancarlo Stanton
OF Marcell Ozuna
2B Dee Gordon
Received in return:
RHP Nick Neidert
RHP Robert Duggert
RHP Jorge Guzman
RHP Sandy Alcantara
RHP Zac Gallen
RHP Jordan Yamamoto
LHP Daniel Castano
2B Starlin Castro
2B Isan Diaz
SS Chris Torres
SS Jose Devers
OF Magneuris Sierra
OF Lewis Brinson
OF Monte Harrison
Of the 14 players that Miami received, only one is an established major leaguer, and that is the 4-time All-Star middle infielder Starlin Castro (who already has asked for a trade out of Miami according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic). Other than him, the notable acquisitions are MLB.com Top 100 Prospects Lewis Brinson (#27) and Monte Harrison (#71), both acquired from the Brewers in the Yelich trade. All in all, these four trades gave the Marlins their number 1,2,3,4,7,8,10,14,18,23, and 25 prospects within their organization as per MLB.com.
The 4 players that they gave up, however, combined for 116 Home Runs, 370 RBI, 430 Runs Scored, 79 Stolen Bases, and a combined 19.50 Wins Above Replacement as per Fangraphs. The 430 Runs Scored accounts for 55% of all the runs the Marlins scored in 2017, and the 116 HR accounts for 60% of their team home runs. These four players had a combined 8 All-Star appearances and 1 MVP trophy, and all were under the age of 30.
The negatives of these deals are obvious after reading the previous paragraph, the team gave up almost all of its star power and most of it’s 2017 production. The team, however, restocked it’s minor league system as they received 11 of their top 30 prospects in these deals. They also dropped their payroll from 117.6 million dollars in 2017 down to $82.7 million according to Spotrac. That amounts to 34.9 million dollars in shed payroll. And lets face it, the Marlins were not having success with the roster that they had. Their last playoff appearance was their 2003 World Series victory, and their last season with a winning record was in 2009, when they were still called the Florida Marlins. Something had to change, and Jeter pulled the trigger multiple times on dealing their fan favourites.
In my opinion, the moves were the right ones. Miami doesn’t have the payroll flexibility of a larger market team like, say, the NY Yankees or LA Dodgers. As a team without a ton of money to spend, adding more players to try to win in the short term is difficult when you already have almost 120 million dollars in payroll. Also, the Marlins added a multitude of young pitchers through these trades, which could eventually help a pitching staff that finished 26th in the Majors in ERA in 2017, despite playing their home games in a very pitcher-friendly ballpark according to ESPN MLB Park Factors. While these deals didn’t address the pitching issue in the short term, it provides some hope that some of these arms will be quality contributors to the big club in the long run. If enough of these players, both pitchers and hitters, pan out into quality big leaguers, we could be looking at these deals a few years down the road as an overall win for the Marlins.
In the short term, it will be rough. Fangraphs projects the Marlins to have the worst record in all of baseball in 2018 with a 64-98 record. But as I mentioned earlier in the article, it wasn’t like they were winning games in recent years, and this at least gives them hope that they could get better in the future.
BaseballNerd 