On Saturday, the Miami Marlins added a much-needed source of offense to their lineup, agreeing to terms with outfielder Jorge Soler on a three-year contract worth $36 million. Soler, now entering his age-30 season, had a rough start to the 2021 season, hitting a woeful .192/.288/.370 for the Kansas City Royals. The Braves, meanwhile, basically had to replace their entire outfield halfway through the season, leading to the trade that sent Soler to Atlanta in return for relief prospect Kasey Kalich. Better times were ahead, as Soler hit .269/.358/.524 (132 wRC+) for the Braves down the stretch. Even better was his .948 OPS in the playoffs, including three World Series home runs, which led to a World Series MVP award.

Soler’s deal with the Marlins comes with an important concession in the form of opt-outs after each of the first two years of the contract. He’ll turn 33 during his next deal and ordinary corner outfielders entering their mid-30s don’t typically end up with highly lucrative contracts. Those opt-outs are especially useful for Soler, as he’s a player whose exact level of play is hard to gauge; he spent the first half of 2021 producing like he was barely a Triple-A hitter, but in ’19, he hit .265/.354/.569 (136 wRC+) and led the American League in homers with 48. If he were to repeat his 2019 performance in his first season in Miami and opt out, ZiPS would project a five-year, $110 million contract. That’s a pretty big jump compared to the two years and $24 million the Marlins would otherwise owe him, but as I said, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what Soler’s baseline expectation should be. The contract structure actually incentivizes him to opt-out to a degree; the last year of the contract is only worth $9 million. Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Wisely flies under the radar in a Tampa Bay Rays farm system where it’s easy to get overlooked. A 15th-round pick in 2019 out of Gulf Coast State College, the 22-year-old infielder is coming off a first full professional season where he augmented a .301/.376/.503 slash line with 19 home runs and 31 stolen bases between Low-A Charleston and High-A Bowling Green. Despite those eye-opening numbers, Wisely is unranked — albeit within a deep, talent-laden minor-league system — by Baseball America (our own list is forthcoming).

His low-profile status dates back to the day he was drafted. A two-way player at Jacksonville’s Sandalwood High School, and again in junior college, Wisely wasn’t even sure that his phone would ring.

“I didn’t think I was going to go at all, really,” Wisely admitted late last season. “I was playing summer ball and planning to go to USF the following year. But then the call came, and I got all excited. It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”

It’s not as though the opportunity came out of the blue. Wisely had been in contact with Tampa Bay’s area scout, and he’d filled out pre-draft questionnaires for “four or five teams,” the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox included. The interest shown by the Rays differed from the others.

“They were the only one for hitting,” Wisely explained. “Everything else was for pitching. The other teams preferred my arm over my bat.” Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Miami Marlins.

Batters

We’ll get the bad news out of the way first because, well, that’s the order we do these blurbs in. There’s a lot to like about the Miami Marlins, but most of those things are on the pitching side. The offensive holes aren’t so deep as to prevent baseballs or electromagnetic radiation from escaping. But the offense is thoroughly uninspiring wherever you look. The lineup is neither good nor particularly young, and as such, it will likely struggle to push the Marlins to be much better than the National League’s 14th-ranked offense in runs scored, Miami’s 2021 mark. Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Intern, Professional Scouting

Report to: Manager, Professional Scouting
Location: Jupiter, Florida
Job Classification: Hourly/Non-Exempt

Position Summary: Support the Professional Scouting Department, Baseball Operations, and Professional Scouts by working closely with the Professional Scouting Manager in creating & maintaining department systems & processes throughout the season. Responsibilities include but are not limited to those outlined below. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays and Marlins love making trades. They’ve now combined for four trades this year, though this one is the most consequential. The terms are simple: Miami gets Joey Wendle and Tampa Bay gets Kameron Misner. That’s it!

Normally at FanGraphs, we try to tell you why the trade might make sense for both sides, and which way we would lean if we had to choose a winner. If we’re feeling feisty, we might throw in a joke or two, perhaps a Dick Monfort burn if Dan Szymborski is in the driver’s seat. Today, though, the two of us had wildly different views of who won this trade. So without further ado, here are Brendan’s (Marlins) and Ben’s (Rays) thoughts on which side got the best of the other in this very Floridian trade.

Brendan’s Take

Ben probably isn’t the first analyst to pan a deal where Miami sought to improve the big league club, but I can’t find much recent precedent. That the Fighting Jeters beefed up at all seems sufficient cause for celebration. MLB is at its best when teams put their top product on the field, and the Marlins often fail to clear that low threshold. But between the Avisaíl García signing, the Sandy Alcantara extension, the Jacob Stallings trade, and now the Wendle deal, the Marlins have the swagger of… well, not a contender exactly, but at least an upright major league team. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have one of the most intriguing starting rotations in baseball. They just signed Sandy Alcantara to a five-year extension after his phenomenal 2021 season. Trevor Rogers just finished second behind Jonathan India in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. Behind those two, Pablo López, Jesús Luzardo, Sixto Sánchez, Elieser Hernandez, Edward Cabrera, and Max Meyer provide tons more talent to dream on. The only thing missing was a catcher to help guide and maximize those young arms.

Ever since J.T. Realmuto was traded away after the 2018 season, the Marlins had been rather aimless behind the plate. In the three seasons since, their catchers have accumulated just 1.3 WAR, the sixth worst mark in baseball over that stretch. In 2021, Jorge Alfaro, Sandy León, and a few other backup catchers combined for -0.1 WAR. Things got so bad with Alfaro that they tried playing him at first base and in the outfield after Miami acquired Alex Jackson at the trade deadline.

On Monday, though, the Marlins got their man: Miami acquired catcher Jacob Stallings from the Pirates in exchange for right-handed pitcher Zach Thompson and two prospects, Kyle Nicolas and Connor Scott. (Alfaro was traded to the Padres a day later for a player to be named later or cash considerations.) Read the rest of this entry »

Under General Manager Kim Ng, the Miami Marlins have said a lot of positive things about investing in their roster in order to be a factor in what is becoming a highly competitive National League East. Over the past few days, they’ve begun to put their money where their collective mouth is.

On Tuesday, the club formally announced a five-year, $56 million extension for right-handed starter Sandy Alcantara; the deal, which was initially reported last week, includes a $21 million option for a sixth year, buying out his three arbitration years and as many as three years of free agency. It’s easy to forget that when the Marlins acquired Alcantara from the Cardinals as part of a four-player package received in return for outfielder Marcell Ozuna, he was not seen as the best prospect in the trade (for that matter, neither was right-hander Zac Gallen, who was also acquired in the deal). Instead, the real prize was speedy outfielder Magneuris Sierra. Sierra hasn’t worked out, but the deal has still been very fruitful for Miami.

At the time of the trade, Alcantara was seen by many as a likely future reliever due to his plus-plus arm strength, sloppy command and a shallow arsenal. To the credit of the Marlins pitching group, and more importantly, Alcantara himself, he has turned into a strike thrower, maintained his velocity, and developed a much more effective complement of off-speed pitches. That combination has turned him into one of the better (and more durable) young starters in the game, one who also has several underlying indicators that portend future improvements. Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Intern, Baseball Analytics

Department: Baseball Operations
Reports To: Director of Analytics
Location: Miami, Florida
Job Classification: Hourly/Non-Exempt

Position Summary:
The Intern will assist Baseball Operations decision-making through the analysis and facilitation of baseball information. he specific day-to-day responsibilities of this position will vary depending on the baseball calendar, but will revolve around analyzing and troubleshooting baseball data. A competitive candidate will be an excellent communicator and possess an established foundation of analytical skills. The position will report to the Director of Analytics. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’re a diehard fan, you’d be hard pressed to name a single member of the Marlins bullpen. Given that they traded away a bunch of their relievers in July and still look like they’re a few years away from building a true contender, that’s not surprising. Building a lockdown relief corps isn’t the top priority based on where they are in their rebuild. But GM Kim Ng mentioned during last week’s General Manager Meetings that adding depth to the bullpen was part of the offseason to-do list — a bit of surprise given the context above. They started to address that depth right away, too, acquiring right-handed pitcher Louis Head on Sunday from the Rays for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

Miami’s relief corps was pretty solid in 2021, with the third best park- and league-adjusted FIP in the National League, 8% better than league average. But Marlins relievers weren’t exactly flamethrowers; collectively, they posted a 22.0% strikeout rate, the fourth-worst mark in baseball. Instead, the team employed a bunch of pitchers who ran above-average ground-ball rates, helping them successfully manage the contact they did allow. As a group, they had the fifth-highest ground-ball rate and second-lowest barrel rate in baseball.

Bass was signed to a two-year deal last offseason, making him the highest paid member of this group. A surprising number of minor league free agents ended up making a solid contribution in the majors, and the rest were acquired via the same kind of under-the-radar trade that brought Head into the fold. Despite all their success this year, the average age of these relievers is 30.3 years old. It’s a competent collection of relievers assembled from the castoffs of other organizations, and Head fits in perfectly.
Read the rest of this entry »