Spring Training Roster Cuts

[Miamarlin21]

Anyone read how long Bake is going to be out?

[emkayseven]

think JCR said till May

[Miamarlin21]

Word. Thank you.

So that means three things. Once he is "ready" they can 1, send him down to the minors. Two, have him replace Hayes, or 3, have him replace Dobbs as the lefty off the bench. I would have to think the second option is most likely.

[lou]

Maybe worst bench in baseball. Does anyone hit over .675?

We can include Murphy in that too. For as much effort they put into the bullpen, you'd think they'd actually try and get two bench guys for a team starting five really young guys. Veteran 4th OF and 2B/3B would have paid huge dividends compared to Cousins and Dobbs. Hopefully the front 7 don't need to many off days.

[emkayseven]

stats are for losers. you have to be able to pick winners, lou. wes helms is a winner.

[lou]

I can't believe I'm about to say this, But I literally think David Eckstein is better than anyone on the bench.

[Omar]

I'm not so sure he's going to be ready to catch right away

[Bobbob1313]

Maybe worst bench in baseball. Does anyone hit over .675?

Greg Dobbs is one year removed from a 4 year stretch of .779 OPS. Scott Cousins has a career .789 OPS in the minors. I'd say both of those guys are pretty solid bets.

Helms will probably get to around .675, given that he's all of .015 points off for his last 4 seasons.

Bonifacio won't, but he'll be an awesome base runner and will play 6 positions, so there's plenty of value there even if he only puts up a .650 like he did last year. And actually, he was only .025 off, so he could pretty easily get to .675.

And yeah, our backup catcher sucks for 2 months or so.

Is it a great bench? No, but I'd bet it's not the worst bench in all of baseball, and I definitely think at least two guys coming off the bench can manage a .675.

Maybe you want to set the bar a bit higher?
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I can't believe I'm about to say this, But I literally think David Eckstein is better than anyone on the bench.

David Eckstein holds all of a .006 advantage on Wes Helms over the last three years. .030 for the last 4 years. And Helms jumps in the lead when you include the year prior.

The lou I know doesn't say stuff just for the sake of saying it.

[Erick]

I think the bigger issue is that we have no 3B and 2/3 of our outfield might just be the worst, defensively, at their respective positions.

You would think that a team who went out and kept/acquired a grand total of eight (one more than needed) ML caliber relievers + minor league depth would be smart enough to trade one of those guys and maybe acquire something with the money being paid to the guy we traded (in other words, trade Nunez already).

Of course, this might be irrelevant now, and might've been a much better idea earlier in the offseason. Guess the Marlins front office couldn't see what a good 99% of the fanbase envisioned.

Then again, this similar team could've made the playoffs last year with better health and a better bullpen, so I guess that's their thinking.

[Fish and Chips]

Nunez isn't good trade bait. He's at best an average, easily replaceable closer. He also getting expensive for average production.

I highly doubt Nunez could of netted us something valuable.

[lou]

Greg Dobbs is one year removed from a 4 year stretch of .779 OPS. Scott Cousins has a career .789 OPS in the minors. I'd say both of those guys are pretty solid bets.

Helms will probably get to around .675, given that he's all of .015 points off for his last 4 seasons.

Bonifacio won't, but he'll be an awesome base runner and will play 6 positions, so there's plenty of value there even if he only puts up a .650 like he did last year. And actually, he was only .025 off, so he could pretty easily get to .675.

And yeah, our backup catcher sucks for 2 months or so.

Is it a great bench? No, but I'd bet it's not the worst bench in all of baseball, and I definitely think at least two guys coming off the bench can manage a .675.

Maybe you want to set the bar a bit higher?
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David Eckstein holds all of a .006 advantage on Wes Helms over the last three years. .030 for the last 4 years. And Helms jumps in the lead when you include the year prior.

The lou I know doesn't say stuff just for the sake of saying it.

You're really fudging those stats with dobbs. Yea he was great 07-08, but he is like at a .600 OPS around 350 PA 09-10. Maybe they get lucky and he returns to a .800+ rhp splits, but it's doubtful. He may have run his course, just like lamb. I like Dobbs on a minor league deal, I don't like Dobbs as plan A. It's like they didn't learn anything from last years enormous bench issue.

Cousins, I do like, but when you have two infielders playing in the outfield, and while their bats should be safe, are still very young. it would have been nice to get a veteran presence here to help them out. He could have been stashed in AAA another year, and really likely would have if Wise didn't get hurt. Speaking of wise, he's done nothing for awhile as well. Again, its really poor decision making to not allocate at least a few bucks to the bench when hops $750,000 is now in AAA. Also, cousins 1/13 bb/k inspires little confidence even in his small MLB split last year. His pop and defense might make him a good bench guy down the road, but right now? We have basically 4 rookies and Bonifacio in our outfield. I mean super high upside across the board, but its not like we havent had another can't miss guy in RF or CF not carry their weight.

Helms stinks. I don't have a problem with Bonifacio or the catchers, but they needed to bring in better options here. It's a big problem.

Of course, they can always get bats in June if the team looks good, but I expect massive pinch hit bitching rather immediately. Well see. This is a really poor group and hopefully the rest of the team bails them out by kicking ass.

[MiamiHomer]

Wise exercised his out clause so he gone.

[Beef]

Pinch hit bitching and relief pitcher bitching is the lifeblood of message boards during baseball games

[Namaste]

Pinch hit bitching and relief pitcher bitching is the lifeblood of message boards during baseball games

Yes, that is so true.

[lou]

Pinch hit bitching and relief pitcher bitching is the lifeblood of message boards during baseball games

Sure you can poke fun at it, but the marlins had 248 pinch hits last year, and presumably the greater majority of these were in late inning situations, and I don't think espn accounts for double switches so this is probably an even scarier number if we added more bench guys at bats, but it was a .577 ops. Thats a big problem that's easy to solve. And were just ignoring off days here where their overall stats get scarier. Were going into this season probably close to 1500 PA between 3B and the bench to guys that are all fringe MLB players and not making most other teams rosters.

Would it really have killed them to sign someone like hinske, Fred lewis, Rick ankiel, Marcus Thames, even Kotsay, who at least offers something? Or make a trade for a nominal stopgap? This guys don't cost a lot and are pretty significant upgrades. Would have helped a ton based on this team.

Really got to hope the rest of the team picks them up or Dobbs and Helms magically revert to three years ago, and Cousins immediately slugs and defends himself into respectability.