2021-2022 Offseason Thread

[lou]

Pablo isn’t a free agent after the year so the offer better be great. Basically the young CF’er we’ve been waiting for better be in the offer.

Sandy is predictably way better than Todd said, and probably the surest thing in baseball as a SP right now. But after Sandy and Pablo, there are no sure things.

I would definitely count on Eury just because he basically seems like the prospect version of Sandy in terms of size and probably being able to handle the workload, but we’re talking about a 19/20-year-old next year.

Even if you want to say Sandy & Eury are sure things, there’s nothing else you can surely count on for next year in the starting 5.

Theres potential yeah, but the Marlins actually need to start deciding (imo) which of these arms fit better into high leverage relief roles as opposed to starting. Imo, a high leverage reliever that can go 2-3 innings is more valuable than maybe giving 5 every 5 days.

Rogers is having trouble going deep into games, Cabrera has 2 pitches, Luzardo is no sure thing especially with the injuries, etc.

Not sure we should be counting on Eder next year either. He’s had his own injuries, seems unfair to rely on these kids like that if we’re serious about competing next year. I would put Meyer above Eder actually. And even though I think Meyer can be the real deal, there are question marks about him as a starter too. Our SP depth is a bit overblown.

If they trade Pablo for a position player, they would need to sign at least 1 veteran SP to replace him. Probably 2 if they’re serious about competing (all indications from this ownership is that they’re not to be fair).

I'd be completely fine going into next year (assuming health):

Sandy
Luzardo
Meyer
Rogers
Cabrera

With Eury, Sixto, Eder, and Fulton coming fast - don't sleep on Fulton. He is one of the bright spots in High A. Plus, Poteet and yes even Hernandez can probably throw quality innings. Eury is going to throw a lot of innings at the MLB level next year. I don't know who to trade, but they have arms after Pablo for sure.

Bruce should just you know, keep them all and spend on two bats though.

[Erick]

I'd be completely fine going into next year (assuming health):

Sandy
Luzardo
Meyer
Rogers
Cabrera

With Eury, Sixto, Eder, and Fulton coming fast - don't sleep on Fulton. He is one of the bright spots in High A. Plus, Poteet and yes even Hernandez can probably throw quality innings. Eury is going to throw a lot of innings at the MLB level next year. I don't know who to trade, but they have arms after Pablo for sure.

Bruce should just you know, keep them all and spend on two bats though.

That rotation has a lot of question marks.

It’s time to start talking about how much Trevor Rogers has regressed this year. Seems to be following a solid historical trend of Marlins left-handed pitchers who ended up not throwing strikes. He’s been one of the worst pitchers in baseball this year.

[Erick]

It’s also time to start talking about how every single one of Kim Ng’s moves have been a bust.

[lou]

It’s also time to start talking about how every single one of Kim Ng’s moves have been a bust.

Lol. Every single move? I am getting really exhausted with the doom and gloom of Marlins fans with these kinds of comments. It's why I've had to take a break from idiot town.

Sandy extension was her biggest move and clearly beyond right. They were right on the Luzardo trade, he looked like an ace and hopefully its not a TJ coming which isn't exactly their fault if it does. 2020 draft was epic with Meyer, Eder, Fulton, McCambley, and Nicolas. Wendle was smart. Keeping Berti and Bass were smart and I believe all of us would have said get rid of them to save the $4+m bucks. Sulser/Scott were good acquisitions (.5 WAR in under 50 combined innings is an excellent reliever rate). Floro so far as .9 WAR more than Vesia since the trade, so we can't really say even things like that are a bust. I could go on - maybe this Williams guy is pretty good for the bench? They said Eury was Fernandez/Beckett before the year, and looks like they were right? This is just a bit much to say "every single move." It's an emotional take from the team radically underperforming in 1 run games.

Clearly, Garcia and Stallings are lacking even if you can make arguments for the moves on paper, as well as what I consider the largest issue keeping Aguilar after you signed Soler and not using that $$$ for any sort of center fielder. It's mind bogglingly to me when you have Lewin in AAA who could immediately replace Aguilar well enough more than likely. That's an unforgivable non-move for me. Maybe they made the call to keep Hernandez in the rotation those few extra starts, but who knows? Whoever decided that messed up for sure. Maybe Don wanted him? Which brings it to Don - was that Bruce being cheap or Ng wanting him? I think it's the former and Bruce kicking the can on paying a new manager contract for a year. Bruce is cheap.

The main problem with this organization is Bruce not giving the front office a bottom 22 payroll ($100-110m) to work with. This is well over 50% of the problem if not 75%+ of the problem. Then, it's Don, and I still think that falls on Bruce not letting them get a new manager. I could be wrong there. Then, it's probably the players - we can't fault Ng for guys like Rogers and Bender turning into absolute zeros when they were 5+ WAR pace last year, as well as even if Garcia and Stallings don't work out, they shouldn't be this bad and it's on them for not adjusting on some level to even be 1 WAR players. Then we get to Ng for the non-CF move, overpaying for Garcia based on this production to impact longterm books, having deals like Stallings seemingly not work out, etc. However, that then goes back to Bruce and maybe she is forced into these 2nd tier and non-moves because the expected payrolls moving forward are BS? Cite, Jeter leaving these clowns as he probably saw the writing on the wall.

So Ng? Maybe she's bad, but it's nowhere near every single move. The root of this problem is Bruce and this team is going to continue to be a .500ish team until they up payroll. They have a better run differential than the Rays - the gold standard - what more can they do here? Teams are outspending them by $100m+. The only other way for them to claw out of this is Luzardo, Eury, Meyer, Cabrera, and Bleday go full Jazz sooner rather than later and that's the core w/ Sandy. Absent that, let's be objective. Results are mediocre at best, but we're not going to really know until they plant their flag to contending - this is at minimum the major CF acquisition and who are they going to get? We'll see.

[Erick]

Lol. Every single move? I am getting really exhausted with the doom and gloom of Marlins fans with these kinds of comments. It's why I've had to take a break from idiot town.

Sandy extension was her biggest move and clearly beyond right. They were right on the Luzardo trade, he looked like an ace and hopefully its not a TJ coming which isn't exactly their fault if it does. 2020 draft was epic with Meyer, Eder, Fulton, McCambley, and Nicolas. Wendle was smart. Keeping Berti and Bass were smart and I believe all of us would have said get rid of them to save the $4+m bucks. Sulser/Scott were good acquisitions (.5 WAR in under 50 combined innings is an excellent reliever rate). Floro so far as .9 WAR more than Vesia since the trade, so we can't really say even things like that are a bust. I could go on - maybe this Williams guy is pretty good for the bench? They said Eury was Fernandez/Beckett before the year, and looks like they were right? This is just a bit much to say "every single move." It's an emotional take from the team radically underperforming in 1 run games.

Clearly, Garcia and Stallings are lacking even if you can make arguments for the moves on paper, as well as what I consider the largest issue keeping Aguilar after you signed Soler and not using that $$$ for any sort of center fielder. It's mind bogglingly to me when you have Lewin in AAA who could immediately replace Aguilar well enough more than likely. That's an unforgivable non-move for me. Maybe they made the call to keep Hernandez in the rotation those few extra starts, but who knows? Whoever decided that messed up for sure. Maybe Don wanted him? Which brings it to Don - was that Bruce being cheap or Ng wanting him? I think it's the former and Bruce kicking the can on paying a new manager contract for a year. Bruce is cheap.

The main problem with this organization is Bruce not giving the front office a bottom 22 payroll ($100-110m) to work with. This is well over 50% of the problem if not 75%+ of the problem. Then, it's Don, and I still think that falls on Bruce not letting them get a new manager. I could be wrong there. Then, it's probably the players - we can't fault Ng for guys like Rogers and Bender turning into absolute zeros when they were 5+ WAR pace last year, as well as even if Garcia and Stallings don't work out, they shouldn't be this bad and it's on them for not adjusting on some level to even be 1 WAR players. Then we get to Ng for the non-CF move, overpaying for Garcia based on this production to impact longterm books, having deals like Stallings seemingly not work out, etc. However, that then goes back to Bruce and maybe she is forced into these 2nd tier and non-moves because the expected payrolls moving forward are BS? Cite, Jeter leaving these clowns as he probably saw the writing on the wall.

So Ng? Maybe she's bad, but it's nowhere near every single move. The root of this problem is Bruce and this team is going to continue to be a .500ish team until they up payroll. They have a better run differential than the Rays - the gold standard - what more can they do here? Teams are outspending them by $100m+. The only other way for them to claw out of this is Luzardo, Eury, Meyer, Cabrera, and Bleday go full Jazz sooner rather than later and that's the core w/ Sandy. Absent that, let's be objective. Results are mediocre at best, but we're not going to really know until they plant their flag to contending - this is at minimum the major CF acquisition and who are they going to get? We'll see.

The money she got to spend, she decided to spend it on Soler and Avisail Garcia who has arguably been the worst signing of the offseason.

Stallings has been atrocious.

Her “good moves” have had minimal impact, in part because of injuries.

I mentioned on the other board that Sandy’s extension is her best move. I forgot about that one since she wasn’t the one responsible for trading for Sandy, but that one was really good.

She seemed good with the bullpen before the year, but this bullpen kind of sucks. Floro’s regressed tremendously from last year, Bleier got a contract extension and looks like he doesn’t belong in the big leagues, Sulser has below average stuff (guess we got him for nothing so whatever). Scott looks like he can be interesting.

A lot of her “wins” have been irrelevant. Like Yimi for DLC is a win but DLC is a 4th OF’er with a .600 .OPS right now so who cares. That goes for at least 75% of her “good moves,” which is bad considering how bad Avisail and Stallings have been. Stallings hasn’t even been good defensively according to the metrics.

[Erick]

Basically, if we’re giving Ng credit for her “good moves,” I guess we owe Mike Hill an apology.

When you make so many moves, eventually some of them are going to be good. A lot of them are not.

You can’t pretend to be the Rays and then have your GM whiff on her biggest signing. It’s like giving Mike Hill a ton of credit for Sandy and Pablo Lopez (much more significant moves?) and then ignore the fact that Wei-Yin Chen and nearly every other free agent sucked.

[Erick]

Also, the run differential thing is not totally a fluke with this team anymore. This was the case for a good part of the year last year too.

All of the 1-run losses can be partially blamed on luck, as well as having an awful manager who she decided to keep. Mattingly makes awful decisions. 2 years in a row of an absurd amount of 1-run losses isn’t a complete fluke anymore.

[Erick]

Cabrera back on the IL again with an elbow injury.

I wonder if it has anything to do with our manager leaving him out there in Houston when his knee was clearly bothering him.

[lou]

The money she got to spend, she decided to spend it on Soler and Avisail Garcia who has arguably been the worst signing of the offseason.

Stallings has been atrocious.

Her “good moves” have had minimal impact, in part because of injuries.

I mentioned on the other board that Sandy’s extension is her best move. I forgot about that one since she wasn’t the one responsible for trading for Sandy, but that one was really good.

She seemed good with the bullpen before the year, but this bullpen kind of sucks. Floro’s regressed tremendously from last year, Bleier got a contract extension and looks like he doesn’t belong in the big leagues, Sulser has below average stuff (guess we got him for nothing so whatever). Scott looks like he can be interesting.

A lot of her “wins” have been irrelevant. Like Yimi for DLC is a win but DLC is a 4th OF’er with a .600 .OPS right now so who cares. That goes for at least 75% of her “good moves,” which is bad considering how bad Avisail and Stallings have been. Stallings hasn’t even been good defensively according to the metrics.

The point is - not "every single move" is bad, and frankly Soler is being Soler so he's not even a bad move even if there were better ideas. He'll have 2+ WAR season which is fine for him. I'm not sure what else they could have signed, we're probably talking Rizzo + a bullpen arm (Tepera?) versus Garcia and Soler, and I agree, that would have been better for this club even if it didn't solve CF still.

The bottom 3 moves for me are (1) no CF (Aguilar redundancy included here), (2) Garcia, and (3) Stallings. Everything else isn't that big of a deal or was good (like Sandy/Wendle/2020 Draft). And Stallings was good on paper FWIW. I don't know if "sympathy" is the right word, but I feel for them as Rogers, Floro, Bender, Bleier, and Sulser had 10 WAR(!) last year and it's effectively -0- a third through the year. No one here blames them for maintaining those 5 arms, but I think it's fair to say this can't all be on the front office completely failing when guys just unexpectedly suck beyond belief. No one could have predicted a -0- from those 5 guys. I'd expect something out of those dudes you know? They have to really own Garcia though if he doesn't right the ship.

This is just a bad team, look at today. What a disaster heart breaker.

We're heading to the same offseason again - the team is going to be pretty good and .500ish on paper for $70-80m over 23-24 players, and are they going to get two major bat upgrades via trade or FA? It's infuriating. I do think they can "Florida Panther" this quickly if they just devote to a major FA next offseason as well as trade from the prospect surplus for a major 2nd bat.

[sports24/7]

According to Peter Gammons, the Marlins are "pushing hard" for Ramon Laureano. That's great news, but hopefully they don't overpay too badly, or Ng doesn't get cold feet again.

[Erick]

The point is - not "every single move" is bad, and frankly Soler is being Soler so he's not even a bad move even if there were better ideas. He'll have 2+ WAR season which is fine for him. I'm not sure what else they could have signed, we're probably talking Rizzo + a bullpen arm (Tepera?) versus Garcia and Soler, and I agree, that would have been better for this club even if it didn't solve CF still.

The bottom 3 moves for me are (1) no CF (Aguilar redundancy included here), (2) Garcia, and (3) Stallings. Everything else isn't that big of a deal or was good (like Sandy/Wendle/2020 Draft). And Stallings was good on paper FWIW. I don't know if "sympathy" is the right word, but I feel for them as Rogers, Floro, Bender, Bleier, and Sulser had 10 WAR(!) last year and it's effectively -0- a third through the year. No one here blames them for maintaining those 5 arms, but I think it's fair to say this can't all be on the front office completely failing when guys just unexpectedly suck beyond belief. No one could have predicted a -0- from those 5 guys. I'd expect something out of those dudes you know? They have to really own Garcia though if he doesn't right the ship.

This is just a bad team, look at today. What a disaster heart breaker.

We're heading to the same offseason again - the team is going to be pretty good and .500ish on paper for $70-80m over 23-24 players, and are they going to get two major bat upgrades via trade or FA? It's infuriating. I do think they can "Florida Panther" this quickly if they just devote to a major FA next offseason as well as trade from the prospect surplus for a major 2nd bat.

Not sure why you’re defending Kim Ng while at the same time calling it a bad team. She put the team together?

Kim Ng did everything fine except for the 3 most important decisions of the offseason lol ok.

You’re really stuck on the “every single move” hyperbole. Would it be better if I used better words and simply said that she hasn’t done a good job so far?

[Nick]

Jury's still out on Ng. I would argue that Jeter's departure makes it seem like she is the one calling the shots now, when prior to Jeter leaving I think there was still that question.

Lou is correct, the larger problem is continuing to be a Bottom 5 team in Payroll. Avisail Garcia looks like a real bad signing, but if she's working with $45 million for the next 3-4 years instead of $25 million you're talking a completely different caliber of player she is able to court.

[lou]

Not sure why you’re defending Kim Ng while at the same time calling it a bad team. She put the team together?

Kim Ng did everything fine except for the 3 most important decisions of the offseason lol ok.

You’re really stuck on the “every single move” hyperbole. Would it be better if I used better words and simply said that she hasn’t done a good job so far?

The most important move was Sandy. And not close. They certainly botched no CF and Garcia to date. And yes - words have meanings. I'm fine if you want to say she sucks, I can agree to disagree. I think we don't know yet as it hasn't even been 2 seasons of moves. I can't say yes or no yet. 1 run games are flukey on some level and they should be much better than they are. They could just as easily make it up in August/September versus what's happened to date. We don't know. What I do know is, the team is incredibly set up in the farm/payroll moving forward (even if Garcia is a dud), so I think the definitive moment for her is going to be when they make the plant the flag moves. That hasn't happened yet. I think her "legacy" becomes cemented with the next two big ones - likely a FA worth more than Garcia as well as the major prospect trade which has to come eventually. Those will be the needle movers for me as to whether they have a good plan and vision. Or, if she sits on her hands for 2 off-seasons and doesn't have the motivation to make those big moves (or negotiating skills), that is also telling. Or as previously mentioned, maybe this is Bruce refusing to go above $80m and then no GM will ever be good as there is no possible way to really contend longterm with that payroll. Rays be damned, that's an exception.

We'll see what happens, but this is trending quickly to setting up for next year.

[lou]

According to Peter Gammons, the Marlins are "pushing hard" for Ramon Laureano. That's great news, but hopefully they don't overpay too badly, or Ng doesn't get cold feet again.

Yes, what's the package - could be good news.

I'd offer the eat every bad contract they have and give them nothing!

[lou]

Jury's still out on Ng. I would argue that Jeter's departure makes it seem like she is the one calling the shots now, when prior to Jeter leaving I think there was still that question.

Lou is correct, the larger problem is continuing to be a Bottom 5 team in Payroll. Avisail Garcia looks like a real bad signing, but if she's working with $45 million for the next 3-4 years instead of $25 million you're talking a completely different caliber of player she is able to court.

Thank you! But yea - I think this is mainly Bruce, but Kim certainly has missed a few shots even if she's made a few.

Give her $110m, and I think they may get close to an 88 win projection next year - assuming Luzardo is the new Luzardo, Eury is coming fast, Meyer/Cabrera/Sixto relatively healthy and there are 300 innings between the three of them, and we get the inevitable Garcia and Rogers rebounds into SOMETHING. ANYTHING.


I also want to note everyone who said Eury should be untouchable was right. I mentioned a lot just blow out whoever for Bryan Reynolds - but that was wrong. They had a third organizational untouchable after Sandy and Jazz, and that person was Eury Perez. What a rise.