2021-2022 Offseason Thread

[Todd]

LeBlanc has a BABIP of close to 400 and has K'd 30% of the time.

[Nick]

Will Banfield figured something out at AA? .745 OPS in 105 ABs. We've been saying for years if he could just become competent with the bat he's a major leaguer.

[lou]

Will Banfield figured something out at AA? .745 OPS in 105 ABs. We've been saying for years if he could just become competent with the bat he's a major leaguer.

I'm loving these fun splits you're posting as of late. It seems the Marlins develop a lot of late bloomers at catcher - Nola, Barnes, Realmuto took him until age 23-25 (depending on when you want to give him credit), Fortes is 25 this year. Maybe he is next.

Banfield is 22 and I imagine he is not a Rule V threat so they can keep him off. Wonder if he goes to AFL?

The 2022 A+ BABIP (.236) and radically decreased K rate (32% in 2021.... 23% in A+ and 18% in AA this year) is definitely interesting. We can hope. That would be something if they internally create a Fortes/Stallings-Henry/Banfield-Mack/Hernandez catcher pipeline for pretty cheap.

[Namaste]

Soler to 60 day DL

The combined WAR of our 2 big off season splashes (Soler and Garcia) is exactly 0.0

[fish16]

they say he's fine but that looked like a clear oblique injury last night for cabrera. Wouldn't be surprised if they hold him out the rest of the year as a precaution. Sucks for him to get injured but if hes gonna get injured a minor oblique injury instead of an arm injury is at least a positive. Get him healthy for spring and figure out whatever visa issues he keeps having that make him get to spring training late every year. If that's it for him he had a great year and still managed to get to 103 innings. If he stays healthy i dont think 140 innings is out of the question.


His major league performance was as good as advertised. 65 innings, 2.91 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 67/33 K/BB ratio. Too many walks but that walk rate should improve as he improves. Great year for him.

Luzardo similarly is up to 91 combined innings and should be able to get around 103 too by the end of the year. Sets them both up nicely to get to 130-140 next year, Sandy can be counted on for 200+ easily if he's healthy,

Terrible year for Rogers but solid return to the bigs after he got sent down/"Injured" so some positives going into next year. Trade pablo, sign a 1 year innings eating quality stop gap back end of the rotation guy, mix in prospects like Eury and Eder next year mid year, and then you still have garrett who was great this year in 110 combined innings.

They have more than enough to deal pablo and survive next year with a quality rotation and then thrive the following year with Eury hopefully fully established and ready to let loose. Please deal pablo already.

[Nick]

they say he's fine but that looked like a clear oblique injury last night for cabrera. Wouldn't be surprised if they hold him out the rest of the year as a precaution. Sucks for him to get injured but if hes gonna get injured a minor oblique injury instead of an arm injury is at least a positive. Get him healthy for spring and figure out whatever visa issues he keeps having that make him get to spring training late every year. If that's it for him he had a great year and still managed to get to 103 innings. If he stays healthy i dont think 140 innings is out of the question.


His major league performance was as good as advertised. 65 innings, 2.91 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 67/33 K/BB ratio. Too many walks but that walk rate should improve as he improves. Great year for him.

Luzardo similarly is up to 91 combined innings and should be able to get around 103 too by the end of the year. Sets them both up nicely to get to 130-140 next year, Sandy can be counted on for 200+ easily if he's healthy,

Terrible year for Rogers but solid return to the bigs after he got sent down/"Injured" so some positives going into next year. Trade pablo, sign a 1 year innings eating quality stop gap back end of the rotation guy, mix in prospects like Eury and Eder next year mid year, and then you still have garrett who was great this year in 110 combined innings.

They have more than enough to deal pablo and survive next year with a quality rotation and then thrive the following year with Eury hopefully fully established and ready to let loose. Please deal pablo already.

It has to happen. I think the veteran FA signing is key, spend some actual money, not some minor league contract wing and a prayer guy in his late 30s.

Next year even without Pablo you've got:

Sandy
Luzardo
Cabrera
Rogers
Garrett
Castano
Neidert
Eury
Eder
Dax Fulton

Add a FA starter, you're 11 deep, it should be enough, I know it wouldn't have been this year, but if we have 2 straight years with the amount of injuries to our starters then that's a problem that needs to be addressed beyond a pitching personnel issue.

[lou]

It has to happen. I think the veteran FA signing is key, spend some actual money, not some minor league contract wing and a prayer guy in his late 30s.

Next year even without Pablo you've got:

Sandy
Luzardo
Cabrera
Rogers
Garrett
Castano
Neidert
Eury
Eder
Dax Fulton

Add a FA starter, you're 11 deep, it should be enough, I know it wouldn't have been this year, but if we have 2 straight years with the amount of injuries to our starters then that's a problem that needs to be addressed beyond a pitching personnel issue.

It doesn't have to happen. This is not an absolute. They need good innings.


Sandy < -- 210 IP
Luzardo < -- 140 IP
Cabrera < -- 140 IP
Rogers < -- 150+ IP
Garrett < -- 140 IP
Castano < -- OOO and likely gone, plus isn't good
Neidert < -- Bullpen longman/replacement. Inventory arm
Eury < -- He's thrown 77 innings this year. If the Marlins are lucky, they get 50 MLB level
Eder < -- He's thrown none. It's hard to say what happens here. I think he should be viewed as a bonus for next year.
Dax Fulton < -- He's 20 and amazingly got to AA, but likely needs 1-2 seasons. He has deception not overpowering stuff so this is a difficult projection for any significant IP next year.

To note, no contending team is counting on a Castano, Neidert, Eder, or Fulton entering the year, and Eury is still optimistic.

Take it further

Bleier/Scott/Okert/Nardi/Simpson < - 200 IP from the top 5 lefty relievers

Assuming no one gets hurt, there are 400+ innings left to go. 5 roster spots left.

Four of these minimum are reliever spots. Let's just assume they keep Floro, and they give two spots to a revolving door of guys (Nance, Neidert, Sixto!, Soriano, other Yacabonis/Armstrong type signings, they'll probably trade Rojas/Cooper, and hope someone sticks). Optimistically, this is 200 IP from this group with Floro and the back of the bullpen.

This is basically 11 roster spots (+ Eury as an injury replacement) and needing a legitimate RHP bullpen arm and SP as they absolutely cannot go into the season with just these 5 with all of their injury problems.

So keep Pablo and get a reliever.

Or trade Pablo and get a SP and a reliever.

This is roughly 200 innings, and now you've hit a full season with minor injuries and Eury/depth relievers being the call ups.


Then what happens when someone gets really hurt? Because 4/5ths the rotation has. And Sandy will be coming off a huge year this year and WBC presumably. They depth behind this is "extremely low" due to Meyer, Bender, and Poteet getting hurt, and Sixto/Eder/Eury being complete unknowns. You have to really jump into the Sixto/Eder/Eury pool, as well as trust them to uncover 1-2 more Anderson/Thompson/Bender/Pops to get through the season. I don't think you take that bet.

You have zero margin of error here and nowhere close to "should be enough." Yes the bats need improvements so some "risks" will have to be taken somewhere, but I will keep saying trading Pablo does not "have" to happen. Maybe it makes sense if they get a good return, but this team should really be shooting for having 1650 playable innings next year and assume 200 are getting hurt very quickly. This is where Meyer/Bender/Poteet *really* hurt. Yes, you could trade for some arms in June/July and make this up so maybe they don't need to be as aggressive as I'd like them to be, but they need something else on top of all of this. It's just a bit harder than just trading Pablo and swapping in other SP.


Frankly, they should do this.

-Keep Pablo or sign a # 4 RHP starter

-6th SP/Bulk Reliever (100 inning type). A very legitimate veteran type here. Maybe a fringe starter who plays up in bullpen in bursts. But, if you keep Pablo (i.e. better innings), maybe this can be a lower guy. <--- This is the missing piece from Marlins fans over simplifying yea lets just trade Pablo. This is a huge need for these 100 innings. I do note, Elisier Hernandez could be the organizations answer to this question for better or worse. He'd a wild card theoretically.

-Excellent RHP reliever, likely the closer. I'll say again, Edwin Diaz would be the Jayson Werth signing for sure and can fit him into $90m for sure.

-Trade Rojas/Cooper ---> MiLB optionable inventory arms to compete with Nance/Neidert/Sixto/Soriano



Just showing the math here as it's important. Big picture, they need 300+ outside the organization innings right now, and only Pablo can be used to chunk into that from internal guys unless you really like Hernandez or Sixto pretty much. I count them as -0-.

I still think they can turn Salas/gang into a bat, sign a second (this is the Bruce question, how much is this player?), and then keep Cooper/take a risk on another FA bat better than him and that accomplishes the same goal as trading Pablo, but we'll see what they do.

[Nick]

It doesn't have to happen. This is not an absolute. They need good innings.


Sandy < -- 210 IP
Luzardo < -- 140 IP
Cabrera < -- 140 IP
Rogers < -- 150+ IP
Garrett < -- 140 IP
Castano < -- OOO and likely gone, plus isn't good
Neidert < -- Bullpen longman/replacement. Inventory arm
Eury < -- He's thrown 77 innings this year. If the Marlins are lucky, they get 50 MLB level
Eder < -- He's thrown none. It's hard to say what happens here. I think he should be viewed as a bonus for next year.
Dax Fulton < -- He's 20 and amazingly got to AA, but likely needs 1-2 seasons. He has deception not overpowering stuff so this is a difficult projection for any significant IP next year.

To note, no contending team is counting on a Castano, Neidert, Eder, or Fulton entering the year, and Eury is still optimistic.

Take it further

Bleier/Scott/Okert/Nardi/Simpson < - 200 IP from the top 5 lefty relievers

Assuming no one gets hurt, there are 400+ innings left to go. 5 roster spots left.

Four of these minimum are reliever spots. Let's just assume they keep Floro, and they give two spots to a revolving door of guys (Nance, Neidert, Sixto!, Soriano, other Yacabonis/Armstrong type signings, they'll probably trade Rojas/Cooper, and hope someone sticks). Optimistically, this is 200 IP from this group with Floro and the back of the bullpen.

This is basically 11 roster spots (+ Eury as an injury replacement) and needing a legitimate RHP bullpen arm and SP as they absolutely cannot go into the season with just these 5 with all of their injury problems.

So keep Pablo and get a reliever.

Or trade Pablo and get a SP and a reliever.

This is roughly 200 innings, and now you've hit a full season with minor injuries and Eury/depth relievers being the call ups.


Then what happens when someone gets really hurt? Because 4/5ths the rotation has. And Sandy will be coming off a huge year this year and WBC presumably. They depth behind this is "extremely low" due to Meyer, Bender, and Poteet getting hurt, and Sixto/Eder/Eury being complete unknowns. You have to really jump into the Sixto/Eder/Eury pool, as well as trust them to uncover 1-2 more Anderson/Thompson/Bender/Pops to get through the season. I don't think you take that bet.

You have zero margin of error here and nowhere close to "should be enough." Yes the bats need improvements so some "risks" will have to be taken somewhere, but I will keep saying trading Pablo does not "have" to happen. Maybe it makes sense if they get a good return, but this team should really be shooting for having 1650 playable innings next year and assume 200 are getting hurt very quickly. This is where Meyer/Bender/Poteet *really* hurt. Yes, you could trade for some arms in June/July and make this up so maybe they don't need to be as aggressive as I'd like them to be, but they need something else on top of all of this. It's just a bit harder than just trading Pablo and swapping in other SP.


Frankly, they should do this.

-Keep Pablo or sign a # 4 RHP starter

-6th SP/Bulk Reliever (100 inning type). A very legitimate veteran type here. Maybe a fringe starter who plays up in bullpen in bursts. But, if you keep Pablo (i.e. better innings), maybe this can be a lower guy. <--- This is the missing piece from Marlins fans over simplifying yea lets just trade Pablo. This is a huge need for these 100 innings. I do note, Elisier Hernandez could be the organizations answer to this question for better or worse. He'd a wild card theoretically.

-Excellent RHP reliever, likely the closer. I'll say again, Edwin Diaz would be the Jayson Werth signing for sure and can fit him into $90m for sure.

-Trade Rojas/Cooper ---> MiLB optionable inventory arms to compete with Nance/Neidert/Sixto/Soriano



Just showing the math here as it's important. Big picture, they need 300+ outside the organization innings right now, and only Pablo can be used to chunk into that from internal guys unless you really like Hernandez or Sixto pretty much. I count them as -0-.

I still think they can turn Salas/gang into a bat, sign a second (this is the Bruce question, how much is this player?), and then keep Cooper/take a risk on another FA bat better than him and that accomplishes the same goal as trading Pablo, but we'll see what they do.

I don't know if I would call it counting on Neidert/Castano, I think most teams would feel good about Castano/Neidert as your 7th-8th option at starter, especially if you have top prospects in Perez and Eder who could pass them very quickly. 40-50 innings of Neidert/Castano is not going to make or break the season.

This is going back aways, but in 2003 Tommy Phelps pitched 63 innings as spot starter, you gotta have those guys in a pinch.

[Nick]

And I say it has to happen because I know we're not going to spend money, or at least enough money to turn this offense around on it's own.

To me, I'm comfortable with Jazz at 2nd (he needs to play more than half a year, though obviously) and shockingly I think we're ok at catcher with Stallings and Fortes going into 2022, but other than that, it's a shit show.

You gotta pencil in Garcia and Soler because we're stupid and paid them too much money. Soler and Cooper shouldn't be on the same team. So you probably have to deal Cooper. None of the prospects we've called up seem ready to pencil into a starting spot. (maybe Groshans continues to tear it up the next two weeks and you have to think about it, but too early to say)

So you're left with:

C: Fortes/Stallings
1B: ???
2B: Jazz
SS/3B: (Berti,Wendle, Rojas, honestly all are excellent bench players, and bad starters, I think all three come back and mix and match at at least one position)
LF: Anderson (I guess, he's the definition of mediocrity, a good organization would've moved on but what do we have to replace him?)
CF: ?????
RF: Garcia (by default)
DH: Soler (by default)

To me you gotta bring in 3 bats and not only do they need to be brought in, they need to be 3 of your 4 best players next years, if we want to even think about competing for a playoff spot. That's a tough task.

[lou]

And I say it has to happen because I know we're not going to spend money, or at least enough money to turn this offense around on it's own.

To me, I'm comfortable with Jazz at 2nd (he needs to play more than half a year, though obviously) and shockingly I think we're ok at catcher with Stallings and Fortes going into 2022, but other than that, it's a shit show.

You gotta pencil in Garcia and Soler because we're stupid and paid them too much money. Soler and Cooper shouldn't be on the same team. So you probably have to deal Cooper. None of the prospects we've called up seem ready to pencil into a starting spot. (maybe Groshans continues to tear it up the next two weeks and you have to think about it, but too early to say)

So you're left with:

C: Fortes/Stallings
1B: ???
2B: Jazz
SS/3B: (Berti,Wendle, Rojas, honestly all are excellent bench players, and bad starters, I think all three come back and mix and match at at least one position)
LF: Anderson (I guess, he's the definition of mediocrity, a good organization would've moved on but what do we have to replace him?)
CF: ?????
RF: Garcia (by default)
DH: Soler (by default)

To me you gotta bring in 3 bats and not only do they need to be brought in, they need to be 3 of your 4 best players next years, if we want to even think about competing for a playoff spot. That's a tough task.

Yes it's 3 bats. I agree. I'd stack like this

Fortes, Stallings
_____
Jazz, Berti
____, Wendle/Rojas (other traded)
Anderson, Groshans/Williams/LeBlanc battle
Bleday/Burdick/Sanchez battle
_____
Garcia
Soler

AAA - Henry, Johnston, other two of Groshans/Williams/LeBlanc, other two of Bleday/Burdick/Sanchez, Jerar, maybe DLC sneaks on 40 man.

This works for me as Berti/Anderson can both kick out into the OF if LF/Garcia still suck, and Wendle/Groshans/maybe even LeBlanc optimistically can handle infield time. Likewise, I think Anderson can play some 1B here if that's the weak spot and Wendle/Berti can hold their own at 3B. Basically a very, very, versatile infield gives them backup flexibility to not have a black hole.

But you lose me on they have to be 3 of 4 best players. I mean that would be great, but even trading for prospects that's not going to happen overnight. 1 dude needs to be a potential Jazz level player (or your # 2 hitter), but two solid 2+ WAR starters (call it A. Rosario type) after that is more than fine here. They win/lose in the rotation. No matter what they do it'll be an average at best offense (absent Nimmo/Correa/Rizzo all being signed lol), so they need to keep winning pitching and get a 20+ war pitching staff. It's pretty close to that right now, and definitely over if they go all in for an elite reliever. Keep everything close and hopefully all these 3-2 loses become 3-2 and 4-3 wins with a better bullpen and incremental offensive gains, etc.

The sky isn't falling, but they need to be a little clever, and extremely clever if no Pablo. I'll keep saying it, Meyer, Bender, and Poteet is a huge minimum 250+ IP kick in the gut. That changes the whole trajectory for next year big time.

[Nick]

3 of your 4 best hitters, just to clarify.

[Nick]

Sign Rizzo, Sign Nimmo, Trade Pablo for Josh Jung. Sign innings eating starter. That's an example of what it would take in my mind. Which is more than what I was asking for last offseason, and last offseason was a disaster.

[lou]

Sign Rizzo, Sign Nimmo, Trade Pablo for Josh Jung. Sign innings eating starter. That's an example of what it would take in my mind. Which is more than what I was asking for last offseason, and last offseason was a disaster.

Jung costs Eury. Totally different value sphere there. But you'd have to consider that.


If "reasonable" money is not an object ($110m), I'd try and do something like:

Edwin Diaz (defer/backload some). This is Jayson Werth signing.
Anthony Rizzo (2 years)
Mike Clevinger (1 year)
Trevor Williams (1-2 years, full circle for him)
Pablo/J. Sanchez ---> A. Rosario and a pretty solid prospect, ideally RHP reliever
Salas/Meyer or Eder/Lewis/Burdick --- > Alek Thomas and prospects. CF depth in baseball extremely low and Ari has many. Go for it.
Wendle and Cooper -> inventory relievers


Fortes, Stallings
Rizzo
Jazz, Berti
Rosario, Rojas
Anderson
Bleday, N. Jones
Thomas
Garcia
Soler

AAA - Henry, Johnston, Groshans, Williams, LeBlanc, Jerar, DLC

Sandy, Cabrera, Clevinger
Luzardo, Rogers, Garrett
E. Diaz, Floro, T. Williams, Neidert/Nance/Sixto/Soriano + trade returns Wendle/Cooper
Bleier, Okert, Scott

Rest of 40 man - Nardi, Simpson, and the RHP guys listed above


It's $110m if they backload Edwin/Rizzo a little (maybe $5-7m over 2-3 years), which is fine. Sign Rosario for 4-5 years on top of this. next year drop Berti, Rojas, Anderson, Stallings, Clevinger, Floro, Bleier, and Scott, and promote Henry/Banfield(?), Groshans, Jerar/Berry, Nasim/TBD backup SS, and whatever P you have left. Payroll goes down in 2024!!!! Importantly, NOTHING is still on the books longterm besides Sandy, Edwin will be a real expense, and Rosario/Garcia have pretty fleeting contracts.

That's the pitch for Kim - let's spend a little, not kill the books longterm, and we can blow this shit up if all the pitchers get tommy johns again. This is easily a 40+ WAR projected team. Easily.


We can dream about having a bottom 23 payroll one day.

[sports24/7]

I just don't see how you get the ML bat you need without trading Pablo, unless you're just selling prospects, and honestly I think that would be a mismanagement of resources when you consider Pablo's injury history, and the fact that he's very unlikely to re-sign. Now, if you're trading Pablo AND a prospect to get a better bat, or a ML bat and a prospect that's close, that's a different story.

[fish16]

Jesus luzardo has entered buy his arbitration years out early territory for me. just 88 IP so far (he should get to 100 by the end of the year), but 102 k's, 3.57 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 3.28 FIP and XFIP, and 1.8 WAR in half a season. He's got 4 years of arbitration left starting this offseason, give him 6 or 7 years 50-65 million and see if he takes that. Pay him more up front to get a much better value in those free agency years and later arbitration years.