2023-2024 Offseason Thread

[Namaste]

Return of the Max


https://blogs.fangraphs.com/return-of-the-max/


also, is Luzardo hurt or is it just normal Marlins Twitter hysteria?

[lou]

Haven’t you been advocating for a Luzardo trade all offseason? We know the Marlins are at least listening to offers on arms, so they must have some sort of plan if they trade one.

No, but I would advocate a Luzardo trade if they signed Lorenzen and Clevinger right now to make up those innings (as those innings need to be made up) and bring in huge bats. Trade him to the Red Sox today for a threesome of Mayer/Teel, Anthony/Bleis/Rafaella, and Yorke/Meidroth, and sign those two FA SP/Bulk guys to make it up. Or call it some threesome collection of Mayo/Basallo, Basallo/Kjerstad/Cowser, and Bradfield/Norby/Fabian from the Orioles. Those moves would be harmful to 2024 as those guys wouldn't start trickling in until this summer (after super-2 deadline), but would be worthy enormous upgrades with those control years to improve the bat situation longer term. Those would be amazing deals for the Marlins and Boston/Baltimore have real depth so they could blink there. Lorenzen/Clevinger could eat more innings than Luzardo so it would still give them a chance this year as yes, the rest of the SP looks genuinely really good and that's without Garrett at the moment. The footnote here is, if there is supreme confidence at least two of Faucher, Hoeing, McCaughan, Soriano, Sixto, Yonny, K. Tyler, Guitterez, and Monteverde are immediately 100+ inning guys, as well as both Puk and Weathers are successful 100+ inning capacity guys, they could do some kind of Luzardo trade without signing someone like Lorenzen/Clevinger, but I'd fall on the cautious side here and say let all those guys be the replacement arms and not the ones to count on for 2024. If this would even happen.

Big picture, if we're circling 2025, please ship out Luzardo for the motherload right now if you can get it. But they aren't doing that, so this is more of a discussion for July when they presumably are 10 games back because they can't hit and someone will be hurt and Luzardo is beyond the top name available at the deadline to win a race for an AL East team. As the Yankees, Rays, AND Jays also all have the right prospect mixes to get Luzardo which is a potentially great situation for the Marlins to leverage the entire AL East against each other (+Texas and Minnesota). Scott and Berti as throw-ins to Luzardo? Could be a wild scenario of prospect acquisition if the Marlins fall out.

In any event, they don't have the innings to trade which was my point unless you think the bolds are going to be great immediately absent FA signings. I'm not there. Maybe you, others, or the organization is. They have earned every benefit of a doubt with the arms even with a regime change so I'm not going to question them here, but I cannot see that bold group throwing 400 innings if this team wants to contend. As stated in posts above, things radically change for 2025 w/ Sandy and increased arm capacity if everyone stays healthy.

[Namaste]

Return of the Max


https://blogs.fangraphs.com/return-of-the-max/


also, is Luzardo hurt or is it just normal Marlins Twitter hysteria?

Also, Max had no walks and no earned runs in his 2 innings today

[rmc523]

id wait till closer to the deadline to reevaluate the need for another P who can eat innings. Like i said, we're in a weird position where we have a lot of pitching depth but a ton of innings limits. let the kids loose until the deadline and then see what you need if we're still in it. I'd much rather see a guy like Meyer or sixto pitching out of the bullpen to see what we have than a veteran average innings eater. You can find those for pretty cheap when the time comes.

so then we have to trade things for that piece instead of spending a few million now?

I refer to the fact that every single year we wind up needing more pitching despite our supposed depth. I’m highly skeptical that we’re set pitching wise given so many guys on innings limits and/or coming back from injury.

[lou]

so then we have to trade things for that piece instead of spending a few million now?

I refer to the fact that every single year we wind up needing more pitching despite our supposed depth. I’m highly skeptical that we’re set pitching wise given so many guys on innings limits and/or coming back from injury.

Yea. I just looked at the whole remaining FA list and it's this:

Bats - Belt, Duvall, Pham, M. Taylor. Any of them can make sense over Garcia (and Edwards would move to AAA but I think that's fine, he'd get 300+ PA at the MLB level still), but those later three only make sense if one trusts Nick Gordon to play 60+ games in the IF. He actually is a neutral 2B defender pretty much over 431 innings played at 2B (with another solid 161.2 innings at SS/3B) so I don't think that may be too unreasonable even if not ideal. There is also JD Martinez but I do not see a fit with their current DH situation. They'd have to trade Bell somewhere. There is Votto too who may be ridiculously cheap, but he's been pretty bad for 2 years now and just may be at his sad end of an amazing career. Mondesi is also a FA and would work, but that would have to be a MILB deal. I would love that though and see if anything is there.

Arms - Snell and Montgomery, and then moving on, Lorenzen and Clevinger. There is Syndergaard too if they think they can rehabilitate him, and Matt Wisler (w/ Tampa in 2022) is out there but he's another MILB depth arm at this point far from his prospect status. Some OK potential relievers with Stanek and Boxberger out there but not sure those are big upgrades to what they have and both had "down" years last year.


A good owner would sign Snell/Montgomery for 5 years and Lorenzen/Clevinger for 1 season and then trade one of the more controllable arms (and we'll say Luzardo here to deflect payroll) for the Baltimore(Mayo and many options)/Twins (Brooks Lee based)/Tampa (Paredas/Mead/Caminero headliner) motherload of someone MLB ready right now... this would probably only scale payroll to $120-125m (more if Paredas) which is infuriating to think that's all it would cost to get 100+ more innings for 2024, not miss Luzardo longterm with the bigger name, and at least 2 mega bats controlled for years. They have the short and longterm money for this even within Bruce payroll BS.

But even just Lorenzen/Clevinger and Belt/Duvall/Pham/Taylor would be pretty impactful IMO and at this stage. I cant' see how those guys are making much more than $7-8m a year (guys like Anderson are taking $5m, and Rosario/Urshela way less) so we're talking an overall team payroll of $105m max. Lorenzen isn't wonderful, but he's absolutely those veteran 5th SP innings you're talking about here. Sure it could blowup like Cueto, but that is a special circumstance. Lorenzen has the RP experience too and was really good in that role 2016-2021 (roughly 3.2 WAR via 350 IP which is a pretty good RP). The going rate for a solid free agent reliever is easily $5-7m range these days, so I don't know why you don't give him say a 2/$15m deal (Fedde signed a 2/$15m deal which seems like a similar arm), but it's scaled as 1/$9m and he can opt out if he's good. And if not, he's just a moderately expensive, but not really, RHP reliever which isn't a bad thing to have as a 4th RHP in the pen. You could do a lot worse than him as a reliever where historically his stuff does play up. Lorenzen turned 32 this offseason so it's not like he's 35, or been absolutely battered by injuries like Syndergaard.


Anyways hopefully they have something cooking here, or we're about to be wowed by an out of nowhere true breakout from one of Edwards/Myers/Bride/Gray/Johnston (or maybe Brujan or Gordon is that good and the 13th bat is irrelevant) and McCaughan/Faucher/Guitterez/Monteverde/Chirniros/etc. and then Bendix gets all the credit for not spending the money here and anticipating the depth. I am looking forward to the day we get a real owner. It has to happen eventually.

[lou]

And if you think I'm insane with that off-hand sign Snell comment, if they signed him for 5/$150m, Lorenzen gets that 2 year deal, and then Luzardo is traded for a Brooks Lee package, this is payroll in 2025, and this is with Sandy, Snell, and Arraez being over $60m combined here, showing how cheap the other 20+ guys on the roster actually are.

$117m

____, Fortes
Burger
Arraez, Edwards
B. Lee, Berti
______, Brujan
DLC, Gordon
Jazz
Sanchez

SP Sandy, Snell, Eury, Garrett, Cabrera
Bulk Puk, Max, Rogers, Weathers, Lorenzen
RP Bender, Nardi, Sixto

Dead money - Garcia. Yep, he's still accounted for.

And you'd probably get a 2nd major player from the Twins to help out more here.

And then, you can probably trade another SP as that is just crazy above (I think those 13 could be penciled in for 1600-1700 innings or so) for a C/3B, which if Rogers/Garrett/Cabrera/Puk is that name, that would reduce payroll $2.5+m further more than likely. Assuming that's a SS/3B (opposite Lee) as trading for catchers is hard - maybe this is something like N. Marte (CIN) as they have a total glut of infielders and there is an arm trade there for sure - you have room under $130m for Danny Jansen to be added outright.


Bruce fucking sucks. This isn't a lot of leaps and bounds to get to being a real contender and just behind Atlanta/LAD on paper if he'd just spend $125-130m per season for 2024-2027. And he can still do it right now with a Snell/Montgomery + Lorenzen + Moving Luzardo for 2 big club controlled bats, one of which can play right now. Like it's going to be hard to trade Luzardo. 29 teams will want him. What a total asshole. Sell the team.

[fish16]

thanks for posting that depth chart again, we didnt get it the first 47 times. have we officially replaced the werth signing with the snell signing or are we just testing the waters there?

[lou]

thanks for posting that depth chart again, we didnt get it the first 47 times. have we officially replaced the werth signing with the snell signing or are we just testing the waters there?

Hope that morning coffee blows the stick out of your ass. Or maybe you drove down pollution ridden I-95 into Miami and have a clouded head? I maintain you should stop sniping at people as it's been a rather cordial last few months. I'm a show the math kind of guy versus making up one liners without context, so apologies as it is difficult to triangulate things with this organization. Also, Snell would be the Werth signing so you're not even trolling right. But regardless of who this is - Snell, Montgomery, trading for Adames + extension, trading for Gleyber + extension, absorbing some bad/expensive contracts (Story? Yoshida?) for prospects (Boston has a lot) - that is at the end of the day, the commitment Bruce needs to make at some point. And the point is, it's just a stone's throw from 2023 payroll so it's continually a WTF is wrong with this guy question and why did he buy a baseball team to do nothing with it? I'll never understand.

[fish16]

Hope that morning coffee blows the stick out of your ass. Or maybe you drove down pollution ridden I-95 into Miami and have a clouded head? I maintain you should stop sniping at people as it's been a rather cordial last few months. I'm a show the math kind of guy versus making up one liners without context, so apologies as it is difficult to triangulate things with this organization. Also, Snell would be the Werth signing so you're not even trolling right. But regardless of who this is - Snell, Montgomery, trading for Adames + extension, trading for Gleyber + extension, absorbing some bad/expensive contracts (Story? Yoshida?) for prospects (Boston has a lot) - that is at the end of the day, the commitment Bruce needs to make at some point. And the point is, it's just a stone's throw from 2023 payroll so it's continually a WTF is wrong with this guy question and why did he buy a baseball team to do nothing with it? I'll never understand.

it was a joke. we all agree and are on the same page. We get the math, you've shown it a million times. If he spent more, it would be easy to make this into a legit contender quick. everyone gets the math, no one is disagreeing with you. We have a dirt cheap team, and our dirt cheap owner is a moron who should have never bought this team. Not a single soul disagrees

[lou]

it was a joke. we all agree and are on the same page. We get the math, you've shown it a million times. If he spent more, it would be easy to make this into a legit contender quick. everyone gets the math, no one is disagreeing with you. We have a dirt cheap team, and our dirt cheap owner is a moron who should have never bought this team. Not a single soul disagrees

Apologies as I think you can appreciate due to prior, we'll say hostility, we can each be defensive here.

But I will be jolly this whole season - except against Bruce. No fucks given for him.

[lou]

I hadn't of thought this one, but MLBTR is floating the Giants may trade JD Davis - https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/...j-d-davis.html. That makes a lot of sense.

He's in his last arb year ($6.9m), so it's his money incentive year, and posted a 2.2 WAR year last year (combined with 2022, 3.1 WAR over 900 PA). Most importantly, he can play 3B well enough and is right handed. Career .779 OPS versus LHP. He's 31 in a month. Not great, but he does hit the ball kind of hard on analytics - https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savan...-r-hitting-mlb. I think he is very comparable to the other alright FA - Belt, Duvall, Pham, M. Taylor - but a real position fit given the Marlins want Bell/Burger to split DH.

This is a perfect 100-120 game starter at 1B/3B. I'll spare the "longform" but they could play him very easily 50-60 games at each, with the roster shuffling positionally being Arraez plays a bit more 2B than 1B.

The Giants need pitching badly with Kyle Harrison maybe their # 2 SP (not sure he makes the Marlins rotation this year at least despite being a top prospect). Their bats are pretty good with Bailey, Wade, Estrada, Luciano, Chapman, Conforto, Lee, Yastrezemski, and Soler as their starters, with Murphy, Sabol, Flores, and Slater a good bench. We'd be comfortable with that. They also have FIVE catchers on their 40 man, including Joey Bart who has come up from time to time. He's completely blocked there.


Davis and Bart for what pitchers is my thought here. That lowers payroll for them to sign Michael Lorenzen in a close straight swap with Davis who they need even worse than the Marlins. They can give that dude a 2 year deal.

I'm not sure what's the right value here, but maybe something like Soriano/Hoeing + Maldonado + Marlins 2nd round comp pick (which is shedding money not being spent in the draft, but you get Bart so that's OK) gets that done. Weathers/Puk and the other second level SP are way too much for a Davis rental, but Soriano/Hoeing as a depth arm who could be a good multi inning reliever and some potential secondary assets is probably enough here.

If they turn Davis and Bart into effectively Lorenzen for a year money wise, a 2nd rounder (or maybe Jacob Miller, who was a 2nd rounder?), Soriano, and Maldonado, they'd have to be pretty happy to add close to 200 innings to 2024 for a guy who would struggle to get 400 PA with them.

Marlins payroll moves to $100m


There is a win-win here somewhere.

[fish16]

new story came out that jazz is really focused on his health this year so much that he cut out his DAILY trips to mcdonalds. Daily. Also worked with matt holliday over the winter to focus on the art of hitting. Not saying the mcdonalds was the reason for constantly being injured, but i can tell you it probably didnt help matters. Now if he could just stop playing so recklessly, maybe he can stay healthy all year.

[lou]

Bello just signed an extension with the Red Sox, around H. Greene territory. 6/$55m, includes 1 FA year. There is a 7th year club option.

Eury is probably in the $60s now for a 7 year deal (has less service them than Bello so a 7th year is 1 FA year). So the deal today is probably like.... 7/$60m with two club controls for at least $20m each ($5m buyout on each of them, so it's really a 7/$65m floor deal), that would push the deal to $100m+ land. Maybe the first option is $21m and the second option $22.05m so they can make it a real cute $103.05 total contract value. I say a 2nd club option because it's more guaranteed money and he's further from FA so Marlins have leverage here for that. For perspective, Sandy (if his 2027 option is picked up) will be making around $75m for these control years and Pablo did even better and is getting just over $83m (and all guaranteed).

If hypothetically they did do a 9 year deal like that and all options enacted, Eury is a free agent at 30 years old having made over $100m. In his prime to get paid again.

I do think they can wait a year (which may scale the guaranteed money closer to $100m and max value another $25m or so), but Fish16 is right they would be saving a lot of money doing this now. $30-40m bucks over 7-9 seasons isn't a huge line item, but that is a FA middle reliever per season on a practical level they could then afford.

Wonder if this new comp helps them get at least Eury done even if they want to wait on everyone else.

[lou]

new story came out that jazz is really focused on his health this year so much that he cut out his DAILY trips to mcdonalds. Daily. Also worked with matt holliday over the winter to focus on the art of hitting. Not saying the mcdonalds was the reason for constantly being injured, but i can tell you it probably didnt help matters. Now if he could just stop playing so recklessly, maybe he can stay healthy all year.

I love this information

[rmc523]

new story came out that jazz is really focused on his health this year so much that he cut out his DAILY trips to mcdonalds. Daily. Also worked with matt holliday over the winter to focus on the art of hitting. Not saying the mcdonalds was the reason for constantly being injured, but i can tell you it probably didnt help matters. Now if he could just stop playing so recklessly, maybe he can stay healthy all year.

I just don’t understand that as a professional athlete with the funds and personnel (I assume the marlins have a chef on staff) available to him, how you could go to McDonald’s daily…
McDonald’s is gross first of all lol
but DAILY??