Ugh . . . Pending Fire Sale Before July 31

[Swifty]

Alvarez, Hechavarria, Nicolino, Prado are all guys who are miscast. They'd likely bring more in trade to a team that views them as the final or near final piece over being asked to perform way above their established level for the Marlins to be a playoff team.

[Erick]

My opinion of the roster is this.

The team has the best power hitter in the game of baseball (Stanton) and, arguably, the best pitcher in the game (Fernandez). That, alone, is a great starting point. How many teams can say they even come close to having that? Most playoff teams today don't even have two players in their primes that talented.

The team has one of the most productive middle infields in baseball this year. Are Dee Gordon's #'s sustainable? No, absolutely not. However, Dee had a 3.2 fWAR last year with a .289/.326/.378 slash line, and last year's WAR # is without the much improved defense that he's shown this year. Dee Gordon is a valuable asset. Whether you consider him a core guy of a championship caliber team (considering position, age, and #'s the past two years, I don't see why not), or a guy who can be used in a trade to acquire better players, Dee is currently a great guy to have.

Hechavarria is doing the same thing offensively this year that he did last year. He has a 2.4 fWAR this year because he's playing Andrelton Simmons caliber defense according to the metrics. Considering that even many who didn't like him before thought he had the tools defensively to be very good, this isn't all that surprising. He's hitting .276/.309/.366 this year after last year when he hit .276/.308/.356. I think it's fair to say that's his talent level offensively right now. Similar to Dee Gordon, when you consider position, age, and tools, he, too, can either be considered a core member of the team or a guy who can be traded for more valuable assets. That makes him a valuable member of the team.

Yelich had a 4.3 fWAR last year at the age of 22. After a very slow start this year probably due to injury, he's been steadily improving every month. I think he has his question marks (like, will he ever hit for more power?), but considering what he's done, you can probably count on him to be a solid contributor for many years in LF with, more importantly, the talent level to move over to CF and play it competently. I think we all agree that he is a good guy to have.

Realmuto has mashed lefties this year and has been a .760ish .OPS bat over the last two months of baseball. It's too early to tell what he is, really, but considering his position and age, I think he should be given a shot to prove himself. He doesn't have to be a stud offensively considering he's looked fine defensively (at least I haven't seen anything suggesting otherwise), and he provides value with his baserunning, which is something that can't be said for many catchers.

You have a backend of the bullpen with Ramos and Capps that has basically been dominant this year, and secondary pieces in the pen like Morris, Dunn, etc. that make for what should be a good bullpen for the next coming years. Whether you think they should be kept or traded for better assets, the fact we can have that conversation makes them assets that we currently have.

This does not take Ozuna into account who is a wild card at this point and is probably more talented than what he's shown this year at the big league level.

To recap, you have:

-the best power hitter in the game, a young OF'er who seems to be rather consistent with the exception of his disastrous April this year, and another OF'er who has underachieved but was considered to be a part of what was considered to be the best outfield in baseball before this year.

-a good middle infield

-a catcher with some promise

-a legit ace

-a dominant backend of the bullpen

How many teams in baseball would kill to just have a couple of those things? This team actually has holes filled in scarce positions. The positions they have trouble with are the easiest fucking positions to fill. I've never seen a team fail 1B so badly for so many years. How difficult is it, really, to get some offense out of the 1B position? Even if Ozuna doesn't pan out and this is just who he is now, how difficult is it to move Yelich to CF and get good production out of LF?

These are positions that you could probably get good production from if the organization cared for analytics and believed in platoons. You could even make a case that half of the solution is in house considering what Bour and Dietrich have done against RHP this year. But instead of finding out more about those guys, the team prefers to play the Casey McGehee's and Cole Gillespie's of the world every other night.

The holes in the rotation can be filled because...well, it's not as if they don't have the money to pay them. The Dodgers are paying a fucking 1/4 of the current payroll. There's no excuse. They need 2 SP's and there are many ways to do that, either in free agency or via trade.

When you have so many quality young players at scarce positions and you have another team paying 1/4th of your payroll, there is no reason, other than the front office being completely incompetent, to not put together a playoff-caliber team. It really shouldn't be this difficult at this point. For what it's worth, part of the reason why the record sucks so bad this year is because literally everything has gone wrong for this team. That's part of it too. They'd probably be near .500 if some things had gone right from an injury standpoint. Just because they're 42-61 doesn't mean that the front office will be starting to build a team from scratch as is the case usually when a team is 42-61. The current talent level is better than that. They need to surround the players mentioned with some more talent, and maybe a bench that isn't completely useless.

[Nick]

I would say it's not that simple to upgrade 1B/3B especially looking at the upcoming free agents at those positions next year. You would think we could get one via trade, but the FO's complete failure in investing monetarily in the minor league system, and incompetent drafting will make it almost impossible to acquire a big corner infield bat via trade.

[Erick]

I would say it's not that simple to upgrade 1B/3B especially looking at the upcoming free agents at those positions next year. You would think we could get one via trade, but the FO's complete failure in investing monetarily in the minor league system, and incompetent drafting will make it almost impossible to acquire a big corner infield bat via trade.

Bour has an .810 .OPS against RHP. Dietrich has a .903 .OPS against RHP. Would it be the worst thing to pair one of those two guys with a Danny Valencia type (career .326/.368/.497 against LHP and DFA'd this morning)?

I do not understand this team. On top of the fact that they don't spend enough, they don't do things that teams not spending should be doing. Hell, even teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, who have the highest of payrolls, use platoons to get better production out of certain positions.

The first thing this team should try doing this offseason is sitting down and reading about split stats. It's annoying how they put some of the players on the current roster in positions to fail. They do it, to a lesser extent, with guys in the bullpen, as well.

[marlinsfan24]

Frisaro suggested Valencia makes no sense because the Marlins have McGehee. Good night

[Nick]

[Jay]

Has the front office considered giving him a position.

[thatnewguy]

Has the front office considered giving him a position.

Yeah. Public relations.

- - - - - - - - - -

And Erick hit the nail right on the head. Of course there is enough here to build a playoff/championship caliber team. And of course the team isn't there yet, with a 42-61 record. It's not just that the pieces surrounding the core range from anywhere from miscast to simply bad, it's that they are just misused in so many ways it seems unfathomable. Why play Casey McGehee at all? It's bad enough he can't hit left handers but he starts against right handed pitchers and is probably going to be out of baseball next season anyway? We've beaten this to death over the last few days but there is an organizational disconnect of how to take the step from "young team with potential" to "contender" and it means that they don't know how to improve a team like the 2008-2010 era team or the 2014 team and instead just take steps backwards.

[Namaste]

Casey McGehee and his .596 OPS is batting CLEANUP tonight in a lost season.


That is all you need to know when evaluating whether or not this ownership/FO will do what it takes to build a playoff contender around Stanton, Yelich, Gordon, Fernandez,Ramos and Capps in 2016.

[Jay]

Yeah. Public relations.

- - - - - - - - - -

And Erick hit the nail right on the head. Of course there is enough here to build a playoff/championship caliber team. And of course the team isn't there yet, with a 42-61 record. It's not just that the pieces surrounding the core range from anywhere from miscast to simply bad, it's that they are just misused in so many ways it seems unfathomable. Why play Casey McGehee at all? It's bad enough he can't hit left handers but he starts against right handed pitchers and is probably going to be out of baseball next season anyway? We've beaten this to death over the last few days but there is an organizational disconnect of how to take the step from "young team with potential" to "contender" and it means that they don't know how to improve a team like the 2008-2010 era team or the 2014 team and instead just take steps backwards.

I meant in talent evaluation.

- - - - - - - - - -

Also McGehee is going to be resigned in the offseason to a Helms type deal.

[thatnewguy]

Just for the record, the free agent class is pretty barren this year:

Notable free agent 1B--
Chris Davis
Mike Napoli
Justin Morneau (with a $9 million mutual option)

Notable free agent 3B--
David Freese
Juan Uribe
Adrian Beltre ($16 million vesting option)
Aramis Ramirez
and guys like Asdrubal Cabrera or Ian Desmond could also probably play here

Notable free agent LF--
Yoenis Cespedes
Matt Joyce
Gerardo Parra
Justin Upton
Jonny Gomes ($3 million team option)
Denard Span
Torii Hunter
Will Venable

Pitching is a little bit better.

Notable Free Agent SP--
Johnny Cueto
Doug Fister
Bartolo Colon
Yovani Gallardo
Tim Hudson
Ian Kennedy
Mat Latos
Tim Lincecum
Scott Kazmir
Mike Leake
David Price
John Lackey
Jordan Zimmermann
Jeff Samardzija

[marlinsfan24]

Inb4 Cespedes gets a $200M contract from Miami and is traded after one season for crap

[dim]

Cespedes is basically Ozuna's best case projection. While he would be cool because of consistent production I'd probably stick with Ozuna, regardless of his opinion on the franchise at the moment, and see if he can ever find that consistency that he had in 2014 (yes I understand the post was a joke).

Samardzija would be a cool "somewhat buy low" candidate. Sure he'll command multiple years but give him three or four years in the NL again and he becomes a sub 3 ERA guy and potential really good #2 to Jose.

Other than that I don't see anything I'd grab. Wouldn't be shocked if they grab Napoli given his South Florida ties and watch him suck the life out of the team like Morse did for a bit.

[Jay]

Trading Prado for prospects and signing Uribe would be a huge plus. He won't command more than a 2 year deal and should be less than Prado makes after Yankee money is paid.
Trading Ozuna for a SP and signing Cespedes is an idea but it would never happen. And there will definitely weaken defense in CF.

[Valid]

Gonzalez was still a top prospect in baseball and the Marlins sent two other prospects for Urbina. I'm sorry, it was not a good deal at the time, just because they won the world series. If Steve Bartman doesn't happen, everyone's opinion of that trade changes.

But they won the fucking World Series, which is the goal of every single baseball team.

And the "if Steve Bartman doesn't happen" thing is stupid. You can literally play the "what if" game with every single World Series team every single year. You can't just say "well if this doesn't happen, everyone's opinion changes." The fact of the matter is that it did happen and we have two banners instead of one because of it (the "it" being the trade).