April 2021 game thread

[Spork5812]

Good for Pablo picking up another win finally.

[sports24/7]

I'm really rooting for Kim Ng, but she's making it hard. Her comments today were bad. She never envisioned the Marlins being a high scoring team? They haven't had any discussions with Marte over an extension?

They're going to trade him at the deadline for an underwhelming return, and it's going to be infuriating, aren't they?

[fish16]

I'm really rooting for Kim Ng, but she's making it hard. Her comments today were bad. She never envisioned the Marlins being a high scoring team? They haven't had any discussions with Marte over an extension?

They're going to trade him at the deadline for an underwhelming return, and it's going to be infuriating, aren't they?

She told an obvious truth and one we all knew coming into the year. We had a chance to be an average offense at best. That's not controversial, we all knew that coming into this year. Would you prefer her to lie to your face and tell you something you know is obviously untrue? If she said we expected to be a juggernaut offensively she would be criticized for either lying to our faces or being naive enough to believe we were a top tier offensive team. We were always reliant on the pitching coming into the year and for the most part, the pitching has been fantastic aside from guys having to fill the last 2 spots in the rotation because Sixto and Elieser have essentially been out the entire year.

The offense was always going to be our weakness and the hope was that they could over achieve by having not necessarily fantastic talent but a deeper lineup with only 1 hole at catcher. Unfortunately Anderson hasn't been right all year and has missed probably half the year or so at this point. Starling has missed over half the year. Jazz missed a few weeks, and Rojas is going to be out for probably a month by the time he gets back. That has ruined any chance to get continuity or potential for overachieving.

The issue is not her statement, the issue if anything has to be with what they did or did not do during the offseason and realistically, what did you want them to do other than what they did? Don't just criticize, give meaningful alternatives that they missed out on that made sense given our salary constraints and the upcoming crop of OF prospects that are still about a year away. We had no lineup spots available that could realistically be improved upon other than Catcher coming into the year. 1b, 2b, SS, 3b, and we had 4 seemingly quality OF's (if you can call Cooper an OF) for 3 spots. So other than Alfaro being given another year which I've complained about all offseason and into the year, what should they have done? And even with the options we were presented to trade Alfaro for, would Willson contreras make any kind of huge difference to this point? He's been a .700's OPS catcher for 3 out of the last 4 years. that's not making any significant difference this year for the cost of a guy like McCambley and Burdick who it is rumored the cubs wanted in a Contreras deal.

The move was always to hope that we could stay healthy and be average offensively and have great pitching until the wave of hitting prospects were ready late this year or next year, which they still arent outside of maybe jesus sanchez who isn't far off. So stop complaining that a GM actually told you the truth instead of blowing smoke up the fanbases ass like the last regime.

[fish16]

Also, on a side note, if we can regain a little bit of the ground we lost (I went away on vacation for 7 days and they lost every single day), stay within 5 games or so, and then have Sixto come back and the rest of the lineup get healthy, they aren't out of it. This is not a great division. They just need sixto back really badly and performing like he did last year. Ive been saying for over a month now that it is almost impossible to get into a consistent winning streak having 2 empty spots in the rotation, even if you have 3 guys at the top of the rotation who have performed like aces all year.

[Erick]

The lack of urgency from the organization these days is disappointing. The window to win, considering we still operate like a small market franchise, is coming soon.

I really hope this organization plans on having veterans like Marte around. We have not gotten good results out of our hitting prospects during this rebuild. They better keep some proven bats around for this pitching staff.

Kim Ng is not a good public speaker. Hopefully she’s better as a GM.

[Nick]

I assume Braxton Garrett is going to make the start tonight. This is his shot man, with so much injured talent ahead of him, and then upcoming talent behind him, I'm thinking this opportunity may not come again where he should have multiple major league starts where he's pencilled in. Hopefully he takes advantage.

[rmc523]

I'm really rooting for Kim Ng, but she's making it hard. Her comments today were bad. She never envisioned the Marlins being a high scoring team? They haven't had any discussions with Marte over an extension?

They're going to trade him at the deadline for an underwhelming return, and it's going to be infuriating, aren't they?

Yeah, the fact they seemingly haven't even considered an extension for Marte is extremely concerning to me.

[rmc523]

She told an obvious truth and one we all knew coming into the year. We had a chance to be an average offense at best. That's not controversial, we all knew that coming into this year. Would you prefer her to lie to your face and tell you something you know is obviously untrue? If she said we expected to be a juggernaut offensively she would be criticized for either lying to our faces or being naive enough to believe we were a top tier offensive team. We were always reliant on the pitching coming into the year and for the most part, the pitching has been fantastic aside from guys having to fill the last 2 spots in the rotation because Sixto and Elieser have essentially been out the entire year.

The offense was always going to be our weakness and the hope was that they could over achieve by having not necessarily fantastic talent but a deeper lineup with only 1 hole at catcher. Unfortunately Anderson hasn't been right all year and has missed probably half the year or so at this point. Starling has missed over half the year. Jazz missed a few weeks, and Rojas is going to be out for probably a month by the time he gets back. That has ruined any chance to get continuity or potential for overachieving.

The issue is not her statement, the issue if anything has to be with what they did or did not do during the offseason and realistically, what did you want them to do other than what they did? Don't just criticize, give meaningful alternatives that they missed out on that made sense given our salary constraints and the upcoming crop of OF prospects that are still about a year away. We had no lineup spots available that could realistically be improved upon other than Catcher coming into the year. 1b, 2b, SS, 3b, and we had 4 seemingly quality OF's (if you can call Cooper an OF) for 3 spots. So other than Alfaro being given another year which I've complained about all offseason and into the year, what should they have done? And even with the options we were presented to trade Alfaro for, would Willson contreras make any kind of huge difference to this point? He's been a .700's OPS catcher for 3 out of the last 4 years. that's not making any significant difference this year for the cost of a guy like McCambley and Burdick who it is rumored the cubs wanted in a Contreras deal.

The move was always to hope that we could stay healthy and be average offensively and have great pitching until the wave of hitting prospects were ready late this year or next year, which they still arent outside of maybe jesus sanchez who isn't far off. So stop complaining that a GM actually told you the truth instead of blowing smoke up the fanbases ass like the last regime.

The criticism is not what she said, which we all agree it's true, but rather the fact they didn't do anything about it. I can understand if they tried some things in the offseason that didn't work out....but in season, they had the easy option of bringing up a raking Jesus Sanchez - an OF when several OF were out and when the ML team couldn't hit their way out of a wet paper bag for weeks on end, and didn't.....meanwhile they bring up other random players well below his level/further off (AA guys) and they obviously have struggled. It just doesn't make sense.

[sports24/7]

She told an obvious truth and one we all knew coming into the year. We had a chance to be an average offense at best. That's not controversial, we all knew that coming into this year. Would you prefer her to lie to your face and tell you something you know is obviously untrue? If she said we expected to be a juggernaut offensively she would be criticized for either lying to our faces or being naive enough to believe we were a top tier offensive team. We were always reliant on the pitching coming into the year and for the most part, the pitching has been fantastic aside from guys having to fill the last 2 spots in the rotation because Sixto and Elieser have essentially been out the entire year.

The offense was always going to be our weakness and the hope was that they could over achieve by having not necessarily fantastic talent but a deeper lineup with only 1 hole at catcher. Unfortunately Anderson hasn't been right all year and has missed probably half the year or so at this point. Starling has missed over half the year. Jazz missed a few weeks, and Rojas is going to be out for probably a month by the time he gets back. That has ruined any chance to get continuity or potential for overachieving.

The issue is not her statement, the issue if anything has to be with what they did or did not do during the offseason and realistically, what did you want them to do other than what they did? Don't just criticize, give meaningful alternatives that they missed out on that made sense given our salary constraints and the upcoming crop of OF prospects that are still about a year away. We had no lineup spots available that could realistically be improved upon other than Catcher coming into the year. 1b, 2b, SS, 3b, and we had 4 seemingly quality OF's (if you can call Cooper an OF) for 3 spots. So other than Alfaro being given another year which I've complained about all offseason and into the year, what should they have done? And even with the options we were presented to trade Alfaro for, would Willson contreras make any kind of huge difference to this point? He's been a .700's OPS catcher for 3 out of the last 4 years. that's not making any significant difference this year for the cost of a guy like McCambley and Burdick who it is rumored the cubs wanted in a Contreras deal.

The move was always to hope that we could stay healthy and be average offensively and have great pitching until the wave of hitting prospects were ready late this year or next year, which they still arent outside of maybe jesus sanchez who isn't far off. So stop complaining that a GM actually told you the truth instead of blowing smoke up the fanbases ass like the last regime.

Lol, I get that you will always come to their defense, but come on man. First of all, she said “never” and went on to say they’d always be a pitching first team. So this isn’t just about 2021. This is a philosophical thing. Secondly, I’ve previously stated that I thought their offseason plan was a bad one going back to the actual offseason. They once again cheaper out and Duvall was their only move. Duvall was never going to make much of an impact. They should have went out and gotten a better outfielder, and they should have upgraded at catcher. Saying they have 4 quality OF simply isn’t true. They have one quality outfielder, and it appears that they’re going to let him get away. Interesting that you glanced over that part of the post.

Good front offices don’t bank on guys like Brinson/Harrison/Sanchez/etc eventually coming in to save them. They fix the ball club’s weaknesses now, then work from a position of strength if/when those guys hit their potential. I hope the Marlins’ young OF prospects do pan out, and it’s a non issue in short order. But even when you have a guy like Sanchez tearing it up in the minors, they leave him down there, and instead worry about losing Brinson and Sierra. The fact is, this FO has not shown the ability to scout or develop bats, not have they shown they plan to go out and acquire them for the long term. So that’s absolutely a concern.

Also, let’s not pretend that I am the only one who was critical of her comments. That’s been the case all over the Marlins’ fan base, including some sources that a very pro-Marlins usually.

[Nick]

I'm going to let the Marte situation play itself out before I crucify them about not discussing re-signing him yet. I do think we should do everything we can to re-sign him, but it's also worth noting that he's played all of 53 games for us and has already had 2 significant injuries, granted they were both kinda freak things, but he is entering his mid-30s. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

If it were up to me, we would've gone into this season with JT Realmuto and a significantly more beefed up bullpen. But they didn't spend the money classic Marlins, that's on Jeter/Sherman, not Ng/Denbo. I can't say the lineup would've looked any different other than that though. You've invested a lot into the many OFs that are currently at AA and AAA, and you had to find away to bridge the gap to them, and it wasn't going to be with star players. I don't think you can guard against 5 starters being on the DL at the same time. (Sixto, Neidert, Elieser, Castano, Poteet, hell even throw Cabrera in there he would've been up by now if he'd been healthy up til now) Maybe they could've brought someone more formidable in on a minor league contract than Gio Gonzalez, but I think that's pretty much the only complaint that's valid as far as how the rotation was set up.

[Nick]

I've had lots of complains about the FO, and I've expressed them here, but all of my complaints, every single one of them, can be explained by penny-pinching. Whether it's bullpen construction, refusal to call up Jesus Sanchez, it's driven by ownership trying to save a buck, so it's really hard for me to have any type of opinion on the job Ng and company are doing at this point.

[fish16]

marte aint staying here, hate to break that to you guys. He is going to get, and he deserves to get, a 4-5 year deal at like 15-20 per at least. He's gone, and given our OF depth that should be arriving later this year and early next year in Bleday, Burdick, and Sanchez without even mentioning guys further off but not too far away like Encarnacion, Conine, Misner, Connor Scott, etc, they ain't keeping him. Not saying they shouldn't spend money, but to me Marte isn't the guy they will do that for. If he was at another position we needed like 3b or C or even SS/2b long term (whichever Jazz isn't at), that would be another story. But just preparing everyone that he's gone and he will get, and deservedly so, a huge contract for his last deal. Unless the market is so soft on him that he will take 2 years, which is doubtful, they shouldn't be going 4-5 years on marte like I think he will be getting.

Take the year and a half of outstanding production for essentially no cost (Caleb smith and Mejia), let him go and get a comp pick if you can, and don't overspend on him when you have depth at that position. Doing this means they will have to invest in other areas or else I will be justifiably pissed, but I don't think given our OF prospects on the horizon that that particular position makes sense to invest in long term with a 32 year old unless somehow the DH comes back next year. If that is the case then I will be OK with giving him 3 years.

[Nick]

With the way Free Agency has played out the last couple of years, no way do I see Marte getting a 4-5 year deal. I guess we'll see.

[fish16]

Lol, I get that you will always come to their defense, but come on man. First of all, she said “never” and went on to say they’d always be a pitching first team. So this isn’t just about 2021. This is a philosophical thing. Secondly, I’ve previously stated that I thought their offseason plan was a bad one going back to the actual offseason. They once again cheaper out and Duvall was their only move. Duvall was never going to make much of an impact. They should have went out and gotten a better outfielder, and they should have upgraded at catcher. Saying they have 4 quality OF simply isn’t true. They have one quality outfielder, and it appears that they’re going to let him get away. Interesting that you glanced over that part of the post.

Good front offices don’t bank on guys like Brinson/Harrison/Sanchez/etc eventually coming in to save them. They fix the ball club’s weaknesses now, then work from a position of strength if/when those guys hit their potential. I hope the Marlins’ young OF prospects do pan out, and it’s a non issue in short order. But even when you have a guy like Sanchez tearing it up in the minors, they leave him down there, and instead worry about losing Brinson and Sierra. The fact is, this FO has not shown the ability to scout or develop bats, not have they shown they plan to go out and acquire them for the long term. So that’s absolutely a concern.

Also, let’s not pretend that I am the only one who was critical of her comments. That’s been the case all over the Marlins’ fan base, including some sources that a very pro-Marlins usually.

This has nothing to do with protecting the front office. I criticize the front office all the time and do so vocally. This is about feigning outrage because they are struggling because the GM said something that we all knew to be true coming into the year. who gives a shit if she said never. We all knew they weren't expecting to be an offensive juggernaut this year. If you did you're a fool. That's all she was talking about. And if you're now surprised that their philosophy is to build through their young pitching, where have you been the last 3 years?

They have had key injury after key injury the entire year. Their top 4 hitters have spent significant time on the DL all year. All are guys that can realistically expect to be above 800 OPS or so and they have been out for huge swaths of time on a team that every single person here knows should not have been expected to be a top tier offensive team even if we stayed healthy.

You say duvall was a bad signing. I didn't love the signing at the time, but just saying they shouldn't have signed X isn't a good argument. The argument needs to be they shouldn't have signed X so that they could instead have signed Y. Who is a name you thought they should have signed and what did they get in free agency. What catcher should they have gotten? You wanted james mccann for the ridiculous money the mets got him for? don't just say they should have gotten a catcher, tell me the catcher they should have gotten that would have made sense for the money. They should have traded OF depth for a prospect catcher, but again, that prospect catcher would not have made a difference this year.

They didn't rely on Brinson or Harrison. Those guys were their 5th OF options coming into the year behind Marte, Duvall, DIckerson, and Cooper. Just because freak injury after freak injury has necessitated them to call up guys who have struggled doesn't mean that was a planning issue. They had too many guys for 3 OF spots to begin with, not an overreliance on bad prospects. Find me a team that can safely rely on their 5th OF option to produce.

[fish16]

With the way Free Agency has played out the last couple of years, no way do I see Marte getting a 4-5 year deal. I guess we'll see.

if he stays healthy the rest of the year I can see it, but you're right, free agency has been all mixed up the last few years. If he is indeed a 2-3 year guy id look for extension talks but id assume they have tried and that his agent has said 4+ years. It would make no sense for him to not at least try to get to free agency to see if he can get that type of long term deal.

Everyone talks about what are the marlins doing but they never even think of considering why the fuck would marte even consider signing an extension right now? Makes no sense for him to not at least get to the market and see what he can get by teams bidding against each other.