Originally posted by fish16
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At some point, Sandy, Eury, Cabrera, and we'll say Garrett and Max, could be the best rotation in baseball and it may happen the second Eury is back call in summer 2025. They'd have that gang together fully 2025-2027, and in 2028 everyone is still controlled but Sandy and maybe Noble takes Sandy's spot then as he'll be 23 with 4 full seasons in the minors theoretically. If they buy out Eury, Cabrera, and Max a few free agency years, the rotation may legitimately be set into the early 2030s with what they have in house today.
Yes yes yes I know guys get hurt, unknowns, unproven. But we're talking about what to root for, and what we have to root for is a collection of pitchers who may grow into being outstanding together at the same time. And they do have the budget to lock this all down for 7-8 years from today assuming we start getting some arbitration buyouts this upcoming offseason or at latest post 2025 so you don't get into Luzardo situations.
Will it happen? No idea. Is Bendix going to trade all these arms and then aim to go Baltimore-style and aggressively draft bats and find pitching later to kick the can to 2027? Who knows. But if we're looking at the fastest on the field way to contending, it's (obviously) the rotation and maybe this year is the necessary course correction to get to a cheaper overall team payroll + having Sandy back + more arm inventory for Max/Cabrera in 2025. I frankly just hate the dishonesty. If they told us the team was smoke and mirrors in November with 1 run record and said we are tearing down 2024 unapologetically to go big in 2025, I'd be annoyed Bruce is so cheap but get it entirely from the Bendix perspective. It shows vision and a plan. What's happening now just shows no vision even with the Bruce payroll limitations. And that's frankly a rinse/repeat Kim comment as we can be sympathetic to her owner situation, but still criticize the various misses with using the resources she had poorly (bad drafts, Garcia, Segura, Cueto, etc.).
Don't get me wrong, this might be the most checked out I have ever been with the Marlins since 1992 (literally), but I'm just responding to what do we have to root for. I still really love the SP arms longterm (and there is still A LOT of club control) ignoring all the other cheap owner/seems like a dumb POBO hire so far/etc. going on. So that's what we got. We gotta hope Eury is the last of the major injuries, and then Bendix has a clue about roster building as the team is going to cost $60m next year (once they move Arraez and Luzardo) and have 20+ roster spots accounted for. How much will Bruce spend to let them build the team on top of that. The $25-75-million question one might say. If he'll greenlight $110m for 2025 (i.e. what was roughly spent in 2023), I think we will all really like the team on paper. That's the glimmer.
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