10 Burning Questions (7th in a series)
#7: Where do the Marlins find more offense?
With the Marlins’ 2023 season in the books, VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS continues its look ahead to 2024 in this multi-part series in which we’re discussing some of the primary burning questions the organization will need to answer this offseason that could go a long way toward defining its short- and long-term future.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve had to recalibrate this series a bit in recent weeks. With Peter Bendix taking over baseball operations from Kim Ng, in my opinion, the Marlins have signaled a shift in philosophy that has upended their plans for the offseason (and my original plans for this series). Had Ng stayed in charge, it would have been easier to see the Marlins spending the offseason in an attempt to meaningfully add to their roster in hopes of building on their 84-win season in 2023 to make another playoff run in 2024. The hiring of Bendix can easily be interpreted as a signal that Bruce Sherman has instead opted for a full organizational reset and to play the long game.
Players who may have seemed like likely targets for a club trying to get from 84 to 90 wins may no longer be in the cards this offseason. Instead, you’re likely to see more moves like trading for soon-to-be 26-year-old Vidal Brujan.
The best I can do as I look ahead to 2024 is present my thoughts on what the club can do in the short term with what I’d consider a balanced approach, playing the long game while also appreciating the value of what a 2nd consecutive season of contention would mean in the eternal effort to build a devoted fan base in South Florida.
#7: WHERE DO THE MARLINS FIND MORE OFFENSE?
Last month’s announcement that Jorge Soler has exercised his right to opt out of the final year of his contract was not at all surprising. And while there is always the incredibly slim chance the 36-home run slugger could agree to a new multi-year deal to return to Miami in 2024, this seems like a good time to tackle the question that has vexed the Marlins throughout Bruce Sherman’s time as owner.
Where does the club find more offense?
When you combine the players traded away on Sherman’s watch—like Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and J.T. Realmuto—with the club’s mixed record of acquiring hitters and the organization’s inability to draft, sign and develop impact major league bats under the Sherman regime, it has been ugly.
You can measure offense in any number of ways, but it ultimately comes down to scoring runs. And since Sherman bought the Marlins in October of 2017, the club is dead last in Major League Baseball in runs scored.
21 big league clubs surpassed 700 runs scored in the 2023 season. The Marlins haven’t scored 700 runs since 2017, the final season of Jeffrey Loria’s ownership.
In 2023, the most-successful season of the Sherman era during which they won 84 games and earned a Wild Card spot, the Marlins ranked last in the NL and 26th out of 30 ML teams in runs scored.
The Marlins were a distant last in scoring among teams that made the playoffs, producing 62 fewer runs than the next-lowest-scoring post-season club in either league, the Milwaukee Brewers, who—like the Marlins—were swept in the Wild Card round.
They scored 281 fewer runs than Baseball’s highest-scoring club, the Atlanta Braves. On average, the Marlins scored 1.7 fewer runs per game than the Braves.
And that’s the team Miami would have to run down for supremacy in the NL East.
Moving past the bottom-line stat of runs scored, the Marlins were below ML average in nearly every offensive category this season, and that was with Luis Arraez leading the majors in batting average and ranking 3rd in hits, while Soler, now a free agent, tied for 8th in the NL in home runs.
Using Wins Above Average (which many consider a better tool for evaluation than Wins Above Replacement) as a barometer, the 2023 Marlins got a positive (higher than 0.0) WAA at only onae offensive position: second base (2.6 WAA).
They ranked in the upper half of MLB in WAA at only second base (4th at 2.6) and DH (15th at -0.7).
They ranked in the bottom third of MLB (21st or lower) in WAA at catcher (28th at -2.2), left field (28th at -2.1), third base (27th at -2.2), first base (26th at -1.8), center field (26th at -0.8) and shortstop (21st at -0.6). Their outfielders combined to rank 27th at -3.5. Their position players overall combined to rank 24th at -8.9.
And, still, they won 84 games and found their way into the playoffs.
So imagine what a little more offense could mean to a team that made its living pulling out one-run games, often very low-scoring one-run games.
Imagine removing some of the pressure that seemed to constantly rest on the shoulders of Miami starting pitchers, especially heading into a 2024 season during which the Marlins already know they’re going to be without ace Sandy Alcantara, who’ll miss the year following Tommy John surgery.
Imagine the bullpen having a little margin for error, not feeling like relief pitchers have to be close-to-perfect to hang on to slim leads night after night.
78 of the 162 games the Marlins played in 2023, nearly half, were decided by 2 runs or fewer. An extra run here and there with comparable pitching to what they received could be transformative, maybe helping them steal some narrow wins and maybe making some close wins a little less close, potentially saving some of their top relievers from overuse.
Adding muscle to a lineup that ranked near the bottom of the league in home runs is critical.
The glass-half-full way of looking at this is—as the WAA rankings show—if you go around the horn, the Marlins have plenty of options in looking at positions where they could look to improve. The bad news is, that won’t be done cheaply.
Whether its through free agency or trade, the price of bats will be steep this winter, particularly with the free agent position players pool being shallower than in most years.
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