Just hear me out...
Could the best of times have been the worst of times?
I realize this will sound absurd to some. And most in the Marlins organization would (publicly, but not privately) find the notion laughable. But the 2nd week of November is as good a time as any to throw out an outside-the-box baseball thought that seems crazy at first blush. So here goes:
As we sit here today, was making the playoffs in 2023 actually a bad thing for the Marlins?
I know it sounds ridiculous. But think about it.
Prior to 2023, the Marlins had averaged 64 wins and 98 losses in Bruce Sherman’s first 4 full seasons of ownership. They’d scored the fewest runs in MLB and ranked at or near the bottom of the majors in most offensive category since the sale of the club at the end of the 2017 season.
Outside of Sandy Alcantara, the players acquired in Sherman’s “Welcome to Miami” fire sale trades of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, J.T. Realmuto and Dee Gordon had collectively netted Miami virtually nothing.
Sherman’s first 6 drafts have yet to produce a single position player who has made a significant impact in the major leagues for Miami.
Entering 2023, the Marlins were universally projected to finish 4th in the NL East, ahead of the rebuilding Nationals but a good distance behind—in some order—the Braves, the Mets and the Phillies.
But then it happened. The Marlins parleyed a 53-39 first half, dominance over clubs at the bottom of their respective divisions and a remarkable 33-14 mark in one-run games into a trip to October.
Did they benefit from expanded playoffs the last 2 years opening the post-season door to more teams than ever? No doubt.
Did they benefit from the unimaginable collapse of the star-studded Mets, Padres and Cardinals, 3 teams that seemed like playoff locks when they arrived at Spring Training? No doubt.
Did they benefit from the late-season meltdowns of the Wild Card-contending Cubs (7-15 to close out the year) and Giants (9-19 to close out the year)? No doubt.
Still, the Marlins found their way to the postseason. 18 of the other 29 clubs across the league didn’t. No matter what’s going on around you, any team that survives the grind of 162 and is one of the last 12 standing deserves credit.
But then the Phillies made quick work of the Marlins in a Wild Card series sweep, and this is where things begin to get interesting.
While it’s easy to look at 84 wins and a brief playoff cameo as a step in the right direction, I wrote extensively late in the season about why the Marlins’ relative success in 2023 was anything but a guarantee they’d ascend higher in 2024 because of some of the factors mentioned in this piece, not to mention the need for further roster development and investment in the club.
While many fans picture success as a linear progression—you go from 69 wins in 2022 to 84 and a playoff appearance in 2023 to contending for a division title in 2024—history informs us that’s not necessarily how it works, especially when you’re a low-revenue team that is never going to outspend most teams in the league and a team whose 2023 success, as referenced above, wasn’t built on the sturdiest of foundations.
Sherman himself clearly wasn’t sold on where the franchise stood 6 years into his ownership, as, shortly after the season ended, he moved to demote his general manager Kim Ng by informing her of his intention to appoint a baseball ops chief above her. That led to Ng declining her end of a mutual contract option for 2024, and the break up was met with great angst by many—not all, but many—Marlins fans.
And here’s where my contention comes into clearer focus.
Let’s say the Marlins had gone 75-87 in 2023, an improvement over 2022 and just about where I had them pegged going into the season. Or what if they would have been better than that but missed out on the playoffs on the final weekend after their strong first half. In either of those cases, the decision to move on from Ng would have been a lot easier to explain and would likely not have been met with much, if any, backlash.
They could have said she’d been here 3 years (2 with full autonomy). The win-loss record hadn’t improved as much as the owner had hoped. Drafts still weren’t panning out as the organization would like, and the farm system isn’t producing big league-ready talent.
It would have been much easier to sell the need for a full organizational reset going into year 7 of Sherman’s ownership.
It would have been easier to explain not just the hiring of Peter Bendix as president of baseball operations, poached from the Rays to build up the organization’s infrastructure, but also the to this point under-discussed reality of what Bendix’s arrival means. As I wrote Wednesday, Bendix is here to give Sherman a 2nd shot at starting from scratch. The process that he and Derek Jeter initiated when they arrived in October of 2017 didn’t come close to bearing the fruit of long-term sustainable success Sherman had envisioned. Bendix arrives to begin the process anew.
However, having made the playoffs, having seen a small bump in attendance and having created some hope and expectation for 2024 among fans actually makes getting total buy-in for this tougher.
Fans who have been asked for patience at various points throughout the club’s history (and have often demonstrated their patience through what I’ll politely call apathy), finally thought they might have seen a light at the end of the tunnel in 2023.
Anyone paying attention could see the nucleus of a strong starting rotation, some solid pieces in the bullpen and at least a few position players—notably NL batting champion and Silver Slugger Luis Arraez, Josh Bell, Jake Burger and Jazz Chisholm—around whom the Marlins might be able to construct a decent lineup for the first time since 2017.
The most optimistic of Marlins supporters figured that, with a dive into free agency this winter, the Marlins could bolster their batting order at multiple positions to the point where the club could muster an extra run or 2 a lot of nights. And if they could do that, maybe the 2024 Marlins could achieve something unprecedented in franchise history: a return to the playoffs for a 2nd consecutive season.
Is that what they were talking about when they floated the concept of sustained success?
2023 was a pleasant surprise. For the first time in a while, the end of a season left Marlins fans with hope and, dare I say, even expectations for the season to come.
But what now?
Is it possible Sherman simultaneously invests in the organizational infrastructure build-up Bendix has been brought in to orchestrate and increases the 2024 payroll by tens of millions of dollars in an effort to win immediately while also building for the future?
Sure. That’s possible.
Is it likely?
Marlins history and Sherman’s track record tell us probably not.
And that pill would seem to be a lot tougher to swallow for fans who jumped on the bandwagon this past season, based upon the team’s surprising run to the playoffs.
Rebuilds are easier to pitch when you’re perpetually down and out. In 2023, the Marlins finally lifted themselves off the mat and showed they could be competitive with a lot of the league, giving fans hope for the immediate future by sneaking into the expanded playoffs.
They finally took what felt like a significant step forward.
But what’s followed virtually every step forward this franchise has ever taken?
A step or 2 back.
Bendix may ultimately put this franchise on solid footing for the long haul. Maybe one day, before too long, the Marlins can achieve the degree of perennial success enjoyed over the last 15 years by the intra-state rival Rays.
But for now, it seems like they’re headed back to treading water at the big league level for a couple of years while Bendix goes to work behind the scenes. And that will be tough to accept for fans who bought into the team’s 2023 growth and began to believe that the tomorrow they’ve long been promised was only a day away.
MORE ON THE HIRING OF PETER BENDIX
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Well said Glenn! What you're saying makes a lot of sense. It's almost like we will have to take two steps back to take multiple steps forward over the long term. But, given the history of this franchise, will fans be willing to put up with that. We, as Marlins fans, have trust issues. And those trust issues are well founded. So, this will be very tough for a lot of fans if indeed things fall out the way you're saying. Over the long term, this fresh start might lead to the kind of sustainable success that we all have hoped for. The question is, Will the majority of the fans of this team be willing to be patient once more given everything that has happened with this franchise since the start?
I think the 2023 unicorn season has both created fanciful expectations and, by the same token, shored up the reality that we're opportunists. I know this seeming incongruency well from years as an Expos fan. Enjoy those flares that we describe as windows of opportunity. The realities of modern baseball finances force these windows shut quickly for low-income teams. Most seasons, we're the running back picking his way along the line looking for a crease. The latter was the 2023 season. Expanded playoffs, the unlikely poor team performances you listed, luck, and the thinnest of margins aligned. So, you're right that success whets the fans' expectations. We must have that hope, without being pollyannish.