What a day
Saturday was a day unlike any other for the Marlins, and the team's embarrassing 20-4 loss in Oakland may have been the bright spot
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Well, that was a day.
10:30 A.M. (EDT): While the deal had been reported—and widely discussed—the night before, the Marlins took to Twitter mid-morning to officially announce the trade of 2-time batting champion Luis Arraez to the San Diego Padres in exchange for 4 minor leaguers, none of whom has played above Double-A.
1:13 P.M. (EDT): In a tweet from ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, we learned the salary relief most assumed would be one of the primary benefits of this deal for the cost-conscious Marlins was actually going to the Padres, as Miami agreed to pay all but the pro-rated major league minimum ($740,000) of what remains on Arraez’s $10.6 million contract.
4:30 P.M. (EDT): Following a 3-hour, 23-minute rain delay, the Marlins finally played ball in Oakland, where they were embarrassed by the Athletics, 20-4. Now playing for the A’s, 2019 Marlins #1 draft pick JJ Bleday had the best day of his ML career, going 3-for-5 with a double, a home run, 4 RBI and 2 runs scored. Trevor Rogers and Darren McCaughan became just the 4th pair of pitchers in Marlins history to both allow at least 8 runs in the same game, the first since Dillon Peters and Jacob Turner in a 20-1 loss in Philadelphia in 2018. The Marlins are now 3-6 with one game left during what, on paper, should be the easiest 10-game stretch they’ll play all season, 3 consecutive series against the Nationals, Rockies and A’s, who all finished in last place in 2023 and were projected by nearly everyone to finish in last place again in 2024. Next up for the 9-26 Marlins: A 3-game visit to Dodger Stadium.
4:37 P.M. (EDT): Having flown from Miami to Oakland Saturday morning, Marlins rookie president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, in a a Zoom availability with members of the South Florida media, acknowledged that, “We are unlikely to make the playoffs this year.” He also said that trading Arraez was, “the first in a series of difficult decisions” the club will have to make.
As an aside, we heard a lot about “difficult decisions” from Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter when they took over the club in October of 2017. The on-field and front office decisions they made in their first year of ownership are largely the reason why rebuild #2 got started this weekend.
6:10 P.M. (EDT): Meeting the media in the visitors dugout at Chase Field in Phoenix, Padres president of baseball operations/general manager A.J. Preller said, “I think this (trade) was one where it just lined up both ways…where we could add an elite talent, we could do it at a price that ultimately fit for us here this year, and hopefully enables us to do some other things down the road if we need to.”
8:10 P.M. (EDT): In Phoenix, Arraez dug in to the left-handed batters box at Chase Field and led off a 13-1 Padres win over the D-Backs with a double to right field. He finished his Padres debut 4-for-6 with a double, an RBI and 2 runs scored.
THROUGHOUT THE DAY AND NIGHT: Twitter was on fire. I cannot remember another day—good or bad—on which Marlins Twitter exploded like yesterday.
As I said in my post immediately after the trade Friday night, dealing Arraez was inevitable. There are sure to be more trades to come.
The simple act of a bad team trading its best position player after the owner had shown through his actions since the end of last season that his 2nd attempt at a rebuild in 6-plus years was imminent is not the issue.
I included the 2 perspectives from Bendix and Preller above because I think they speak to an important point…one of the issues.
Bendix called this trade “the first in a series of difficult decisions.”
Preller, meanwhile, talked about how things “lined up” for the Padres in being able to “add an elite talent…at a price that ultimately fit for us…and hopefully enables us to do some other things down the road if we need to.”
The fact that Bendix laments trading Arraez as a “difficult decision” and Preller celebrates what a great opportunity the acquisition was and how it keeps further options open down the road for the Padres is a serious problem from the Marlins perspective.
As I said on Twitter yesterday, the Marlins held all the cards. They had a player the Padres have been pursuing since the spring. There was no looming deadline, as it’s only May 3, and the MLB trading deadline isn’t until July 30. The Padres’ options to add a hitter the caliber of Arraez at this stage in the season were incredibly limited. What other team with a hitter with a proven track record any where close to that of Arraez has already given up on its season? If the Padres were in such a rush to make a deal, they had no other comparable option.
This is my biggest issue with this deal. The Marlins should have held out for more. They should have gotten a better return, and they shouldn’t have to pay virtually all of Arraez’s $10.6 million salary this year.
If Preller and the Padres had balked, they wouldn’t have gotten the player they desperately wanted. And, again, what fallback would they have had on May 3?
Bendix claims there was pain that went into making this deal. Because of the circumstances, any pain should have been on the Padres side. If I’m Bendix, I’m not making this deal on May 3 unless the Padres had been willing to overpay in terms of players and take on salary.
Preller is the guy who should be talking about how difficult it was to make this trade, even if he ultimately went through with it.
The Padres got exactly what they wanted without over-extending themselves. The Marlins should have received more.
Beyond that, Bruce Sherman needs to explain his plan for this franchise to what’s left of his fan base. He needed to do that yesterday.
As the owner of a major league franchise, you control a community asset, a sacred trust. And you must be accountable. It’s not enough to send your head of baseball ops on an early-morning cross-country flight to field pre-arranged softball questions lobbed in his direction from people who are either paid by the club or hired at the discretion of the team.
As I said on Twitter yesterday, the Marlins love to boast about the benefits of being a season ticket member. They had a chance to prove that value.
Sherman should have hosted a Zoom with season ticket holders yesterday. He should have answered every question anyone in the group had no matter how long it took, and he should then have profusely thanked the life-blood of his organization for their support through all the ups and downs this organization has endured.
And when the Zoom was over, and Sherman had thoroughly explained to this audience why the Marlins are in this position 7 years into his ownership and how he sees things playing out in the short term and long term, a full recording of the Zoom should have been posted on Marlins.com, so anyone who wants to see it can watch it.
He may well have a brilliant well-thought-out plan for the next decade of Marlins baseball. Explain it to your most devoted fans. Explain it to the taxpayers who helped pay for your ballpark.
No one has heard from the man since his brief media availability in Jupiter on February 20. That’s when he dropped doozies like:
“I think the fans should look at the product that we have on the field and see what we do and just not measure it by a sound byte here and there.”
How has that one aged?
Then there was:
“I want to be in the playoffs every year, and I want to win. Peter (Bendix) is empowered to do all the things he needs to do to win, and we’re going to do those things.”
Judging from the unprecedented level of anger on Twitter yesterday, that’s not the message most Marlins fans are hearing right now.
Sherman owes this community answers. He owes an explanation of his vision because the last thing anyone has heard from him is he wants to be in the playoffs every year. If he doesn’t understand his obligation to communicate in a meaningful way, he has no business owning a major league team.
Then, there’s this:
Trying to give the Marlins the benefit of the doubt with this trade, I still have to wonder: What is the end game here? This is a question Sherman needs to answer. Luis Arraez seemed like the kind of player and teammate you build a ballclub around, but the reality is he never had any chance of being a Marlin for the long term.
He has an extensive track record of success at the major league level, and he was beloved by teammates and staff. But he reached arbitration, his salary jumped based upon his performance, and he’s gone in the blink of an eye.
So what happens if one or more of the prospects acquired from the Padres follows the exact same path? Are they also gone when their salary begins to rise in arbitration?
Replaced by the next 19-year-old in low-A ball?
Does this cycle just go on forever?
The owner of the Marlins has to answer that question.
One refrain I heard over and over from fans yesterday—which may sound silly to some, but it’s not—is they can’t buy their favorite player’s jersey because they’re afraid he’ll be the next one out the door. They’re afraid for their kids to grow attached to a favorite player because the grown-ups realize it’s just a matter of time before that fan favorite will be headed elsewhere.
Like a Stanton…a Yelich…an Ozuna…a Realmuto…an Arraez.
That’s no way to build a fan base. And there appears to be no end in sight.
Am I wrong about that? Tell us, Bruce.
I’ll end with this…
In my Friday night post, I shared the underwhelmed reaction to the Marlins’ haul written by Baseball America editor-in-chief JJ Cooper.
Yesterday Keith Law of The Athletic shared a more positive perspective on the players the Marlins received in a piece in which the headline read, “The Marlins made out like sharks.”
Part of his argument is the Padres only improved marginally by acquiring Arraez because they need pitching more than they need another bat. But he also had a more optimistic outlook on some of the players the Marlins acquired than Baseball America’s Cooper the night before. Law called it, “The best deal the Marlins have made in years.”
(I’d suggest that bringing back 2 legitimate major league #1 starters in Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara and All-Star Zac Gallen in a trade for Marcell Ozuna was a pretty good deal for Miami, even if the Marlins later lost a subsequent trade when they sent Gallen to Arizona in exchange for Jazz Chisholm.)
Regardless, here is what Law said about the 4 players the Marlins received from the Padres:
(Dillon) Head is the jewel of the trade, a first-round pick last July who’s tooled out with 70 (on the 20-80 scouting scale) speed, possibly even 80, along with plus defense in center and very good bat speed. He showed strong contact quality in 2023 after he signed, but that hasn’t carried over into the first month of 2024, where he’s also shown some trouble with pitch recognition. He’s only 19, and won’t even turn 20 until October, so there is plenty of time for him to make these adjustments, but I can also understand the win-now Padres deciding his major-league ETA is too far down the road to matter to them.
(Jakob) Marsee should be a quality fourth outfielder within the next year, maybe by the end of 2024, even with a slow start in Double A this year. He’s an above-average defender in center who’s a very smart basestealer and shows a strong approach at the plate, with a willingness to work a walk that makes up for a fringy hit tool. He doesn’t have great bat speed, so the contact quality isn’t there to make him a regular, and he may not hit lefties enough to get there regardless, but he should have positive major-league value for a long time as a part-timer.
(Nathan) Martorella has the hit tool that Marsee lacks, but none of the other stuff, as he’s probably a first baseman in the end — or a DH — and doesn’t have the power yet to profile as a regular at either spot. He’s a dead fastball hitter who at least hits lefties as well as righties, so there’s some reason to hope he can find a path to become a soft regular, either with more power or by boosting his offspeed recognition enough to hit for consistently high averages. He’s more likely a 45, a nice bench player/reserve who has pinch-hitting value and won’t kill you if he plays every day for a few weeks.
Woo-Suk Go is in the deal too, which I presume is to send some salary back to Miami. The KBO veteran (and brother-in-law of Giants outfielder Jung Hoo Lee) hasn’t been very successful as a reliever so far in Double A, although his 92-94 mph fastball has missed some bats.
There’s no denying the Padres gain a great deal and the Marlins lose even more in the short term.
As for the long term? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, Bruce Sherman owes Marlins fans some answers.
Today might be a fitting day for you to read (or maybe re-read) a post I wrote a year ago this month in which I wondered how things might have turned out had Bruce Sherman gone a different route when he purchased the Marlins in 2017.
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As always thanks for the commentary. Things just keep getting worse. I agree totally with another comment that Bendix was out negotiated. To get back some iffy prospects is bad enough, but to pay most of Arraez salary? I do not see things ever getting better as long as Sherman owns the team. My only hope is that somehow, someone shows up wanting to buy the team who is willing to overpay like Sherman did. Someone with deeper pockets who genuinely wants to win. I know that's not a likely scenario. But for now and the foreseeable future, that seems to the only hope I can hold onto.
Well, it's become apparent Kim Ng was prescient in leaving -- the writing was already on the wall. Though she successfully brought in some genuine talent that resulted in boosting the Fish into the playoffs, it was her other signings that put the question mark in her future. Her tenure left the Fish pond sadly depleted. She owns that. Now Peter Bendix owns this. He sure seemed uncomfortable in his interview with Kelly Saco last night. He kept looking over his shoulder like a man hiding from a lynch mob. His answers to all her questions were evasive and tentative. His kept using "we" in all his responses, except when he didn't. It was the part about "my vision for the future" and "I have the full support of ownership" that tells me this whole fiasco was his invention. This trade will tell us all we need to know about PB. Still, good to see the guys bounce back last night. Now let's see how Dodgertown treats them.