COVID adds uncertainty to offseason
Kim Ng is eager to get to work, to start forming the Marlins into a team that can make a repeat postseason run after shocking the baseball world and reaching the National League Division Series in Major League Baseball’s pandemic-truncated 2020 season. The new general manager’s hire came almost a month into the offseason, with free agency already underway.
So the expectation should be that the Marlins, fresh off a playoff run and hoping to keep that momentum going, would make a big splash early, right?
Well, not exactly.
Most of MLB, the Marlins included, is treading lightly to start the Hot Stove season with so much uncertainty surrounding the sport due to the lingering implications from COVID-19, which is seeing another surge in the United States. More than 250,000 people in the U.S. have died due to the novel coronavirus.
“MLB is working very hard on the different options and avenues, and I think really we are held a little bit of a hostage at this point to the pandemic, to COVID,” Ng said on MLB Network. “Really, where we are with the vaccine, I think that’s going to be a huge, huge part of this. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
That wait-and-see approach could go on for a while. Teams took revenue hits during the shortened 2020 season with no fans in the stands and are still waiting for clarity about what revenue streams will look like next season. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league plans to be “more aggressive about having fans in ballparks” but having stadiums at full capacity seems like a fantasy at best.
“If local public health authorities allow for fans, I think you’re going to see fans in the ballpark next year,” Manfred said during a panel discussion held by the
Paley Center for Media this month. “Now, will it be full stadiums? I kind of doubt that. But we do think it’s important, and it’s why we did it in the World Series and the [National League Championship Series]: to get people accustomed to the idea that you can go to these live events with appropriate protocols, pods of people, social distancing, masks, and do it safely.”
In the meantime, signings and moves have been minimal so far this offseason despite the bevy of big names on the market. The free-agent class is headlined by the likes of catcher J.T. Realmuto, Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer, outfielders George Springer and Marcell Ozuna and infielder D.J. LeMahieu.
But since free agency officially opened Nov. 1, just six players have signed big-league contracts: left-handed pitcher Samuel Clay to the Nationals, left-handed pitcher Drew Smyly and righthanded pitcher Josh Tomlin to the Braves, third baseman Jason Vosler to the Giants, left-handed pitcher Robbie Ray re-signing with the Blue Jays and righthanded pitcher Sam McWilliams to the Mets.
Three of those six — Vosler, Clay and McWilliams — have yet to make their MLB debuts.
The only move the Marlins have made to this point is signing right-handed relief pitcher Alexander Guillen to a minor-league contract.
But that doesn’t mean the Marlins have been standing idly by. Ng, hired by the Marlins on Nov. 13 as the first female general manager in MLB history, has spent the past week assessing the roster she has at her disposal. She inherited a young team that is beginning to see the prospects it acquired during the past three years under the Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter ownership group reach the major-league level.
MLB Pipeline ranks the Marlins’ minor-league system as the fifth best in baseball, with 24 of the club’s top 30 prospects joining the organization during the past three years. Seven of the top 10 prospects — pitchers Sixto Sanchez, Trevor Rogers and Braxton Garrett, shortstop Jazz Chishom, first baseman Lewin Diaz and outfielders Jesus Sanchez and Monte Harrison — made their MLB debuts in 2020.
“It’s great to have outsiders tell you where your farm system is,” Ng said, “but I want to hear firsthand from the coaches that have been dealing with them, from the scouts who drafted them, from the international scouting director who signed them [to know] where we are and who these players are. That’s, at this point, the nuts and bolts of the job.”
While building from within is key for a low-revenue team like the Marlins, they have pressing needs to address if they want a chance to return to the playoffs for a second consecutive season. But how far are the Marlins willing to go?
Two of their three primary late-inning relief pitchers in Brad Boxberger and Brandon Kintzler are free agents. Do the Marlins make a splash and sign a Trevor May, Trevor Rosenthal or Brad Hand? Do they try to bring back Boxberger and/or Kintzler at lower salaries? Or do they hope in-house players such as Ryne Stanek, Jeff Brigham and Alex Vesia, among others, can complement Yimi Garcia in the back end of the bullpen?
Their offense, while improved in 2020, still needs consistency and pop. They have veterans in outfielders Corey Dickerson and Starling Marte for another year
(at a combined $22 million, it should be noted). Shortstop Miguel Rojas has improved at the plate, third baseman Brian Anderson is a budding star and the first-base tandem of Jesus Aguilar and Garrett Cooper have high ceilings, as well. Will the Marlins be confident that their top position-player prospects will take the needed steps forward to fill out the rest of the lineup? Or will they find a mid-tier player on the market, similar to what they did last season with Matt Joyce?
And how will they balance their 40-man roster overall with any outside additions, considering 13 of the 40 spots will be held by prospects now that infielder Jose Devers and outfielder Jerar Encarnacion were added on Friday to protect them from the Rule 5 draft?
Only time will tell.