Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Marlins not done shopping with closer still on market
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Winter Meetings are over. The Marlins’ pursuit of a high-end reliever is not.
Miami’s decision-makers headed back to South Florida on Thursday afternoon having checked off several items on their offseason shopping list — back-end starter (Jeff Locke), backup catcher (A.J. Ellis) and middle reliever (Dustin McGowan) once those deals become official — but without the big prize.
Kenley Jansen remains a free agent, and the Marlins remain in pursuit, alongside the Dodgers and Nationals. With Aroldis Chapman (five years, $86 million from the Yankees) and Mark Melancon (four years, $62 million from the Giants) off the market, Jansen is the Marlins’ last chance at signing an elite bullpen arm.
The organization’s bigpicture offseason goal of building a deep relief corps, to help cover for what is poised to be a mediocre rotation, for now hinges on Jansen’s decision.
“You don’t know the timeline of these things,” president of baseball operations Michael Hill said late Thursday morning. “We’ll continue to stay in touch with the respective representatives and follow where things go.”
Manager Don Mattingly said he personally called Jansen, who he managed with the Dodgers from 2011-15, to gauge his interest in joining Miami.
“He was open to the idea,” Mattingly said. “Obviously he’s a free agent, he’s going to hear from a lot of people and he gets to assess his situation of what he wants to do. My call was to let him know we’ve talked about him, there was legitimate interest and we just wanted to make sure that he had interest.”
The Marlins were reportedly the runner-up in the Chapman sweepstakes, which ended when he decided late Wednesday night to return to the Yankees, with Miami making an offer of five years and more than $80 million — likely similar to what it would take to reel in Jansen. Chapman’s contract with New York, with an average annual value of more than $17 million, makes him the highest paid reliever in major league history.
If losing out on a flamethrowing Cuban who spends his offseasons in the Miami area brought on any disappointment or frustration in the Marlins front office, Hill downplayed it Thursday.
“We were monitoring the reliever market. You knew that [Chapman] was a possibility to go somewhere else,” Hill said. “For us, we’re focused on adding as much quality and depth as we can.”
That will get much more difficult if the Marlins lose out on Jansen.
The market for secondtier relievers should take shape once Jansen picks a team. Among those the Marlins have considered: Koji Uehara, Brad Ziegler and Junichi Tazawa. All three pitched for the Red Sox in 2016, and Uehara and Tazawa thrived in 2013-14 under Marlins pitching coach Juan Nieves, then serving in the same role for Boston.
“Our goal is to add pitching depth,” Hill said. “We don’t know what form that will ultimately look like, but we’re exploring numerous reliever options.”
The Marlins have expressed little to no desire to trade from their positionplayer core. With the addition of Ellis to play behind J.T. Realmuto, the nonpitcher portion of Miami’s roster is close to set, except a bench player or two.
For now, all eyes are on Jansen.
“The offseason is still ongoing,” Hill said. “There’s still a lot of players available, and we’ll continue the quest to try to improve the roster.”