Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 292 | Miami Marlins | Profile & Projection

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

You guys ranked the Miami Marlins as MLB's #19 team. Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe are previewing their 2021 campaign! Presented by DraftKings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Time for another team profile and projection. And today we are doing the Miami Marlins. My name is Jimmy. I got Jake with me. Trevor, as always, producer Bug Bug Bug Dude. This is Talking Baseball brought to you by Draft Kings. Thank you very much for tuning in as we continue on our journey of doing one episode a day, every day until opening day. This is episode number, insert number here.

Miami Marlins, our audience ranked them to be the 18th best team in Major League Baseball this season. They made the playoffs last year, the bottom feeders. They won a playoff series feeling good about themselves. Fish with arms, Jake. Can you tell me who they lost, who they added, and what stayed the same? Yeah, the 31 win fish they lost. A couple young guys they had been excited about. Jordan Yamamoto, Jose Urania.

Their times with the fish are done. Ryan Stannick, he's out. Brandon Kinsler out of the bullpen. The tarp is off. Stephen Tarply Dugger. Talked about him before. Brad Boxburger, I bet, buddy. Cervelli retires, Logan Forsyze.

Sean Rodriguez, they're still out there. And Matt Joyce, Trevor Ploofs, Matt Joyce. He's out. You're out, four eyes. who they added Adam Duvall Had a huge year last year Anthony all about that base Dylan Floro comes over

John Curtis Let's get into the bullpen guys From both World Series teams Ross Detweiler Adam Simber How about that? Zach Pop So a couple MLB arms in there That they'll be added to Kind of what's already the fish's strength Trev

But for now Can we talk about that lineup? Yeah they had a couple guys here kind of rebound, have big years last year. So we're looking to see if they can capitalize on that and do it again. A catcher, another former team in mind, Jorge Alfaro, former Phillies dude, got massive pop. Speaking of pop at first base, Jesus Aguilar, who had a disappointing 2019, but killed it in 2020. He was kind of the bottom feeder's guy.

He was that mantra that they had. He was the embodiment of it. At second base, we got John Bertie, shortstop. John Boy Media, sort of Miguel Rojas. He'll be joining Chris Rose on our Chris Rose rotation show. Plug that one. My bad. At third base, Brian Anderson.

Had a really good year last year. Left field, Corey Dickerson, centerfield, Starly, Marte, and in right field. Adam Duval. Pretty good lineup. Jim, this is what we're waiting for. Tell us about those arms on the fish. They got Sandy Alcandera.

He's good. Pablo Lopez. He's good. Sixto Sanchez announced his presence with authority. Eliaser. How do you say it? Yeah, you're all there. Hernandez.

Trevor Rogers, Daniel Castano and Braxton Garrett. Who's that? Sure. Relievers, they got Anthony Bass. Yimi Garcia. Dylan Floro. Richard Blyer. Zach Pop.

Zach Pops, fun to say. I was happy. I don't know. This team's decent. I wish they weren't in the East is the biggest thing. They made the playoffs last year. They won a series, but they were lucky, right?

Like, weren't their batting stats actually bottom of the league, like below average? They had a crazy season with the Corona stuff. But they made some noise. They had some fun. I don't know. Sixtho Sanchez is the fun guy to remember. Sandy did pretty good.

A lot of unearned runs on Sandy. Defense letting them down. They beat the Cubs in the playoffs. What are you thinking about? They did, man. It was a fun year for them. And I think all offseason I've been telling myself that all these other NL East teams have gotten significantly better

or, you know, have made moves or, you know, even if the Braves stay where they are. They've been the dominant team. There's a lot of young guys. There's a lot of young guys still on the way. I would love to hear, you know, hey, yeah, Jeets, let me in the building and let me know what you're thinking. Because, I mean, Jazz Chisholm, he should be on the way. Oh, yeah, you bet. J.J. Bladay, Max Meyer, who was a third pick in last year's draft.

He was supposed to be one of the most MLB-ready guys. people thought there might be a chance he'd get the call last year. Does he get the call this year? Or are they saving things for next year? I think that's going to be really interesting to see because this lineup's fun, man. I didn't realize how good Miggy Rojas was for them last year. Some MLB guys, Starling Marte, they picked him up at the deadline last year.

That was a really fun thing. On paper, I like this team. I think when we start doing our TPP game of like, if this team was in the Central, what would they be? I think I'd be saying high praise. I just, what is this team ceiling in the NLE East? And I think that's some real, that's us staring some eye glances at each other. Would you be willing?

Let's do it in negotiation style. Okay. Would you be willing to make their ceiling four? Yes. Okay. I agree. Treve? I mean, we're talking ceiling.

Ceiling. I like high ceilings. I like high ceilings. You're big into cathedrals. Is anyone going three? Yeah. Yeah, I'll go three. I believe in disaster.

Okay. And I believe in the Nats, the Phillies, or the Mets. One of those three going disaster mode on us. I don't know which one. I don't know which one. I think the Braves are pretty steady, Eddie. They're going to be good. Yeah.

I think all those teams can also finish first, the disaster once I said. but I just believe in disaster. Even the Phillies? Yeah, I think the Phillies can win the division. Okay, all right. Maybe. They're sealing. Let's see.

We'll save that for the Phillies TPP. Let's save that for the Phillies TPP. I don't know, Treve. I mean, where are you at, man? Where are you at, big dog? Do you guys know I like to base my predictions on pitching, specifically starting pitching, and it's kind of, you know,

they did the damn thing. And I know I call guys, and I don't call them. I guess Blake Snell did it first, but I also like to call them slap dick prospects. They got a bunch of prospects in the top 100. And that's kind of where they're at. So to me, Jim,

I think you always make this point with teams when they have a bunch of guys near Major League ready. It's like how much are they really going to be going after this season? And we're talking from a front office standpoint. Clearly the guys in the field are going to go try to win every damn ball game. because it's their career.

But where are they, are they going to get help? Are they going to bring some of these guys up to help the roster and take away that extra year of control? Probably not. Like, Jets, your guy, like he's, he knows what he's doing. For all the stuff I talk about Jets,

like he's done well with this franchise. Got him into the playoffs last year, has bolstered their farm system. I just don't think they're really going to go for it this year. And I, you know, for some teams, I don't like saying that for this team, I do like saying it because of the division they're in. Very, very tough division. I just don't see them.

They also have no one on the books. A couple years ago. A couple years from now, we're going to be talking like, dude, the Marlins are awesome. I don't think it's going to be this year. But I do, I mean, we're not there yet, but when we look at their over-under, I have a pretty damn big lean. John, before you go to the books, Trev, what you're saying, we look at fan graphs for a lot of stuff. Their top nine prospects are expected to be playing Major League Baseball this season. So, you know, are they going to bring them up?

This cheater, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be an interesting talking point on the fishy season. A lot of guys getting looks. Who's JJ Bladay? What a name. J.J. Bladay. Have we done this on here before? No, I think he was this year's draft. So maybe we did. That's such a good name, J.J. Bluade.

2019, he was the fourth overall pick. So, I mean, and that's the thing, like, with these, with these guys, these are real draft picks on the way. J.J. Blu-Dade, that's the fourth pick. J-J-J-Bleday. We do like that. Max Meyer, three overall. Like, these are, these are the real deal. When do they get the call?

What do their, what does their minor league season look like? What does the MLB season look like? I, um, I want to talk about Miguel Rojas, if you will let me. Please. Your guy. So he does have a podcast on the Jammal Media Network, the Chris Rose rotation with Chris Rose. But I was singing his praises well before this even happened. It was like a nice surprise when Rosie told us he was going to tap him in to be a co-host.

Because this dude's cool. He's fun and he does not swing and miss. And he puts balls in play. And he had a hell of a year last year and a good year in 2019 as well. They call him the leader. They call him like Donny Baseball Light or they have some Donny Baseball nickname for him. but Miguel Rojas, his whiff rate, right? So here's some analytics for you, Trev.

His whiff rate on fastballs, the last two seasons, 2019 and 2020, has been 10%. League average whiff rates 25. Dude. And he does. And I mean, it adds up because his hard hit rate isn't up there. His exit velo isn't up there. He's only in 2% of barrels.

So he's not squaring him up. but he's just putting the ball in play and it's been working out for him. Kind of a fun watch, old school baseball a little bit. I like him. Don't throw him a off speed pitch either because he fucking crushes those.

He had a 545 batting average against soft speed pitches last year. He consistently, last two years, hits like breaking in off speed better than fast balls. It seems like, I haven't watched a lot of his full-out bats or like day in, day out,

and so I'm asking Marlins fans, does he just, sit breaking and react fastball? That's kind of what the... You can. It's kind of what the stats say. Yeah, you gotta... You gotta not care about getting your A swing off all the time.

Like a lot of the new hitters, they just do A swing the entire time, so they have to sit fastball and either spit on or throw the bat at the breaking. It seems like he sits hammering off speed and breaking and then throws the bat and gets weak contact, but base hits on the fastball, which I think is fun. We can go in-depth on this.

I mean, look, an A-swing, I get it. I understand why guys want to put your A-swing on the ball because you get paid to slug. But A-swings only work when you're feeling A-plus. When you're not feeling A-plus, you've got to make an adjustment. And I don't say go up there and sit breaking ball, but sometimes when your cadence is that of an off-speed pitch, you know, I'm not talking, go up there looking for a 70-mile-an-hour pitch.

If you bring your cadence down, like, you know, in the 80s, 82, 83, 84, slows you down a little bit. And yes, are you going to get maybe beat on some heater? Sure. But you're going to be more on time for other pitches. And you're going to see the ball a little bit longer. And I think, you know, when you're a guy who plays shortstop and you don't really need to slug, like go ahead and take that approach, use the whole field.

And I'll tell you what, some of the sluggers, the big boys, they'd need to do that too. stop worrying about getting your A swing off all the time. You're strong enough. Barrel the fucking ball up. I wish we were at Spring Train. I wish we were at Spring Train and beating up on some heaters right now. I think this team, and I said this with one other team before, and I don't think the Reds had this, who we just talked about

because they've got some money on the books. I think this might be your trade deadline team. Starling Marte is in the last year of it. Corey Dickerson is in the last year. year. McGee Rojas has an option for next year, I believe. Jesus Aguilar. Well, he's in ARB, so you can do some things with that.

Brian Anderson's a really good baseball player. That deserves to be said. Really solid third baseman for them for a little while. Almost everyone in the bullpen is a free agent next year or ARB. So Adam Duval, 7.1. So I think this year is going to be a year of discovery for the Marlins. Find out who are going to be your in-house stars. find out is Sixto Sanchez the truth or is he going to have some growing pains this year?

Sandy Alcantara showed us something last year, Pablo Lopez. So I think you find out what you've got. Like Jim said, the books are as clear as they can be, and we don't expect the Marlins to spend spend. But, you know, you can increase the margins with some tactical free agents. And I think if you trade, you know, Starling Marte at the deadline for maybe a bullpen piece for next year, whatever it is. I think you start lining up next year,

and you see how this NL East is going to sort out because it's, man, it's going to be a madhouse. Jerry Madhouse. I was just looking at Sixtho Sanchez's repertoire. Repettoe? Repetto. It threw his change-up more than any other pitch. Kind of interesting.

There's a young guy coming into the league. He does have that Pedro change-up. He models it after him and all that shit. But then Pedro's pinky is basically a piece of rubber band, and he can't do that thing. Pedro can bend his pinky back all the way to his wrist. This is as far as mine goes. He's just got to break his pinky.

Just break your pinky six, though, and then maybe you can even get a better whip on the change up. I didn't if he did that. I thought he was taller than he is. He's six feet tall. I thought he was like six foot, seven. I usually hate saying this about teams, but they're in such a perfect position.

And jeats, man, got to give him credit. As all the other NLA East teams are spending, kind of signing some big contracts, and we know these owners don't want to go over that threshold. Here the Marlins are, not even close to it. And they got all these guys, these really, really high pedigree draft picks coming up, and a lot of them are pitchers.

They already have pitching at the major level. I mean, they are stocked with talent, and they have money to go spend on free agents and supplemental pieces, and it's going to be really interesting to see. They've got part of the equation, done already. Now, it's up to Jets and the rest of the front office to go supplement the talent, go out and get the big free agents.

Still got to develop some of these guys, but they're in a really, really good position, you know, in 2021, 2021, 2022 to make a splash. And people, let me tell you this, I told you guys this before. Florida and Texas, those are free agent destinations. People want to go play there. If you put out a good team and can show a future, guys want to go there. Guys want to go there because you get more money. You save money.

They got a lot of things working for them. I also think. And Miami's awesome. Trev, they're in such a position where like if they are playing really well and outperforming and they're somehow in a fight for a wild card, their payroll is so low right now. It's $62 million that they can go at a guy like they did last year with Starlin Marte. who has just one more year, where some of these teams that have already spent so much money,

they're not going to pick up a guy who's got another year attached to them, where the Marlins, they added Starlin Marte, so they're paying him $12.5 million this year, and they don't care because that takes, they're still shed a $20 million from last year to this year, and they're going to do the same next year. So somehow they are, if they do find themselves like attacking the wild card, I think they're in a position to add one or two guys

that may be these big clubs that have seen, already spent so much money would be more hesitant. But that's kind of like a fun best case. They're an incredible spot. And if you're a, I don't know how many, you know, fans are going to be watching this without a team. But if you're a person just getting into baseball and you don't want to hop on a bandwagon, this is the team.

This is the team to go and say, I was a fan before. Because they're in the next couple years, we're going to be talking about it. Oh, okay. Before. Before. That was the key word there. Because, hey, I'll,

I'll say this. Like, Jim, you said, you know, chaos and baseball can happen pretty easily. I said, I believe in disaster. What are the Nats? Chaos is a ladder. What are the Nats going to look like? I mean, you know, they brought in Schwabo one year. Josh Bell, does he have one year left or is it two?

You know, those giant Scherzer and Strasbourg contracts get worse by the day. You know, we were so excited about these Mets. Frankie Lendor hasn't signed the extension yet. You know, that was supposed to be the whole thing. Marcus Stroman signed the qualifying offer. What does Cindergards? I got bad news for you. What's that?

The Nationals only have three players on the books in 2022. But they're big players and they're on the books for big money. And hey, they might want to lock up. Where is their farm system at? They might want to lock up that Soto guy as well. So in the Phillies, they've got some big contracts. So I think you let this year sort itself out a little bit. Let the chaos happen.

get a couple more prospects or things that help increase the margins. And then, hey, maybe Jeter's playing some serious chess, Trev's guy Jets. We get a couple new CBA rules. Maybe there's a salary floor. And maybe the Marlins can make a splash or two in free agency. I don't know. Chess not checkers. You want to hear a full-line?

The first-ranked farm system. What's that? Say it again? The nationals have the 30th ranked farm system. Out of how many, though? It's a good question, Jim. It's a good question. That's where you really find the answer there.

Yeah. Do you want to hear a cool lie? Yes. Jeter texted Chris Rose, said, really glad that you hopped on with John Boy Media. I love those guys. Yeah.

That is a cool lie. I think I might have just myself have taken Jets out of our worlds. I've been talking too much crap. But now I'm giving them credit. I'll give credit when credit is due. I want this lineup when we do TPPs next year

to have the money. most turnover. Write that down. Write that down. Turn over. Like a British dessert. Since I've been going like this with the Marlins, can I go like this with the Marlins? Maybe what's that mean?

For the audio only people, Trev moved his hand up, like a grising graph. And then it was a plummeting graph. Escalator going down. Yeah. So you want to, now you want to be mean to the Marlins. Yeah. Their uniforms are the worst in baseball. Stop it with that.

Stop it with whatever, whoever you hire to design your uniforms, they're fired. Go do it again. I know it's only been a few years since you changed your logo, but go do it again. You don't think they fit Miami. You can't even see what it says. You don't, what are you mad at? The color scheme? I don't like the colors.

I don't like the color. Oh, yeah. Color scheme number one. But don't you think like the neon lights vibe kind of fits Miami? Miami Vice. Neon lights. It doesn't, it doesn't work because there's no neon coming out of the jersey. Go full Oregon Ducks.

You know, if you're going to live in that area, you might as well go. I think they tried to. Yeah. That's what they tried to do, but they didn't get there. And like, did we didn't go to their spring training facility, did we? But if you go to their spring training facility, there's a logo on their building. It says Marlins, I think, but you can't read it because it's like black on black. Weirdest thing I've ever seen.

I just, that, it really, I really can't stand. So for all the great things they're doing it. in Miami. Change the unis. Go back to that awesome teal and black you have. Yeah, those are kind of. Do you like light black, dark black, glossy black, or matte black the most? That's the Yankees pitching coach.

I think like dark, dark is my favorite. Yeah. Like midnight. Zach, ask him his favorite color, dark black. You kind of just whisper. Zach said that? Yeah. Zach, what's your favorite color?

Dark black. Yeah, like a black hole. Like it's sucking everything into it. Max's fun stat. Sixtho Sanchez was the only pitcher in all baseball to rank in the top 10 of average velocity for all three of four seamers, curveballs and sliders. That's called stuff.

Throws everything fast. Over under. I'm looking at it right now. I don't know if you guys are. If you want to guess, you can. If you don't, I'll just tell you. I'm getting a guess at 70.5. Also, I looked at it.

Yeah, I know. I could tell. I already looked at you. I told you I have a huge lean on this. Go on. Over. For the audio. And people, Trevor has pointed out.

Point it up. Put it up. We do. This is a podcast. Over. Big lean over. Maybe sprinkle some cash for all Trev on that. I like that a lot.

Over. Is this a 90 lost team? God. In their division. And then the A. Al East as well. Yeah. ALE East isn't as good as we think.

Who's better? The Blue Jays or the Marlins. Comparable No You just lied Yes Maybe it's closer You think

No No dude the Blue Jays are really good On paper Men Yeah on paper This year 70 70 feels low though

You know what I'm gonna do Like you can be a bad team And win 72 games Yeah 70 does feel low I agree with you there It is a tough division But this is a good baseball team Yeah

Like these guys win series If you run into 6-0 and Sandy on a good day You're gonna win a series Give me the over All right, I'm showing a random video of Miguel Rojas And whatever this is He grounds out It's a hit and run

It's a nice play by Rosario Yeah I'm not gonna Because the other teams take the step up That's the Marlin season They do something kind of good But they're just going up against better competition You know what that is? You know what that is?

That's like a 75 win season there. Done. Yeah. We're all on the over. Yeah. Wow. Put it down. Mark it down on your sock. Mark it down on your sock. I forget where you've been marking those down, but just make note of it.

Go Max Meyer. Their pick from last year, they even talked about bringing that guy during the season. Hey. I'm just joking, Max. I know nothing about you. I just said I wasn't. He's a redhead. He got to like that.

A redhead named Max. I had a redhead named Max in high school. Madam. You guys love Clinton? Hey, wait. His initials were M.M as well. Oh, shit. University of Minnesota.

I had a redhead of Max. Go first. Fish with arms. John Curtis. If you can till the land, you can marry my daughter. That's what you do is put fish in the soil, guys. Put fish in the soil. Everyone knows that.

We're farming. I'd love to listen to a Far-In podcast. Just for a second.