Marlins, MLB ‘kind of floating out here’ as they wait for clarity, Mattingly says
Some of Don Mattingly’s daily routines have been the same. The Miami Marlins’ manager is still talking with his players, coaches and fellow staff members. He’s still getting a workout in during the morning. He’s still preparing in every way possible to make the Marlins the best they can be.
But there are two distinct differences to his schedule during the past month: He’s not at a ballpark every night and he has put the razor blade down.
The normally clean-shaven Mattingly sported a bushy white beard when he joined team television play-by-play announcer Paul Severino and radio host Glenn Geffner for an hour-long interview Monday that was live-streamed on the duo’s “Sev & Geff Live” Periscope account.
It has been a month since spring training came to a grinding halt and the Major League Baseball season was postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Mattingly, who was supposed to be three weeks into his fifth season as the Marlins’ manager, is still mapping out what he can do to make sure his roster is ready for an eventual restart in action.
But without exact dates to work around, any advice about specific timelines would be guesswork at best.
“It’s hard to give answers when we don’t know what type of time frame we’re talking about,” Mattingly said. “I know they’re in the same boat. There’s nothing really necessary constructive that you’re able to do. You don’t know a time frame, so we’re all kind of floating out here not really knowing what’s going to happen next.”
Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for limiting large gatherings, mid-May is the earliest any form of team baseball activity is likely to occur, but even that isn’t a guarantee.
A few hypotheticals for how baseball could look once the season resumes have been floating around. The most recent include all teams will be quarantined in Phoenix and play in front of empty stadiums or that teams will play at their spring training sites with a one-year realignment in divisions based on geography.
Mattingly wasn’t asked about these possible plans or if he had a timeline for when baseball would resume, but Marlins CEO Derek Jeter and president of baseball operations Michael Hill last week said those ideas are speculation at best.
Mattingly, meanwhile, said the staff talks about once a week, and he texts players for updates on occasion, at least once every two weeks.
“Just let them know you still think about them,” Mattingly said. “I know they’re in the same boat.”
Remaining roster battles
When baseball went into its hiatus, the Marlins were close to set on what would have been their Opening Day roster.
Mattingly said Monday there were maybe three or four spots up for grabs on the 26-man roster and that “there were some pretty good competitions going on, especially in the pitching area.”
Two spots figured to be the platoon right fielder to platoon with Matt Joyce as well as the final bench spot. The bullpen was still a work in progress as well.
And even though it has been four-and-a-half weeks since the Marlins last took the field, Mattingly said he doesn’t believe they will have to go back to the drawing board to finalize those last few spots.
“I don’t think you go back to the very beginning,” Mattingly said. “You know what you’re able to see for a month. Even though there were still some decisions to be made, I think we have a pretty good feeling for our club.”
Once they get a starting date, the Marlins will attempt to pick back up where they left off.
“Things that we were able to hit on and push on, I think those are there,” Mattingly said. “We have talked about different ways to continue that messaging through this. As we, if we, get to a point where we know when or how long, we’re going to hopefully send messages to our guys and put some videos together and stuff that they could be looking at to refresh their memories of what we tried to accomplish during that month of spring training.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 2:29 PM.
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