A look at the Marlins’ three undrafted free agent signings (so far) and draft feedback
The Miami Marlins planned to be active in the undrafted free agent market.
In a perfect scenario, they would sign about 10 players to supplement the six pitchers they took in the shortened, five-round draft.
So far, they have added three players in Florida State pitcher Antonio Velez, VCU infielder Brett Norwood and Air Force outfielder Ashton Easley.
Velez, a 6-1, 212-pound left-handed pitcher, primarily worked out of the bullpen in two years at FSU.
He struck out 71 batters in 62 2/3 innings, walked 14 and had a 3.16 ERA. His most memorable outing was his final one, tossing six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts against the top-ranked Florida Gators in Gainesville. He also threw 4 2/3 scoreless innings against LSU in the 2019 NCAA Super Regionals.
Norwood, a left-handed hitting infielder, posted a career .303 batting average in two years at VCU after transferring in from South Florida State College. He stole 30 bases in 64 games and played primarily shortstop and third base at VCU.
Easley, the Marlins’ second pickup from Air Force in as many years, had a career .301 batting average with 36 doubles, 15 triples, 17 home runs and 89 RBI in 165 career games (140 starts) over four years.
He had a breakout year as a junior, posting a .327/.377/.545 slash line with 15 doubles, 46 runs scored, seven home runs and 30 stolen bases. His 15 triples at the time of the 2020 season stopping were the most among active Divison I players.
Draft feedback
For the second consecutive year, the Marlins are getting high marks for how they fared in the draft.
The Marlins took pitchers with all six selections they had in the abbreviated draft: Minnesota righty Max Meyer (No. 3), Oklahoma prep lefty Dax Fulton, Ball State righty Kyle Nicolas, Coastal Carolina righty Zach McCambley, Vanderbilt lefty Jake Eder and USC righty Kyle Hurt.
“As far as taking the pitching, we didn’t plow into this draft thinking we’re gonna take all pitching,” Marlins director of amateur scouting DJ Svihlik said. “I can give you at maybe at another time there were very specific position players that we liked. Some of them slipped through the cracks. This is just the way the board landed. We knew that the draft was really deep in pitching. The position players that we really, really liked ended up getting taken right ahead of us. We had them lined up on the the board that way. They just got taken.”
MLBPipeline ranked Miami’s all-pitcher draft as the second-best out of all 30 MLB teams, noting that all six pitchers have “intriguing upside”
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel wrote that the Marlins “drew universal praise in the industry for their haul.”
The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote that “This is the most I’ve liked a Marlins draft in 10 years — since the 2010 class that led off with Christian Yelich, at least — and it signals a very new, coherent approach to the draft from the new regime.”
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