Jeter happy ‘nerve wracking’ Marlins season ends in playoffs but there’s still work ahead
Derek Jeter watched the Miami Marlins clinch their first playoff spot in 17 years from a distance.
The franchise’s CEO was back in Miami on Friday night as the Marlins defeated the New York Yankees, a team he played with for all 20 years of his Hall-of-Fame career, to secure a postseason berth.
The Marlins celebrated at Yankee Stadium, six years to the day after Jeter hit a walk-off single in his final home game as a player.
Jeter, three years into the Marlins’ rebuild that he has had a heavy hand in creating, could take some time to reflect even if it was from a distance.
“It was nerve wracking, to say the least,” Jeter told the Miami Herald before the Marlins’ regular-season finale on Sunday. “I know what our team has been through throughout the course of the year, and, you know, to put ourselves in a position to clinch a playoff spot after everything that we’ve been through — I’m sitting here I’m watching every pitch like I do throughout the course of every season —I couldn’t have been happier with a group of guys.
“If any team in baseball deserves to be going to the postseason, it is this team here.”
It marks the latest step of the Marlins’ rebuild that began when the ownership group led by Jeter and Bruce Sherman. Miami toiled in MLB’s cellar for two years, posting a collective 120-203 record, while the organization fortified its minor-league system to create depth that would help the team prosper full time.
The first positives on the MLB side came through this season, but don’t take that as a sign that Jeter individually or the Marlins collectively are satisfied with just making the postseason.
“You’ll always hear me say that we’re not where we want to be because we’re always going to be trying to get better,” Jeter said, “but there is a belief there throughout our organization and confidence will take you a long way.”
What the Marlins endured in this 60-game, pandemic-shortened season has been mentioned ad nauseam.
For the quick recap:
▪ A week in quarantine after 18 players tested positive for COVID-19. The scouting, analytics and player development departments had to scramble to find players to fill out the roster. Some from within the organization. Others found through waivers, trades and free agency pickups. There were doubts at the start of the outbreak whether the Marlins would continue their season.
“I don’t think anyone slept,” Jeter said. “The players weren’t sleeping as well. And you get to a situation where you’re in the middle of the night and everyone’s waiting on a phone call. We’re waiting on test results to show up, praying that no one else does positive. It got to a point where it seemed like it was a slow drip players that continued to test positive and you wanted it to end. Obviously, the health of the players and staff is first and foremost, so you’re in constant communication with the league, figuring out what the next steps are, how are we going to get the test results, when we’re going to get them back sooner. How many days you have to build before you can even think about playing, where we’re going to be going next. The changes in schedule. There was quite a bit going on. I don’t know chaotic is the right word to use but I’ll use it in this particular situation.”
▪ Eighteen players make MLB debuts, including 10 players currently ranked among the team’s top-30 prospects according to MLB Pipeline. Miami also made nearly 174 roster moves throughout the year.
▪ They spent 23 day on the road to begin the year, starting with two exhibition games against the Atlanta Braves and three with the Philadelphia Phillies to begin the season before the outbreak occurred.
▪ Sunday, the regular-season finale, caps a 24-day stretch in which Miami played 28 games without a day off.
But the Marlins never hung their heads.
“You’re looking at a team that, outside of our clubhouse, there weren’t a lot of people that had expectations for us and our team believed that we had a good team,” Jeter said. “We went out there and we played every single day to win. And I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
Jeter also praised manager Don Mattingly for his ability to keep the team together despite the challenges the team went through this season and, for that matter, the three seasons prior.
His message to Mattingly, outside of congratulations: You can exhale now.
“It’s been a year where it seems like every game you’re on the edge of your seat and it seems like every game we’re playing was a must win, must win, must win,” Jeter said. “I know Donnie has been through a lot prior to us getting here, and you know there’s been a lot of losses along the way. But it was just ‘Congratulations.’ You know, I appreciate the fact of all the work that he’s put in.”
.JPG)