What the Marlins can take away from the World Series as the offseason officially begins
A Major League Baseball season like none other, one played under the shadow of a global pandemic, came to an end Tuesday. The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, to win the World Series.
It capped a campaign that started four months late and had its regular season shortened to 60 games, its postseason expanded to 16 teams and its clubs playing under a microscope as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the country. MLB dealt with scares from the pandemic when both the Marlins and Cardinals had COVID-19 outbreaks early in the season, causing the league to tighten its health and safety protocols and adjust schedules on the fly.
But MLB carried on its season to fruition. It was capped with a neutral site World Series matchup featuring the No. 1 seeds in each league, although the Dodgers and Rays took drastically contrasting paths to becoming MLB’s top teams this year.
And while the Marlins were spectators at season’s end, eliminated from the expanded playoff field in the National League Division Series by the division rival Atlanta Braves, the matchup between the Dodgers and Rays provided some data points for what needs to happen for the Marlins to take the next step in their rebuild and go from making the playoffs to contending for the title.
Playoff experience is valuable for playoff success
One of the Marlins’ biggest disadvantages in the playoffs, at least on paper, was their lack of players with quality postseason experience on their roster.
Of the 31 players who were on at least one of the Marlins’ postseason rosters (either the wild card series vs the Cubs, the NLDS roster vs the Braves or both), only seven had previously played in a playoff game prior to 2020. Two of those seven — shortstop Miguel Rojas and late-inning reliever Yimi Garcia — had each only played in one postseason game. Meanwhile, the Marlins had 13 rookies among their 40 players eligible for the postseason roster.
Compare that to the Dodgers, who have been to the playoffs each of the past eight years and had 27 players with a combined 525 games of playoff experience among the 31 players who were on at least one of their four 28-man roster configurations. That included 10 players who had appeared in at least 25 postseason games.
The Rays, meanwhile, only had 77 combined games of playoff experience among their players — the fourth-lowest among the 16 teams to reach the postseason — but their group contained 14 players who were part of Tampa Bay’s playoff run last season that ended in a 19-18 loss to the Houston Astros in Game 5 of the American League Division Series.
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Payroll isn’t the ultimate indicator of postseason success
While the World Series is generally a matchup between teams in the upper-echelon of payoffs, the 2020 Rays provide a fascinating case study for how a low-payroll team can make a playoff run.
Tampa Bay had the lowest payroll among playoff teams this season and the third-lowest roster payroll overall this year at $28,290,689, a prorated total with only 60 games being played compared to the normal 162. The Rays were the first team with a payroll below league average to make the World Series since the Cleveland Indians in 2016.
Only three Rays players had salaries larger than $3 million this season: starting pitcher Charlie Morton ($5,555,556), outfielder Kevin Kiermaier ($3,870,370) and starting pitcher Blake Snell ($3,192,593). All but four players on the Rays’ World Series roster (Morton, Kiermaier, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and catcher Mike Zunino) will either be in arbitration this offseason or are still in the pre-arbitration phase of their MLB career.
Sounds pretty similar to the way the Marlins are constructed right now. The Marlins, at $31,330,593, were the second-lowest among playoff contenders and fourth-lowest in all of baseball. Nine of the 16 teams to make the playoffs this year had a payroll below the league average ($59,477,865). The Yankees and Dodgers had the largest payrolls, both over $100 million despite only paying prorated salaries of about 37 percent.
Miami will have no more than four veterans beyond arbitration under contract at the start of the offseason.
Outfielder Corey Dickerson has one year left on his two-year, $18.5 million contract he signed last December. Rojas is due $5 million.
The Marlins are exercising outfielder Starling Marte $12.5 million team option and have until Sunday to decide if they want to pick up closer Brandon Kintzler’s $4 million option. Eight players — catcher Jorge Alfaro, third baseman Brian Anderson, first basemen Garrett Cooper and Jesus Aguilar, and pitchers Richard Bleier, Yimi Garcia, Ryne Stanek and Jose Urena — are eligible for arbitration this year. Everyone else under team control at this point is essentially set to make the league minimum in 2021.
Still need to perform
Money spent and experience aside, teams are judged by their performance in big situations.
The Dodgers, time and time again, lived up to the expectations. Primariliy, Los Angeles’ offense stepped up in key situations just as it did all season.
Some data points:
▪ The Dodgers hit a staggering .308 with two outs during the playoffs, with 59 of their 101 runs scored and 13 of their 30 postseason home runs coming when they were down to their final out in any given inning. The Rays only hit .188 with two outs in the playoffs after hitting .231 in those situations in the regular season.
Two-out production was a Marlins specialty this year, with Miami ranking seventh in MLB this year with a .251 batting average when down to its final out in an inning. That success didn’t translate into the playoffs. The Marlins hit .128 with two outs over five playoff games.
▪ Almost a quarter of the Dodgers’ runs (24 of 101) came in the seventh inning or later. Tampa Bay only scored 15 runs in the late innings during the playoffs, including just six runs in that timeframe during the World Series.
▪ The Dodgers had a .268 batting average with runners in scoring position, continuing their success from the regular season during which they ranked second in the league in that category (.291). The Rays only hit .184 during the playoffs when they had a runners on second or third base.
‘A great step for us’
The Marlins are now at their latest critical juncture.
The Marlins are three years into their rebuild and the team’s core — led by Sandy Alcantara, Brian Anderson, Miguel Rojas and Pablo Lopez — made significant strides during a playoff run. Seven of the club’s top-10 prospects, including the organization’s No. 1 overall prospect in starting pitcher Sixto Sanchez, made their debuts and played key roles as the season progressed.
This all came a year after finishing with a National League-worst 105 losses.
“There was excitement for us to be one of the final four National League teams,” CEO Derek Jeter said recently, “and it was a great step for us as an organization to see some of the progress that we’ve made.”
Jeter knows the Marlins need to build on the momentum the organization gained this season.
“It sounds simple but it’s very true: Our guys need to get better,” Jeter said. “We had a lot of young players that have come up this season. A lot of them came up a little earlier than expected because of the circumstances and I think they all got a taste of playing in the major leagues, but they have to improve.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 11:00 AM.
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