How the Miami Marlins are handling evaluations in a flooded free agent market
As Kim Ng has been reminded many times during her first month as the Miami Marlins’ new general manager, it sometimes feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day. Almost simultaneously, Ng is learning the ins and outs of the club’s baseball operations department that she is now running, still trying to have 1-on-1 conversations with players and their agents as well as the rest of her staff and mapping out the future for a team fresh off an unexpected playoff run.
All of this is happening at what is normally the peak of the offseason. The league’s annual Winter Meetings are in full swing, albeit in a virtual setting this year due to COVID-19. There are deals to be struck, conversations to be had and decisions to be made.
Ng and the Marlins — and all of Major League Baseball, for that matter — also have a flooded market of players to pick from. According to MLB.com, 264 players who were on big-league rosters last season became free agents this winter.
Deals are starting to trickle in around the league, with players such as first baseman Carlos Santana (two years, $17.5 million to the Royals), center fielder Brian O’Grady (one year with the Padres), right fielder Adam Eaton (one year, $7 million to the White Sox), and relief pitchers Trevor May (two years, $15 million with the Mets) and Matt Wisler (one year, $1.15 million to the Giants) agreeing to terms over the past week. The Mets are also reportedly closing in on a deal with catcher James McCann.
But the Marlins have been relatively quiet to this point. Their notable moves to this point: signing in-house first basemen Jesus Aguilar and Garrett Cooper to one-year deals to avoid arbitration, acquiring relief pitcher Adam Cimber from the Indians and clearing roster spots by designating Jose Urena for assignment, not tendering a contract to Ryne Stanek and waiving Robert Dugger.
Ng and the Marlins have their priorities in line. Miami’s goal before spring training is to beef up its bullpen and potentially add another veteran bat.
But with so many names to sift through, not to mention the possibilities that could become available via trade, how are the Marlins managing this potential overload of information?
“I can’t say that we’re gonna look at all 300 players,” Ng said Tuesday on the Marlins’ weekly offseason in-house Hot Stove radio show. “We obviously have areas of need, but we’ve been meeting with staff, scouts, people on the player development side as well as the analytics folks and kind of get everybody’s input in ranking these players. We’ve gone through a number of meetings already.
“With the relievers, we consider a lot of different types of information: The track record, the role they’ve had, their performance, how they perform in certain situations. I just make sure that the crew is together and that everybody is getting heard on how they view these guys and then you just try and press them out and then you start pecking away at that list.”
That could take time, which means moves might not happen right away, especially when considering the Marlins might not be going after the biggest names on the market. Miami could be in position to play the long game, watching how the market unfolds before making their final moves.
Remember, the Marlins didn’t sign the bulk of their free agents last offseason until after New Year’s. Corey Dickerson signed on Jan. 7, Francisco Cervelli on Jan. 9, Matt Joyce and Brandon Kintzler on Feb. 3.
“I think we’re just gonna have to see how it how it turns out,” Ng said. “I will say that in general I can be somewhat patient. I mean, it just depends and I think we’ll we’ll get a better read as time progresses, but I think the fortunate thing is that we’ve got a lot of guys returning, a lot of our core returning. I think we sit in a decent position, and we’ve got answers at this point. So we’ll just have to see how it evolves.”
This and that
▪ Ng said she plans to be around the team “quite a bit” during the 2021 season. “Having a pulse on the team is really, really important. I’ve seen clubs where they weren’t quite what they thought they were gonna be and when you’re with them, you have an idea of what their psyche is and at what point you need to make a move. So I do think it’s really important to be with them.”
▪ Ng said she has begun having conversations with players and plans to continue reaching out to “several each week” as the offseason continues to unfold.
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