As ‘gut-wrenching’ 2021 season ends, Miami Marlins anticipate active offseason
They all used different descriptors, but the sentiment remained the same.
“Gut-wrenching,” manager Don Mattingly said.
“A failure” is how left-handed pitcher and National League Rookie of the Year contender Trevor Rogers put it.
“No one should be happy,” CEO Derek Jeter said.
The Miami Marlins came into the 2021 season expecting to be competitive, expecting to build off their run to the playoffs in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, expecting to take the next step four years into this rebuild that took place under this ownership group led by Jeter and Bruce Sherman.
Instead, the season ended with disappointment.
Miami closed the season with a 5-4 win over the Philadelphia Phillies but went 67-95 this year, which is the seventh-worst record in franchise history. They finished fourth in the NL East, ahead of only the Washington Nationals in the division.
“The expectations were a little bit higher coming into this year,” Jeter said. “Any time you go through a season like this, you have to sit down, you have to evaluate, reevaluate, and see how we’re going to get better in the offseason for next year.”
How will they avoid another letdown?
Time to open up the checkbook.
The Marlins received a revenue bump this season from their stadium naming rights deal with loanDepot and with an improved television deal with Sinclair.
They also have relatively little on the books for 2022 when it comes to player contracts. Shortstop and de-facto team captain Miguel Rojas will make $5.5 million. Late-inning reliever Anthony Bass is set to make $3 million. They have a dozen players who are arbitration eligible on their roster that they will have to make decisions with.
Other than that, the rest of the Marlins’ roster is set to make at or around the league minimum.
“We’re going to have some money to spend and get those impact free agents in the ballpark,” Marlins general manager Kim Ng said Friday on MLB Network.
One day later from loanDepot park, Jeter added: “I expect this offseason to be active for us, whether that’s talking with free agents or exploring some other moves. But for the first time, really since we’ve been here as an ownership group, I expect to be pretty active — or I should say, have active conversations. There’s two sides to it.”
Which puts the Marlins in prime position to find a veteran hitter or two to supplement their young core of position players and provide support for a starting rotation that has the potential to be among the best in baseball.
On the surface, catcher is arguably the Marlins’ biggest need heading into the offseason. Finding another proven hitter will likely be on the top of the list as well.
No matter who the targets are and how they are acquired (be it free agency or trade), the goal is simple: Compete to win the division and find a way to unseat the Atlanta Braves at the top of the NL East.
“That’s the only way you can look at it,” Mattingly said. “I think the build thing, we’ve been there and we’ve done that. It’s time. Said it two years ago. It’s time to make that move. We were able to make it in the short term. We weren’t able to sustain it this year, but that has to be the only mindset when you’re making decisions. Can this guy be a part of us winning this division? And if not, then we need to keep going.”
After falling out of contention in the middle of the season, the Marlins spent the final stretch of 2021 getting a closer look at those top prospects to find out who might play a role in the team’s future.
Outfielders Jesus Sanchez and Bryan De La Cruz, first baseman Lewin Diaz, utility infielder Eddy Alvarez, and catchers Alex Jackson, Payton Henry and Nick Fortes got their opportunities to show how they can help the team next season. So did pitchers Edward Cabrera and Jesus Luzardo.
No jobs are guaranteed, but the evaluation was needed even at the cost of an already disappointing win-loss record.
“Sometimes you take a step back,” Mattingly said, “but it’s to move forward.”
And move forward they must.
Miami is heading into Year 5 under the Jeter-Sherman regime. There’s no room for excuses at this point. Potential has to start evolving into results.
On to 2022.
“It’s a different mindset and a different message this time,” Rojas said. “You know that you need to get better. You know there’s a lot of things that you need to do to compete next year and the chase start right now with the mentality that you leave today off the field to come into spring training physically ready. That’s my biggest message to the group today: Next year in spring training, we need everybody to be physically ready for Day 1.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 6:50 PM.
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