Miami Marlins still looking for impact bat, ‘but you can’t rush it,’ GM Kim Ng said
Even if there appears to be no movement on the surface, Miami Marlins general manager Kim Ng said the team is still pursuing an impact bat to round out the team’s lineup ahead of Opening Day on April 8 against the San Francisco Giants.
“I can tell you that my phone is up and working at 6 a.m.,” Ng said Friday, adding that “the staff is making a lot of calls and we’re still trying to address that situation.”
In an ideal situation, the player would be a “center fielder who is an offensive threat” and that player would have been in camp “yesterday” in order to have enough time to get acclimated to the organization before the season begins.
But not everything is an ideal situation at this point. MLB’s 99-day lockout of its players while a new collective bargaining agreement was worked out chopped up the offseason, with several key free agents still on the market after talks had to cease.
The Marlins have been linked to several top free agents targets but nothing has materialized to this point and now the key options are starting to slim down. Nick Castellanos reportedly is signing with the Phillies, leaving Michael Conforto as the top unsigned free agent outfielder that has been connected to the Marlins unless they pursue the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds on the trade market.
“We obviously want to have that person in here as soon as possible,” Ng said, “but you can’t rush it; you can’t force it. I think we have to have a good understanding of where the market is and just make sure that we’re making good decisions.”
Among those good decisions Ng is striving for: Making sure the Marlins are not going to “mortgage the future” — in other words, overcompensate on a trade by shipping off a slew of prospects — unless the player they are trying to acquire is worth it.
“Then,” Ng said, “I think you have to go to Plan B.”
That would be signing an impact bat regardless of position and going in-house when it comes to center field. While the Marlins might not have a natural center fielder on their 40-man roster after Monte Harrison was designated for assignment on Friday, they do have enough outfielders with center field experience to the point where they can mix and match on defense. This group includes Avisail Garcia, Jesus Sanchez, Bryan De La Cruz and Jon Berti among their 40-man players and Roman Quinn and Delino DeShields Jr. among non-roster invitees to big-league camp. Top prospects JJ Bleday and Peyton Burdick also played center field in the minors last season and are expected to start the season in Triple A Jacksonville, putting them on the cusp of the big leagues.
“We feel like we have enough on the roster or within the organization to pick up the slack,” Ng said.
This story was originally published March 19, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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