‘We’re starting to really buy in’: Marlins find early success with depth, sacrifice
Joey Wendle turned 32 on Tuesday, celebrated by belting a game-winning home run to beat the Washington Nationals and then, as the second oldest player in the Miami Marlins’ lineup, dispensed some wisdom.
With their series-opening win at Nationals Park, the Marlins reached .500 for the first time this season and Wendle, who was a first-time All-Star last season and helped the Tampa Bay Rays reach the MLB postseason in each of the last three years, does consider it something of an important early-season accomplishment because of the way Miami is trying to win, particularly on offense: The 13 hitters on the active roster have combined for just three All-Star appearances and none have been to multiple MLB All-Star Games; 12 have played in at least nine games and 10 have already managed to start at least 11; only one player has played in all 17 and none have started every game.
“On this team, everybody’s a role player,” Wendle said Tuesday. “Some guys’ roles is to drive the ball and put runs on the board, some guys’ role is to be defensively sound and play multiple positions. It’s something that we’re starting to kind of take form.
“We’re starting to really buy in.”
Through 16 games, the Marlins were averaging 4.00 runs per game — something they haven’t managed across a full 162-game since 2017, when outfielders Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich were still in Miami — and doing it at a time when scoring is down by nearly half a run per game across all of MLB.
Although they only won 2-1 behind starting pitcher Pablo Lopez’s latest gem Wednesday, the Marlins (9-8) have a winning record for the first time this season.
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Star second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. is pacing the team with a .673 slugging percentage — the second best in the National League — and he has batted seventh, eighth or ninth in the bulk of his games and frequently gets pulled against left-handed relief pitchers. Wendle leads the team with a .362 batting average and he was mostly a bench player to start the year until Miguel Rojas missed three straight games with flu-like symptoms — the shortstop returned to the lineup Wednesday in Washington and Wendle moved from short to third base. Two more reserves — outfielders Jon Berti and Bryan De La Cruz — both have on-base-plus-slugging percentages better than 1.000 while appearing in at least nine games.
“We’ve had a plan,” manager Don Mattingly said Tuesday. “Everybody’s kind of chipping in right now.”
On Wednesday, Miami even sent Brian Anderson — who has been the Marlins’ most valuable offensive players across the last five seasons, according to Baseball-Reference.com’s wins above replacement — to the bench and the long-time third baseman been out of the starting lineup six times despite boasting the fifth best OPS on the team.
The flexibility comes as a product of the Marlins’ offseason activity and the maturity of some former top prospects. Chisholm has blossomed into a true star in his second season in the Majors and outfielder Jesus Sanchez, also in his second season, as been another of Miami’s best hitter. General manager Kim Ng complemented the young core by adding outfielders Jorge Soler and Avisail Garcia, who have struggled so far, but are still close to everyday fixtures in the lineup because of their track records as a former All-Star and reigning World Series Most Valuable Player Award winner, respectively.
“We have guys on our bench that deserve to be playing,” Wendle said.
Added Rojas: “I’ve been here a while and it’s never been like this before.”
Rojas is the unofficial captain and more plugged into organizational decisions than anyone else on the roster and even he didn’t quite expect this look until spring training started and Anderson started to work in the outfield, just to find a more consistent role in a potentially improved lineup.
Despite a few high-profile decisions to pinch hit for Chisholm with a right-handed hitter late in games in the first two weeks of the season, Miami’s extra depth hasn’t actually manifested through platoons — the Marlins have the lowest platoon-advantage percentage in the NL and only seven pinch-hit at-bats, albeit in largely high-leverage situations. Instead, Mattingly views his depth as a long-term advantage — a way for Miami to keep players fresh, ride hot hitters and play advantageous matchups.
“Hopefully, we can continue,” Mattingly said. “We’ll keep everybody in the mix. If we can do that through the course of the year, you feel like guys will be stronger, but also it keeps everybody playing and that’s really you like is your whole group feels like they’re a part of it.”
It has helped the Marlins get off to their best 17-game start in a 162-game season since 2017.
With players being asked to sacrifice more than they have in recent years, Wendle believes it matters.
“They lost a lot of games last year and I know that didn’t sit right with a lot of guys,” Wendle said. “It just kind of verifies what we all already believed.”
Up next
Miami will try to finish off a three-game sweep of the Nationals (6-14) when they close out the series Thursday at 1:05 p.m.
Starting pitcher Trevor Rogers will be on the mound for the Marlins, facing off against Washington starting pitcher Patrick Corbin.
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 6:40 PM.
