Peter Bendix feels ‘really good’ about Marlins. What he had to say as spring training ends
New Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix has said that spring training is one of his two favorite times of the baseball season. The other, of course, is the playoffs.
Now that spring training has wrapped up and Bendix has spent the past month-and-a-half surveying everything he can about the organization, Bendix is now ready to show the Marlins can return to the postseason after making a surprising run to the playoffs in 2023.
And while the Marlins will deal with a slew of pitching injuries to start the season — three starters in Braxton Garrett, Edward Cabrera and Eury Perez will begin the season on the injured list — Bendix still remains optimistic about the team’s strength carrying through when the season begins Thursday against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I feel really good about the team right now,” Bendix said. “I’ve learned that we have a lot of really good pitching, probably even more than I would have guessed coming into spring — some guys making really positive impressions — and feel really excited about what we can do one through five, even with some injuries and some guys coming back from being hurt that we expect back fairly soon. Just feel really good about the depth of the team.”
Bendix recently touched on a slew of topics prior to the Marlins wrapping up spring training. Here are some of the highlights.
▪ Of the “long list” of players who caught Bendix’s eye this spring, he made sure to single out left-handed pitcher Ryan Weathers, who will slot in as Miami’s No. 3 starter to begin the season. Jesus Luzardo, A.J. Puk, Trevor Rogers and Max Meyer round out Miami’s rotation to start the season.
“It’s hard not to start with Ryan Weathers,” Bendix said, “and what he’s been able to do with in spring training, what he’s been able to do really in terms of the quality of the breaking ball [and] the command. We all knew that he had velocity, but he’s really shown a lot of growth as a pitcher. Very excited to see what that looks like in the regular season.”
A quick aside: In addition to winning a rotation spot, Weathers also won the Marlins’ annual spring training ping-pong tournament, beating Bendix in the final.
“I have no comments,” Bendix said. “Suffice to say on that day, the better guy won.”
▪ On Sixto Sanchez, who made the Opening Day roster after shoulder injuries kept him sidelined for three years: “He has been a very, very pleasant revelation. To see him get better every single time that he’s thrown the ball, dating back to bullpen sessions and his first live BP, and to see him — you can watch him gain confidence even from the first pitch of an outing to the last pitch of an outing — You can see that the the old Sixto is still in there. And I think he’s beginning to understand that he can really turn it loose and let the ball go and it’s not going to hurt his shoulder and it’s still going to be 97-98 [mph]. And to see that while he still has the slider and the changeup and the competitiveness and the command, there’s a lot of positives.”
▪ On how he navigated spring training: “Really, it’s just watching and learning. Seeing Sixto’s competitiveness on the mound, it’s different to hear it about it than it is to see yourself. Seeing how guys move. Watching Tim Anderson move at shortstop and seeing that he looks healthy and looks confident just kind of understanding who they are on the field. You can only do that by watching the games.”
▪ On the lineup: ”The lineup is going to be really deep, and I think that’s an underrated component of a good offense. There’s not really a three- or four-batter stretch where the pitcher is going to be able to take a deep breath. That’s something that I’ve seen in the past have an underrated effect over a long season. When you’ve got quality hitters hitting sixth, seventh, eighth, when you’re catcher is not necessarily an easy out, and when you can really roll nine guys deep, there isn’t an opportunity for the pitcher to rest. That is a really important part of the lineup.”
▪ On catcher Christian Bethancourt: “CB’s leadership has been off the charts in a very positive way since Day 1. He’s a lead-by-example, quiet kind of guy, but he has also spoken up. He’s helped the pitchers understand what it is that we’re trying to do as an organization. He’s seen a lot of different things in this game, and I think he’s really called upon that experience for a lot of our young pitchers — pitchers doing different things in a different role than they’ve been in before. He’s kind of a calming presence. We’ve seen him make mound visits in spring training where he’s waved off the pitching coach and say ‘I got this.’ And sure enough after the mound visit somebody who has scattering the ball before is in the zone it’s those types of leadership things that he brings.”
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