As Bendix continues to overhaul Marlins roster, a youth movement is in full effect
Entering his second season as Miami Marlins president of baseball operations, Peter Bendix believes he has a better understanding of where things stand in the organization.
Now, it’s about executing his vision.
“Year 1 was a lot about assessing the entire organization, the entire baseball operations department, from top to bottom — on field, off field, understanding what we have, what we don’t have, what we need, and how to get to that point as quickly as we possibly can,” Bendix said. “Year 2 is about starting to actually go in that direction.”
To Bendix, that means putting a priority on the players the Marlins have acquired — almost all with minimal big-league experience at most — over splashy free agent additions. Miami only signed one free agent to a full MLB deal this offseason — right-handed starting pitcher Cal Quantrill, who finalized a one-year, $3.5 million deal on Wednesday.
Miami’s projected payroll for the 2025 season as the roster currently stands is a league-low $70 million, according to FanGraphs.
It has led to a youth movement and an overhaul of Miami’s roster.
No one on the Marlins’ 40-man roster is older than 30, and the two who are 30 — Quantrill and Anthony Bender — had their birthdays this month.
“The strategy is building up a base of talent throughout our entire organization,” Bendix said. “We started doing that over the course of the year.”
Ten players on the 40-man roster were acquired via trades last year and over the offseason: pitchers Valente Bellozo (from Houston for Jacob Amaya) and Adam Mazur (from San Diego for Tanner Scott and Bryan Hoeing); catcher Agustin Ramirez (from the Yankees for Jazz Chisholm Jr.), Max Acosta (from Texas for Jake Burger), Deyvison De Los Santos (from Arizona for A.J. Puk), Matt Mervis (from Chicago for Vidal Brujan), Connor Norby (from Baltimore for Trevor Rogers), Graham Pauley (from San Diego in the Scott/Hoeing trade) and Jared Serna (from the Yankees in the Chisholm trade); and outfielder Kyle Stowers (from Baltimore in the Rogers trade).
Moreover, 20 of team’s current top 30 prospects according to Baseball America were acquired since Bendix took over. This includes eight of the team’s current top-10 prospects in shortstop Starlyn Caba (No. 2, acquired in the Jesus Luzardo trade with the Phillies), Ramirez (No. 3), outfielder Luis Cova (No. 5, an international free agent signing), Mazur (No. 6), left-handed pitcher Robby Snelling (No. 7, the Tanner/Hoeing trade), outfielder PJ Morlando (No. 8, MLB draft), shortstop Andrew Salas (No. 9, international free agent signing) and Dillon Head (No. 10, acquired in the Luis Arraez trade with San Diego).
“We need to make sure that our young players have playing time,” Bendix said. “We have young players with a lot of talent. They need to have the opportunity to go show what they can do.”
Will that priority of development and come at the expense of winning games and thus what can be viewed as another lost season at the MLB level? Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections has the Marlins going 62-100 this year — matching their record from last season that was the third-worst in MLB in 2024.
“I think winning and development can go hand in hand. I don’t think you need to sacrifice one in order to get the other and that’s a huge point of emphasis for our coaching staff moving forward,” Bendix said. “Player development doesn’t stop in the big leagues. So no matter how good a player you are, you can always get better. You can always improve at something. The very best players are always having that mindset. We certainly have players that need to improve. Our very best players need to improve. The last guy on our roster needs to improve. Everybody. It’ll be such an important focus point for us to get everybody better.”
When asked for specific players he wants to see take a major step, Bendix pointed out that the Marlins have “a handful of guys who have performed really well in Triple A, and they haven’t really gotten their foothold in place in the big leagues.” Among those in Bendix’s eyes are players such as Stowers, Mervis, outfielder Griffin Conine and infielder Eric Wagaman.
“They’ve really done a lot in their minor league career to suggest that they can be good big leaguers, and they haven’t quite taken that next step yet,” Bendix said. “I think with each of those guys, we believe that they can and they will have the opportunity to.”
That starts with this six-week stretch of spring training, where everyone on the roster will have a chance to show what they offer to the team and have a chance to crack Miami’s 26-man roster.
But beyond that, Bendix looks at spring training more from the development perspective than just the results that are shown during Grapefruit League games.
“Spring training is ultimately for getting ready for the season, and it’s easy and exciting and fun to jump to conclusions,” Bendix said. “But we also understand not only is it a small sample size, but it’s not the same competitive environment as regular season baseball, and so the last thing we want is for any of these guys to put too much pressure on themselves. They don’t need to worry too much about what they do in spring training. They need to worry about the process, their physical and mental well being, the way they show up every day, the work they put in. If they do that, the results will come.”
Bendix hopes those results come sooner than later.
“It’s an incredibly important time in our organization,” Bendix said.
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