The next frontier for Marlins’ Marsee. And Lopez, Mesa brother postscripts
Some Marlins notes on a day the team opened spring training and agreed to a deal with veteran left-handed reliever John King:
Aside from Dontrelle Willis (14-6, 3.30 as a rookie), center fielder Jakob Marsee might have had the best opening act of any Marlins rookie in history — at least the first month.
When he was promoted last Aug. 1 from Triple A Jacksonville, Marsee became an immediate impact player, hitting .352 (with a .430 on base), four homers, 25 RBI and nine steals in 30 games in August alone.
In the process, he became the first Marlins player to reach base four times in his debut; tied a franchise record with seven RBI in a game on Aug. 13 at Cleveland; and joined Giancarlo Stanton and Miguel Cabrera as Marlins under 25 with 35-plus hits and 25-plus RBI in a single month.
But he didn’t make September look quite as simple. During the final five weeks of the season, the numbers were more typical of a rookie: a .231 batting average, .292 on-base, one homer and eight RBI in 25 games.
His overall numbers were exceptional (.292, .363, five homers, 33 RBI, 14 for 20 in steals in 55 games). But the slow finish convinced him he needed to adjust, but only to an extent.
“Every week they [were] pitching me a different way,” he said last week. “The big thing for me is not to overadjust. I started to overadjust a little bit and they were able to expose some things.
“It went from them [pitching] a lot away to me, and adjusting away, and then getting pounded in.”
His conclusion about how he can solve that?
“I can cover both pitches from normal, so I don’t have to cheat,” he said. “I learned from some of the struggles I had. I want to get more consistent.”
Manager Clayton McCullough envisions Marsee “continuing to have to adjust to the league. His floor is so high because of the defense he plays and his ability to impact on the bases. And he controls the strike zone. The league does start to adjust. Jakob performed at a level where he’s discussed differently in pregame and preseason type meetings.”
This and that
▪ Shortstop Otto Lopez — whose blossomed last season (15 homers, 77 RBI, .303 on base) — says he wants to improve defensively in his first full season at shortstop and studied video of the Mets’ Francisco Lindor and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr.
He also watched a lot of his own tape from last season, hoping to improve his range, throws and positioning.
Lopez committed 10 errors in 111 games at shortstop after he and Xavier Edwards flipped positions May 30, with Edwards moving from shortstop to second base. But including his time at second base, he was fourth defensively in wins over replacement.
“I really love that position,” he said. “I can do a lot better than last year.”
▪ Marlins president/baseball operations Peter Bendix reiterated at FanFest that the Marlins will try to sign several of their players to contract extensions: “We want to keep our best players for as long as possible. We expect to have a lot of these really good players here for a long time.”
▪ Victor Mesa Jr.’s time with the Marlins ended quietly last week when he was dealt to Tampa Bay, days after being designated for assignment in exchange for minor-league shortstop Angel Brachi, who hit .337 (.453 on base) in the Dominican Summer League last season.
He leads all rookie-level players in hit by pitches (30) since 2024.
Brachi, who received $800,000 as part of Tampa Bay’s 2024 international signing class, was rated Tampa’s 49th-best prospect by Fangraphs going into last season.
In what was a ballyhooed set of transactions at the time, the Marlins signed Mesa Jr. and his brother, Victor Victor Mesa, as part of their 2018 international signing class.
The Marlins gave them a combined total of $6.25 million in signing bonuses, with Victor Victor receiving $5.25 million, while the younger Mesa Jr. pocketed $1 million.
Victor Victor, one of the top international prospects at the time of his signing, never made the big leagues and departed from the Marlins organization in 2023 after compiling a .233 average in 290 minor-league games. He never latched on with a new big-league team.
Mesa Jr. hit .188, with one homer and six RBI, in 16 big-league games, all last season.
So the most celebrated early transaction of the Derek Jeter CEO regime ultimately didn’t work out.
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