What Marlins are getting in Griffin Conine and the unusual reason they once drafted him
A six-pack of Miami Marlins notes on a Thursday:
▪ When Jeff Conine informed new Marlins ownership 35 months ago that he was declining an offer to remain with the organization for a diminished role and a smaller salary, that seemed like the unfortunate end of the association between South Florida’s MLB team and the man affectionately known as Mr. Marlin.
Thanks to a trade this week, it won’t be.
With the Marlins acquiring Conine’s son Griffin in a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays, there could someday be another Conine in the Marlins outfield.
Jeff Conine (who played for both Marlins championship teams) and Griffin are said to be pleased with the trade to Miami, though neither they nor the Marlins can discuss it publicly because of an MLB rule prohibiting any player not in his team’s 60-player pool to be traded before the season ends.
So Griffin, for now, remains the “player to be named later” in the Jonathan Villar deal.
The good news on Griffin Conine, who was selected in the second round of the 2018 draft by the Blue Jays: He has 29 homers and 97 RBI and seven steals (in seven attempts) with a .266 average in 518 at-bats and 137 games over two minor league seasons in the low-level minors.
The bad news: He has 190 strikeouts during that time. But he worked last winter to shorten his swing to try to cut down on the K’s.
Count former Marlins president David Samson — now an MLB analyst for CBS HQ — among those impressed that Miami not only landed former All-Star outfielder Starling Marte from Arizona this week, but also Conine in exchange for Villar, whom the Marlins had no interest in re-signing this winter.
“The Blue Jays could have offered way less and the Marlins would have said yes,” Samson said. “What a great job by [Marlins executive] Mike Hill.
“Jeff thinks Griffin can be better than he was,” Samson told me. “Jeff was an unbelievable player. He would view Griffin as having better physical tools and more power and a better arm. Griffin has an amazing future.”
▪ The Marlins selected Griffin in the 31st round of the 2015 draft out of Fort Lauderdale Pine Crest, but Samson said they knew he was headed to Duke. So why did they draft him?
“We knew he would be a future big-leaguer but we also knew he was going to go to college,” Samson said. “Unless he was going to be in the top two rounds or three rounds, he was going to college. We approached [Jeff] Conine and said we just want to draft him to say we drafted him and how cool it would be to have a second-generation Conine with the Marlins. Griffin and Niner [Jeff Conine] thought it was cool.
“We believed in him as a player but not at that time as a top-round pick. And he had the opportunity to go to Duke.”
Samson said the Marlins never made an offer to Griffin Conine after drafting him because they knew he was headed to college.
▪ At the start of this season, Baseball America ranked Griffin Conine 15th among Blue Jays prospects.
The magazine praised his arm in right field and his power potential. At the start of last season, Conine served a 50-game suspension for testing positive for Ritalin.
Former ESPN evaluator Keith Law, now with The Athletic, said of Conine before the 2018 draft: “Conine came into the spring as a sure-fire top-10 pick, but he forgot the part where he had to hit to maintain that status, with his average dipping below .220 as late as April. A late surge has brought him back on the radar, and he could even make it into the back of the first round. He entered the ACC tournament hitting .280/.406/.602, remarkable given how poorly he hit for most of the spring, although his season strikeout rate of 24.9 percent is still alarming for a corner outfielder whose bat is his carrying tool.
“He has power and a track record of better performance prior to this spring, including two successful summers with the wood bat, and he gets a few extra points for bloodlines — his father, Jeff, was known as ‘Mr. Marlin’ before Miami’s new ownership revoked the title to save 75 cents.”
The left-handed hitting Conine, who’s very bright like his father, told mlb.com on March 10 that his “power can play at any level, and that’s my calling card. It’s just being able to figure out how I can make it work at every level rising up the system.
“If I had to rank [my tools], power would be No. 1, for sure. Arm would be No. 2, for sure, and after that, it’s kind of a toss-up. Speed would be on the lower end, [No. 5] maybe. I don’t think I’m slow, but defense is above that. Glove would be better than speed, and the hit [tool] is probably better than the glove. They can get better.”
As for Conine’s father, he served as a special assistant to Samson for nine years before the team was sold (and also worked as a studio analyst for Fox Sports Florida’s Marlins coverage) but is now out of baseball. He has done a lot of impressive charity work in the community and is believed to have interest in getting back in baseball if the right opportunity arises.
In a conversation in 2017, Conine said the new ownership’s offer to him “was diminished across the board. I didn’t feel it was worth my time.”
But, he also said: “I spent 7 1/2 years as a player and the last nine years as someone working with the organization. I’ve always considered myself a Marlin. I’m a member of this community. I want to see them win again. I want to see them get back to the World Series and the playoffs.”
Now he will have another compelling reason to root for them.
▪ Hill has strongly suggested the Marlins will pick up Marte’s $12.5 million team option for 2021, and Samson made a good point on why the Marte trade was such a good one:
“When you look at the free agent bats, the $12.5 million he’s owed is roughly $5 million below a qualifying offer for a free agent bat. You don’t have to go long-term with him and you have a high-character, high-quality player.
“Having Marte in that lineup changes that lineup. Great middle-of-the-order bat, signed to a reasonable deal for next year. That’s why I said the Marlins won the trade deadline. And they have pitching that’s ready to win.”
▪ Even with Marte at $12.5 million next season, the Marlins will have only $31 million in commitments for 2021 if they exercise closer Brandon Kintzler’s $4 million team option. (Kintzler, who has eight saves, is the only National League reliever with at least five saves and no blown saves.)
The others under contract in 2021: Corey Dickerson at $9.5 million and Miguel Rojas at $5 million.
Another $8 million or so will be added for roster spots for players under team control who aren’t yet arbitration-eligible, a group led by Sandy Alcantara and Pablo Lopez.
Anderson, Aguilar, Jorge Alfaro, Yimi Garcia and Ryne Stanek are among the Marlins’ arbitration-eligible players this winter, and they will get raises.
But from a payroll standpoint, the Marlins have flexibility and are in better shape than most teams enduring the revenue challenges of a pandemic.
Key, of course, will be what the Marlins get in a new regional TV deal. The current one expires in a month, and there’s still no new deal with Fox/Sinclair for 2021.
▪ Per MLB Network’s Craig Mish, the Marlins had no interest in re-signing Villar this winter. Mish said the Marlins “felt Villar is still an extremely talented player but played reckless at times, and never fully bought in to what they are trying to do. In essence, not a fit in Miami from their perspective.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 3:39 PM.
