The background on the Marlins prospect who continues to dominate. And the worrisome news
A six-pack of Miami Marlins notes on a Tuesday:
▪ In a season as frustratingly uneven as the Marlins’ has been — with Miami at 33-44 and last in the National League East - fans need to draw hope from player development subplots, from Trevor Rogers’ glorious breakout to Jazz Chisholm’s evolution to Jesus Sanchez’s growth and raw power.
And on the minor-league level, there’s no more encouraging Marlins story than left-hander Jake Eder’s dominance in his first season of professional baseball.
The 2020 fourth-round pick’s stats at Double A Pensacola require a double take: 47 ⅔ innings, 71 strikeouts, six earned runs allowed, one home run, 26 hits, 17 walks, a .152 batting average against and a 1.13 ERA in nine starts.
One scout from another team who is assigned to the Marlins organization was speaking glowingly about him the other day, texting that he’s fully confident he will become a big-league starter in the top three of a team’s rotation.
Marlins general manager Kim Ng has said the organization wants Eder and 2020 first-round pick Max Meyer (2.09 ERA in nine starts at Pensacola) to spend the full season in the minors.
A year after drafting him in the fourth round, Marlins amateur scouting director DJ Svihlik reflected this week on what the team saw when they decided to select him 104th overall:
“From a talent standpoint, we just knew he was very talented,” Svihlik said on a Zoom call with writers this week. “It was that simple. We knew he could spin the ball really well. It doesn’t mean you take him high. Why? Because he was super inconsistent.
“You would go out and see Jake Eder one day and he was this guy. And you would see him the next day and he was over here. It was up and down. Sometimes you would see him at Vanderbilt versus when you saw him at Cape Cod [in the summer]. If you saw our Cape Cod reports, you would say that’s a potential first- round pick. If you saw our Vanderbilt reports, [they said otherwise].
“He was very talented. He had stuff. He was athletic — not in the run and jump football sense athletic — but a player that really knew his body, really had good coordination through his delivery.”
Svihlik said several deserve credit for Eder’s consistent excellence this season.
“All we needed to do, we felt, is clean up the timing out of his glove and then you would get more consistency. And that’s what you saw [minor-league pitching coordinator] Scott Aldred and his group with what they were able to do, and with Jake himself. The player is accountable here for what he wants his career to become.
“Jake happens to be a guy who is really highly motivated, always has been. So you take the talent that we saw, with his motivation, the creativity and the work by our player development staff and you get a player who is outperforming his draft position.”
Heading into last year’s draft, there were some concerns about Eder’s control and a drop in velocity in four starts for Vanderbilt before COVID-19 halted the 2020 college baseball season.
FanGraphs’ list of the top 232 draft-eligible players in 2020 omitted Eder altogether. MLB Pipeline ranked him 59th.
Now with the July 11-13 amateur draft approaching, Svihlik asks: “Who is this year’s Jake Eder? I look to other teams — players that were selected that were other teams’ Jake Eders — and we’re constantly saying who in this year’s class is that player? Who in this year’s class is Jake Eder so we can acquire and maximize that portfolio.”
▪ No surprise, but Svihlik spoke of the need to add more bats in the Marlins system, suggesting that’s more significant than what position they play.
“You always have to attach a position next to their name,” he said. “Bats: That’s an area in every single draft you want to take the best hitters you can find. You want to take guys with a combination of upside with their bat, high floors with their bat, because you look at the major-league level, those players end up playing everywhere, whether it’s taking a high school shortstop and turning him into a third baseman.
“You’re considering the profile of where they’re going to play. But generally, you’re trying to acquire bats that you really, really like.”
▪ The Athletic’s Keith Law has the Marlins taking Georgia prep star Bubba Chandler with the 16th pick in next month’s draft. Chandler can pitch and play shortstop, and Law wondered whether the Marlins would allow him to do both and see which he excels at.
The Marlins — who want to add at least one catcher in this draft - have been linked to Georgia prep catcher Harry Ford, a name that Miami Herald senior baseball correspondent Craig Mish has raised. Law has him going one spot before the Marlins, 15th overall to Milwaukee.
Law has another prep catcher, New York-based Joe Mack, going 17th to Cincinnati.
▪ Outfielder JJ Bleday, in the midst of a 2-for-23 slump, is down to .193 at Pensacola, with five homers, 19 RBI and a .293 on-base average.
The fact Bleday — the fourth overall pick in 2019 — has not been more successful against Double A pitching has been disappointing, though the Marlins remain hopeful he will fulfill lofty expectations.
Center fielder Kameron Misner, selected in the second round of that draft, is at .226, with four homers and 21 RBI at High A Beloit (Wisconsin) but has hit better recently.
Outfielder Peyton Burdick, selected in the third round in 2019, is hitting .207 with 12 homers and 25 RBI at Pensacola.
Speedy outfielder J.D. Orr, picked in the 10th round in the 2019 draft, is hitting .275 and is 12 for 17 on steals at Low A Jupiter.
The Marlins hope third baseman Nic Ready, their 23rd-round pick in 2019, would build on his big power numbers at Air Force, but his .158 average is lowest in the High A Central league. He has five homers and 19 RBI.
On the plus side, outfielder Griffin Conine is second in home runs in the High A Central league, with 12 for Beloit, to go with a .153 average. But he has a league-high 78 strikeouts in 170 at-bats.
▪ I asked Marlins GM Kim Ng on Tuesday if the team has been tempted to give up one of its top three starters (Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, Trevor Rogers) or a high-end pitching prospect for a high-end offensive player or whether they would consider that or are philosophically opposed.
“Philosophically in order to get something of value, you have to give something of value up,” she said. “Organizations have approached us. It’s an area of strength for us. We all have an understanding of that. We’ve entertained a lot of different things. We would have to find value.”
Would the Marlins trade a top pitcher for a prospect who hasn’t at least proved in a small sample size that he can hit major-league pitching?
“You always want as much information as you can get,” she said. “If a player hadn’t had major-league experience that wouldn’t necessarily deter us. That’s what you have scouting and analytics for.”
FYI: Right-hander Edward Cabrera, back from missing three months with an inflamed nerve in his right biceps, has looked good in his first two starts at Double A Pensacola, allowing five hits, one run and walking one in 10 ⅔ innings with 16 strikeouts.
▪ This is crazy: The Marlins entered play Tuesday with the best run differential in the National League East despite being 11 games under .500 and in last place in the division.
The Marlins have outscored their opponents by 17 runs this season.
For perspective, the Detroit Tigers — also 11 games under. 500 entering Tuesday — has been outscored by 80 runs this season.
