Cote: Sandy shines, Marlins win to launch latest season of budget-ball | Opinion
The Miami Marlins do so much right. That was evident Friday as the club marked the 34th Opening Day (albeit night this time) in franchise history.
The fan outreach is top-notch. There was a pregame concert. A bobblehead giveaway. A new food menu. Postgame fireworks. Super kid-friendly.
The facilities are nice, the stadium turning 15 and still looking great. The front office knows what it’s doing now under third-year president Peter Bendix. Player development is improved, analytics are forward-thinking. The scouting department and international presence is admirable.
The team was coming off a better-than-expected season last year, too, with hopes higher than typical as the fourth-youngest team in MLB took the field.
The ballpark’s roof was open, the sun still dappling the downtown Miami skyline beyond left field at the start -- a beautiful tableau.
And the Marlins would defeat one of the worst teams in the history of baseball, the Colorado Rockies, 2-1. Starter Sandy Alcantara was sharp, allowing but one uneared run in his seven full innings. Right fielder Austin Slater threw a guy out at the plate. Bullpen protected the lead. Fun atmosphere. Perfect night in a lot of ways.
Alcantara looked like his pre-Tommy John self.
“Sandy was terrific,” said manager Clayton McCullough. “He was just so efficient. Great stuff for Sandy going that deep. We expect to be in a lot of [pitching-reliant] games lile this one.”
Countering the good stuff -- why was the stadium sadly half-empty as the umpire called “Play ball”? The crowd would fill in, and get lively, and do The Wave ... but never reach anything close to a full house, the announced attendance a generous 32,459. Opening Day should be a guaranteed, automatic sellout. But not here. Why?
The putrid opponent in Colorado didn’t help. Neither did the evening weekday start. Three reasons to not want a Marlins Opening Day at night:
- Miami traffic.
- Miami rush-hour traffic.
- (See above.)
But those were far from the biggest reasons. The trouble drawing crowds is because -- as much as this Marlins iteration is doing so much right -- it continues to fail miserably at the one thing for which there is no way to disguise or get around.
They still aren’t spending. Owner Bruce Sherman continues egregiously cheap.
I’ll not stop saying it, because it will never stop being at the root and heart of the team not winning, the fans not showing up, and baseball continuing to not thrive in an intensely crowded and competitive sports market where the Dolphins and Hurricanes football are king, the Heat is bigger, and so are the Panthers and Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami.
I’ll be a broken record on this topic as long as the Marlins and this owner continue with a broken business model.
Sunday the Marlins are bringing back their popular old teal jerseys. There will be a reversible bucket hat giveaway.
They do everything but spend on players, continuing to believe they can win on a shoestring budget by being smarter than everybody else ... even though everybody else is smart and spends big. Bendix is the president because he had similar financial constraints (i.e. handcuffs on) in Tampa Bay and did OK.
So Miami’s 2026 payroll is $93.1 million, 29th of 30 clubs. It’s barely half the MLB average of $182.7. Worse, it pales in the mighty NL East, where the Mets ($356.6 million) and Phillies ($316.4M) rank 1-2 in spending and the Braves ($261.3 million) are sixth. Not coincidentally all three teams are top-10 in betting odds to win the World Series, while Miami’s wins over/under is 71.9 with a 5.4 percent playoff likelihood.
The perpetual underdogs, this team. The “Fightin’ Fish.” A feelgood story if they’re anywere near .500. They might prove lovable, even fun. (But maybe not as lovable or fun as a winning team that spends to compete.)
Nobody expects Sherman to instantly spend like the Mets and Phillies. But he needs to at least spend enough to compete, especially with a big bat or two in free agency to help augment a promising pitching staff. Alcantara reminded he’s still SP1 quality. This could be a breakout year for Eury Perez. Some added offensive punch would be nice.
Not seeing the correlation between spending and winning, or between winning and bigger crowds, is willful head-in-the-sand stuff.
The Mets, Phillies and Braves are smart, draft well, develop players and spend big. The Marlins under this owner have no reasonable way out of this rut of building on the cheap toward a future that never gets here.
Hence the second worst home attendance in MLB last season, and a Friday night season-opening crowd not close to sold-out.
Marlins fans who show up at games to watch Sherman’s bargain-bin product are some of the best, most loyal (and most patient) fans in South Florida. There just aren’t enough of them. Not nearly. The loyalists go to games and cheer, and hope, as if willfully blind to the fact (or just OK with it) that their team’s owner is making no effort to financially compete -- though the sport’s revenue sharing and broadcast rights assure he can afford to spend substantially more than he does.
Maybe the Marlins are on the right path, though, on Miracle Road where the low-budget roster somehow prevails over the three direct competitors spending triple what they are.
All the luck in the world with that.
This story was originally published March 27, 2026 at 9:37 PM.
