Offishial News, 1/26/24: Marlins FanFest is here

[Ely Sussman]

Here's what you need to know with 62 days to go until Marlins Opening Day...

🔹 Thursday's winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, RF/3B Vidal Bruján went 0-for-4 with a walk, run scored and outfield assist. His Estrellas Orientales rallied from a 5-0 deficit to force extra innings, but still lost. They're facing elimination on Friday. In Panamá, C Christian Bethancourt helped Federales de Chiriquí to a blowout win. They can clinch a league championship (and a Caribbean Series berth) with another victory today.

🔹 Check out Marlins Media Day interviews on the Fish On First YouTube channel featuring Josh Bell, Jake Burger, Braxton Garrett, Bryan De La Cruz, Jesús Sánchez, Andrew Nardi, Nick Fortes and Ryan Weathers. Nardi said he has reworked his seldom-used changeup into a splitter and Weathers has added a two-seam fastball. Perhaps the most encouraging takeaway was De La Cruz admitting his defense and baserunning needed improvement and devoting the vast majority of his offseason work to those areas. Despite being in Miami's lineup practically every day, DLC accrued only 0.2 fWAR last season with those deficiencies negating a lot of his production at the plate.

🔹 The Marlins are updating their uniforms, as first reported by Billy Gil of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. The hints put out on Thursday suggest these are common sense improvements. We'll see them debut at today's FanFest.

 

 

🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Joc Pederson (1/$12.5M) signed with the Diamondbacks and David Robertson (1/$11-12M) signed with the Rangers. Robertson's August slump in Miami didn't come back to bite him after all. He's actually getting a slight pay raise from the previous year.

🔹 Results are in from our January 2024 confidence poll. Combining results from the website poll and Twitter replies, the average response was 4.89 (on a scale of 1-10). I'll run the next poll in late February right before Spring Training games get underway.

🔹 Thanks to Cali from the Battered Marlins Fans podcast for joining us on the latest Fish On First LIVE. The show is now presented by Berger & Hicks! If you’ve been injured as a result of somebody else’s negligence, give them a call at (305) 670-7050.

🔹 Baseball America posted their updated Marlins Top 30 prospects list, including new international signee Luis Cova at No. 4. Their list includes 2023 draft picks OF Mark Coley, RHP Xavier Meachem and LHP Emmett Olson—haven't seen them on anybody else's Top 30.

🔹 Follow Isaac Azout and Kevin Barral for live FanFest coverage. You can also listen to the Marlins Radio Network from 3-5 p.m. for interviews with Skip Schumaker, Jesús Luzardo, Tanner Scott and others.

🔹 One more reminder that we'll be selecting a SuperSub to win a Eury Pérez jersey! Sign up here by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. ET to be eligible to win it.

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