Offishial News, 1/29/24: Skip Schumaker's NL Manager of the Year speech

[Ely Sussman]

Here's what you need to know with 59 days to go until Marlins Opening Day...

🔹 The defending Caribbean Series champions, Tigres del Licey, defeated Estrellas Orientales on Saturday to clinch the Dominican Winter League title and earn an opportunity to repeat at this week's tournament. Ageless former Marlin Emilio Bonifácio played a major role in helping them get there. Tiburones de La Guaira clinched the Venezuelan title on Sunday. One of my personal favorites, Harold Ramírez, is a starting outfielder for them. Fish On First will be providing extensive Caribbean Series coverage here.

🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, the Tigers extended infield prospect Colt Keith (6/$28.6M). The deal could cover up to nine years if all club options are exercised. Keith is the seventh player to a receive a pre-debut contract extension of this nature and the second one this offseason, joining Jackson Chourio of the Brewers. Free agent Héctor Neris (1/$9M) signed with the Cubs, Adam Ottavino (1/$4.5M) signed with the Mets and Alex Wood (financials not yet reported) signed with the Athletics.

🔹 Kevin Barral asked A.J. Puk about competing for a starting rotation spot and his thoughts on the Marlins' front office changes. Kevin also wrote the first of our team-by-team Caribbean Series previews, leading off with Mexico.

🔹 Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald wrote about the critical relationship between Peter Bendix and Skip Schumaker.

  🔹 Bendix divulged more about his personal life in the final part of his interview with MLB.com's Christina De Nicola. He's an alum of Cleveland Heights High School, graduating a few years ahead of Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

🔹 Schumaker dressed up and jetted up to New York to accept his 2023 NL Manager of the Year award. Watch his full speech below.

🔹 For the first time in 2024, we're preparing a Marlins Jeopardy contest! Can't do it without a category of your audience questions. Submit them here for a chance to be featured on the show.

🔹 The Prospects 1500 staff ranked the top 50 Marlins prospects.

🔹 And lastly, congratulations to Parker Heyser. He is the winner of our SuperSub Eury Pérez jersey giveaway. We are immensely appreciative of everybody who has SuperSub'd through the first 10 days of our new site's existence! We'll do our best to make it a worthwhile investment throughout the year with more periodic giveaways like this.

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[Slacker Mills]

Which Marlin starting pitcher will be the top performer this season? Last year at this time, everyone's vote would seemingly have gone to Alcantara. Funny how that works. Luzardo, Perez and Garrett all put up equal or better numbers. (So did Pablo Lopez!) It wouldn't be that difficult to see Rogers or Cabrera step up this time around. The upside is impressive.

Fun to look at a rotation of former Marlins too. Castillo, Gallen, Michael King, Lopez, Eovaldi, Chris Paddack and probably others I don't recall off the cuff.

[Ely Sussman]

41 minutes ago, Slacker Mills said:

Which Marlin starting pitcher will be the top performer this season? Last year at this time, everyone's vote would seemingly have gone to Alcantara. Funny how that works. Luzardo, Perez and Garrett all put up equal or better numbers. (So did Pablo Lopez!) It wouldn't be that difficult to see Rogers or Cabrera step up this time around. The upside is impressive.

Fun to look at a rotation of former Marlins too. Castillo, Gallen, Michael King, Lopez, Eovaldi, Chris Paddack and probably others I don't recall off the cuff.

It's a fascinating question. Like I imagine most people feel, I expect Pérez to have the best overall career, but development is rarely linear. Throughout his career so far, he's rarely been allowed to pitch deep into his starts and it's difficult to project how he would handle that initially.

For 2024 alone, I lean toward Luzardo. He's capable of more or less repeating his performance from last season.

[Slacker Mills]

4 hours ago, Ely Sussman said:

It's a fascinating question. Like I imagine most people feel, I expect Pérez to have the best overall career, but development is rarely linear. Throughout his career so far, he's rarely been allowed to pitch deep into his starts and it's difficult to project how he would handle that initially.

For 2024 alone, I lean toward Luzardo. He's capable of more or less repeating his performance from last season.

The guy who doesn't get his due is Braxton Garrett. His 5/1 K/W ratio was absolutely stellar.

[Slacker Mills]

 

Another question, Ely. When Aaron Hicks becomes the Marlin CF for 2024 and Jazz moves back to his All Star position at 2B, does Arraez move to 1B or another team? I see Hicks as a high probability free agent signee, especially at only the minimum wage. The key to getting him will be the guarantee of the CF position.

While playing 65 games for the Orioles last season, Hicks led that great offense in OPS+. He walked a bunch and whiffed at a low rate. He's 34.

[Ely Sussman]

1 hour ago, Slacker Mills said:

 

Another question, Ely. When Aaron Hicks becomes the Marlin CF for 2024 and Jazz moves back to his All Star position at 2B, does Arraez move to 1B or another team? I see Hicks as a high probability free agent signee, especially at only the minimum wage. The key to getting him will be the guarantee of the CF position.

While playing 65 games for the Orioles last season, Hicks led that great offense in OPS+. He walked a bunch and whiffed at a low rate. He's 34.

Incredible timing 😂...Hicks went to the Angels within minutes of you suggesting this.

[Slacker Mills]

Seemed like a good idea ... for the Angels.