Offishial News: Nick Gordon trade; encouraging Super Bowl trend for Marlins?

[Ely Sussman]

Marlins news roundup for 2/12/24

Here's what you should know with 45 days to go until Marlins Opening Day...

🔹 The Marlins and Twins have been frequent trade partners in recent years, with their latest swap exchanging Nick Gordon for Steven Okert. I'd say both players are better fits with their new clubs for the 2024 season than their previous ones. The transaction could also have repercussions further down the road as Gordon and Okert are just in their first years of arbitration eligibility. Baseball Trade Values considers it a minor overpay by the Marlins.

🔹 The half-brother of former Marlins All-Star Dee Strange-Gordon, Nick was raised in central Florida and had spent his entire professional career in the Twins organization since being their first-round draft pick in 2014. He played two MLB games at LoanDepot Park last season and also participated in the 2017 Futures Game, which was in Miami. Gordon has played six different defensive positions in the majors, though the vast majority of his reps have come at center field, left field and second base.

🔹 Okert concludes his three-year Marlins tenure with a 3.51 ERA, 4.25 FIP and 1.17 WHIP in 146.0 IP. He's tied with Kevin Gregg for 22nd place among all pitchers in franchise history with 158 appearances.

🔹 I did an updated Marlins roster projection with Gordon in and Okert out. Which 26 players would you go with?

🔹 On Marlins Spaces, Kevin Barral, Alex Carver, Isaac Azout and I spoke extensively about the trade and the rest of last week's transactions.

🔹 Replying to Fish On First in a since-deleted tweet, outfielder Victor Victor Mesa confirmed a Miami Herald report that he won't be playing for the Marlins organization this season despite still being under contract. Mesa has struggled to hit throughout his minor league career (.233/.289/.289 slash line with eight home runs in 290 games) and spent the second half of the 2023 campaign on the restricted list.

🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Yasmani Grandal (1/$2.5M) signed with the Pirates and Spencer Turnbull (1/$2M) signed with the Phillies.

🔹 Glenn Geffner's View from the Bleachers is skeptical about LoanDepot Park's lively Caribbean Series crowds carrying over to Marlins regular season games.

🔹 Jordan Groshans, Kaleb Ort and Peyton Burdick all remain in DFA limbo.

🔹 Lastly, congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs, who've won three of the last five Super Bowls. Their previous two championships coincided with Marlins postseason berths. Will the streak continue?!

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[One Regend]

If VVM's willing to make a tweet like that in open public, then I'm definitely curious about what happened under the hood.

I mean, the team paid $5 million for him to put up non-competitive statlines, and he ragequit midway through last season because he wasn't being given playtime to go bat under 2 bucks, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if what happened is serious enough.

[Ely Sussman]

15 hours ago, One Regend said:

If VVM's willing to make a tweet like that in open public, then I'm definitely curious about what happened under the hood.

I mean, the team paid $5 million for him to put up non-competitive statlines, and he ragequit midway through last season because he wasn't being given playtime to go bat under 2 bucks, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if what happened is serious enough.

Yeah, from our vantage point, it seems very straightforward. Every step of his MiLB career outside of repeating High-A, he struggled too much as a hitter to merit regular playing time. But can't rule out that perhaps there was something hindering him from performing the way he's capable of, or the organization made some kind of unreasonable request.

[One Regend]

1 hour ago, Ely Sussman said:

Yeah, from our vantage point, it seems very straightforward. Every step of his MiLB career outside of repeating High-A, he struggled too much as a hitter to merit regular playing time. But can't rule out that perhaps there was something hindering him from performing the way he's capable of, or the organization made some kind of unreasonable request.

I mean, we're probably not going to hear about it until he's no longer under contract for us. But that is something we should probably follow.