Offishial News: These former Marlins just became 2024 World Series champions

[Ely Sussman]

Today's news roundup also includes two Marlins top prospects with extreme swing-decision data.

Slightly different Offishial News format than usual in recognition of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who pulled off a five-run comeback on Wednesday to defeat the New York Yankees and clinch the World Series title. It's the eighth championship in the franchise's history, but their first in a full-length season since 1988.

Plenty of old friends were involved. This is the second WS title for former Marlins prospect Austin Barnes and for Enrique Hernández, who was traded to LA along with Barnes 10 years ago. In his second stint as a Dodger, longtime Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas is a first-time champ. Rojas had a career-high 2.8 fWAR in 2024, though his involvement in the postseason run was limited due to injury (only one game played in the NLCS and WS combined). Alex Vesia capped off the best year of his career by throwing up zeroes out of the bullpen in four out of five Fall Classic games.

Don't forget the little guys! A 2020 Marlins draft pick, Kyle Hurt pitched in three regular season games. Elieser Hernández made five appearances and Michael Petersen made 11 before getting claimed by Miami off waivers. For the moment, Petersen is still on the club's 40-man roster.

 

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Here's more Marlins news and content:

🔷 On Wednesday out in the desert, LHP Patrick Monteverde (3.0 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 68 pitches/42 strikes) still has not had a satisfying outing in the Arizona Fall League. It was an uncharacteristically quiet day at the office for OF Andrew Pintar, who went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts. A midseason addition to the AFL, UTIL Dalvy Rosario went 1-for-3 with a walk in his debut. The Peoria Javelinas lost, 6-5.

🔷 In the Dominican Winter League, RF Troy Johnston went 2-for-3 with 2 RBI and a walk. He ranks third in LIDOM with a .896 OPS and tied for second with 9 RBI. RF Vidal Bruján went 1-for-3 with 3 RBI. 1B Deyvison De Los Santos had his first three-hit game of the season.

🔷 Fascinating data and visuals from Dylan White of Baseball America regarding the swing decisions made by minor leaguers in 2024. De Los Santos is the epitome of a "free-swinger," chasing 44% of the pitches he sees out of the zone while also swinging at 82% of in-zone pitches. On the other hand, OF Luis Cova made excellent decisions in his first season as a professional, chasing at barely a 17% rate.

🔷 Per Christina De Nicola of MLB.com, the Marlins hired Joe Migliaccio to be their new director of hitting. Migliaccio will oversee all levels of the organization, including the majors, though there will still be a conventional hitting coach on the 2025 major league staff.

🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, Dodgers right-hander Daniel Hudson announced his retirement. Hudson pitched in parts of 15 MLB seasons, the last 11 as a reliever. This was the second World Series title of his career (also won with the 2019 Nationals). Congrats to Hudson on going out on top!

🔷 The White Sox are expected to announce Will Venable as their new manager later today, and it wouldn't be surprising if the Marlins did the same with Craig Albernaz. Standby for plenty of coverage on that.

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[One Regend]

We're seeing red flags from De Los Santos, which is starting to concern me as far as his future goes. Now his ceiling is starting to look more and more like Javier Baez, while his floor... yeesh, I'd rather not think about his floor.

Luis Cova looks promising, but his "excellent swing decisions" did not yield results, which gives me concerns about his quality of contact. Sure, he has a great OBP, but it's not hard to achieve that in rookieball where 16-17 year olds are a lot more wild, so I'm not expecting him to translate that to the higher levels of minors.

Migliaccio seems like a roll of the dice. Honestly, results at the MLB level do not matter unless it's a highly-regarded prospect. I'd like to see him get to work where his impact will be much more important, which is AA and AAA. We've had too many former highly-touted prospects flame out by the time they get here. I expect him to improve on this problem.

Also, fun fact. Alex Vesia was traded for Dylan Floro.
-We gave up on Alex Vesia too early. The Marlins traded him out of panic, looking for a stable arm. Floro was okay, but he had no impact on 2021 and 2022 and was gone halfway through the playoff 2023 team.
-We traded Floro when he was at the lowest value in 2023, when in 2022, the fourth-place team (Marlins) had an opportunity to trade him while he was still outperforming his peripherals.
-Still, the best package we could've gotten out of 2022 Dylan Floro would pale in comparison to the package we could've gotten out of Vesia now, had we had kept him around. He'd enter his second arb year by now and becomes a Free Agent in 2027. We could've had a better haul than we ended up getting from AJ Puk, and I expect Vesia to be one of the priciest free agent relief pitchers in 2027. Huge missed opportunity.

That is, what I'd like to call, a classic Kim Ng masterclass.

[THOMAS JOSEPH]

Thanks for another solid piece here.

Sorry, I'm commenting on such an odd point outside of the Miami sphere of the article, but I see Edgar Quero on the second graph. I sure wanted him way back, along with Korey Lee, before both ended up being traded to the White Sox. Quero is the guy, according to the Sox content creators. The Angels were moving on from him, but the Marlins must like their internal options. We'll see.