Could last CBA deadline yield clues to Miami Marlins approach this time around?

[Sean Millerick]

Over four years have passed since the last time the Miami Marlins faced the prospect of an upcoming MLB lockout. 

Bruce Sherman remains the owner. The Marlins aspirations are essentially the same—have a winning record and make the playoffs. It's also anyone's guess when Miami will next play a baseball game. 

Other than that? Everything has changed. No more Derek Jeter. No more Kim Ng. Miami's roster is in a far better place. Perhaps more importantly, this CBA deadline brings a much higher likelihood of real change to the game's financial landscape. Then again, Miami's entire approach to team building has changed dramatically since then. 

In short, it may well be a fool's errand to try to draw any concrete lessons for this Marlins offseason from that of 2021-2022.

However, that doesn't mean it can't be informative either. After all, Sherman is still the man cutting the checks. His memory of how things went last time around will undoubtedly play a part. Same goes for that of other senior officials, with new President of Baseball Operations Peter Bendix foremost among them. 

So let's start with Sherman and the headliners of that offseason, namely the best and worst decisions of his ownership era. Right before the start of the last MLB lockout, the Marlins announced two eleventh hour moves. One of those was an extension for Sandy Alcantara, which he is about to enter the last year of now that Miami has exercised their club option. Unfortunately, the other was the signing of free agent Avisail Garcia to four-year, $56 million deal that the team just finished paying off. 

Obviously, the outcomes of those two decisions couldn't have been more different. Before breaking down the potential lessons, I'd be remiss not to note that both of them did equally check one box the Marlins could try to check again this November: 

Spending. Even heading into the last CBA, the pressure was on Miami to spend more. That will arguably be even more true heading into 2027. Therefore, a big expenditure of some kind on the Marlins part shouldn't come as a surprise. But what will that look like? 

On the Sandy side, could Sherman be well disposed to greenlighting another club friendly extension? Either that, or doubling down on his prior investment with another Alcantara extension? Sandy has proven a sound investment, and for the first time in years, the Marlins have multiple young players with proven resumes worth a long-term commitment.  

 

The Sandman closes out the 2026 Marlins season with a strikeout 🔥 Epic. https://t.co/bRqNCiaz95

— Fish On First (@FishOnFirst) September 27, 2026

Yet on the Garcia side, it also feels safe to assume that the Marlins won't be rushing into any big free-agent deals. Miami hasn't done it since, and I have long said the Garcia deal broke Sherman as a free-agent spender. The Miami Herald's Barry Jackson reported last week that the team would not sign any "marquee 30-plus free-agents to enormous deals." While I can understand some Marlins fans pushing back on "marquee" and "enormous" as it relates to the Garcia contract, I'm just not sure Bruce Sherman would be among them. The "30-plus" reference comes across to me as just as much of an arrow pointing right at the Garcia blunder as it does an age-line delineating what players the Marlins will and won't go after. 

In short, I'd bet heavily on an extension or two, but wouldn't count on a true free-agent splurge. 

Trades could be a different story though. The Marlins acquired Jacob Stallings and Joey Wendle in the month leading up to the last CBA deadline. The Wendle move could be particularly worth dwelling on, as it was one of six trades that the Tampa Bay Rays made during that span—something that probably didn't escape the notice of then Rays employee Peter Bendix. He was promoted from Vice President of Baseball Development to General Manager that offseason, so obviously played some role in those moves. One of which, by the way, included the trade that brought a young prospect named Junior Caminero to Tampa. 

In my opinion, it all points to a busy month for the Marlins. 

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[MarlinzDude86]

We're better off extending our core guys we have. Better chemistry with each other with the talent to develop more.