60 games in, Marlins among few NL teams not in Wild Card race

Last season's main theme across the National League was underachievement. The New York Mets, San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals each entered 2023 with the expectation that they'd probably make it it to the postseason. Instead, all three of them faded from contention early on, with only the Padres making a half-hearted push during the second half of the campaign.

The Miami Marlins fully capitalized on these circumstances. They don't have to apologize for it and it doesn't put any sort of asterisk on their Wild Card berth, but that is what happened. Beyond its top four (the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies), the NL had a dearth of quality teams. The Marlins mortgaged just enough of their future and eked out just enough one-run wins to play into October.

The theme for 2024 is chaos. The Braves, Dodgers, Brewers and Phillies are above the fray. The Marlins, Mets and Colorado Rockies are below it. Every other club is separated by no more three games in the loss column. A .483 winning percentage is Wild Card-caliber for the moment.

Apart from a free agent spending spree that Marlins ownership would never authorize, Peter Bendix didn't have a realistic path to matching 2023's win total. What if, though, the front office actually gave their flawed roster a chance of performing up to its full potential? Hold onto Luis Arraez until the summer trade market fully opens, keep Max Meyer on the major league pitching staff and turn the page on Sixto Sánchez, bench Tim Anderson in favor of Otto Lopez/Vidal Bruján...would that have been enough to propel the Marlins into the NL's jumbled middle instead of the cellar?

Impossible to definitively say, but I think the fanbase would be more accepting of Bendix's inevitable rebuild if he began the season by genuinely keeping "one eye of the present and one eye on the future" as he said he would be instead of rushing to wave the white flag.