Eric Wagaman living up to expected numbers

MIAMI—Eric Wagaman saw the jokes. For much of the offseason, the 27-year-old infielder with 18 games of major league experience was the only free agent that the Miami Marlins signed. To fans across baseball, he was emblematic of everything that's wrong with MLB, where teams in the midst of rebuilding themselves do the bare minimum to assemble competitive rosters. Even professional pundits neglected to mention him when discussing the Marlins offseason, claiming that Miami hadn’t spent any money in free agency.

While it’s not the reason why Wagaman has an OPS north of 1.000 in his last 10 games, it certainly doesn’t hurt.

“There's definitely a little bit of motivation,” Wagaman told Fish On First. “You want to prove people wrong, but at the same time, I know what I can do, I know what I'm capable of, so I'm just gonna go out there and do it.”

Wagaman's 2025 season got started on the wrong foot with a 5-for-32 slump at the plate and just one home run through three weeks of action. Marlins fans were counting the days until Connor Norby and Jesús Sánchez returned from the injured list so that he could be optioned to the minors to make room for them.

However, Wagaman's underlying data was encouraging from the beginning. Calculated by Baseball Savant using a combination of exit velocity, launch angle, and Sprint Speed, his expected slugging percentage has been consistently high.

“I love looking at that kind of stuff,” Wagaman said. “Because I feel like it's a good indicator of where I'm at, and I feel like I can make adjustments based on that kind of stuff.” 

Beyond simple bad luck, Wagaman struggled in March and early April in part because he was hitting a lot of balls into the ground. He’s made mechanical adjustments with hitting coaches Pedro Guerrero and Derek Shomon, along with director of hitting Joe Migliaccio. One of the keys, Wagaman said, is keeping his bat flatter through the zone, as the steepness of his bat path was causing weak contact and low launch angles.

Wagaman was drafted by the New York Yankees in 2017 and worked together with Migliaccio while both were in their minor league system. Migliaccio was the minor league hitting coordinator from 2022-24 and was the hitting coach at several Yankees MiLB affiliates before that. Wagaman said the familiarity with Migliaccio’s processes has made the transition comfortable.

Migliaccio and the staff have introduced more game-type drills, like frequent live batting practices with pitchers on the mound, Trajekt machines that simulate opposing pitchers’ wind-ups and release points, and pitching machines with higher velocities than usual.

“Just challenging your swing. Because, at the end of the day, we got to go perform when the lights go on. so doing easy stuff in the cage really isn't gonna get you anywhere…Sometimes it can be frustrating because you're not getting the results you want. But for me, it makes me ready to go for the game.”

And ready for the game, he’s been. Unlike last year’s cup of coffee with the Angels, Wagaman is seeing consistent playing time, starting 17 of Miami’s 22 games, and each of their last seven. He’s started multiple games in each of the No. 2 through No. 5 spots in the lineup, hitting better than league average in the two through four slots.

His .985 OPS over the last two weeks is a big reason the Marlins are hovering around .500 when many thought they’d come nowhere close to that mark at any point past opening weekend.

Wagaman and the rest of the team are aware of their lack of major league experience. The average age of their hitters is 26.5 years old, the lowest in the majors. But belief in themselves is still there.

“There's obviously fans that watch baseball every day,” Wagaman said. “They know the game. They know good players. But just because we're inexperienced in the big leagues, doesn't mean we don't have talent. There's a lot of talent in this room, on the pitching side and on the offensive side. The only way to get experience in the big leagues is to get experience in the big leagues.”