Offishial news, 12/13/23: Absurd trades; ZiPS projections; Castano to KBO

Marlins Podcast Episodes

• Tuesday’s winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, 2B Vidal Bruján went 2-for-4 with 1 RBI and 2B José Devers went 2-for-4. In Puerto Rico, C Jan Mercado went 0-for-3 with a walk. Mercado's .096 batting average is the lowest among all winter ball players with a minimum of 50 at-bats. He's hitless in the month of December.

• Best of luck to Daniel Castano, who will be playing for the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization. Castano spent the last six seasons in the Marlins organization, pitching only three innings in the majors in 2023. The KBO gives him an opportunity to be a starter and an $850,000 salary (even better pay than he would have received as a big leaguer). He'll hope to emulate Erick Fedde, the struggling American who parlayed a dominant season with the Dinos into a $15 million deal with the White Sox.

• Elsewhere around baseball, Jung Hoo Lee (6/$113M) signed with the Giants, Seth Lugo (3/$45M) and Chris Stratton (2/$8M) signed with the Royals, Rowdy Tellez (1/$3.2M) signed with the Pirates, Dylan Floro (1/$2.25M) signed with the Nationals and Cooper Criswell (1/$1M) signed with the Red Sox. Ronny Mauricio suffered a torn right ACL while playing in the Dominican Winter League. That figures to sideline the young Mets infielder for most (if not all) of the 2024 season. Participating in the same league, Pirates catcher Endy Rodriguez damaged his UCL on a swing, requiring reconstructive surgery that rules him out for next year, the team announced.

• Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs released his 2024 ZiPS projections for the Marlins. The numbers below represent wins above replacement. Szymborski also listed the top near-age comps for each player, including Jesús Luzardo as David Price/Vida Blue/Steve Carlton, Eury Pérez as Denny McLain/Dennis Eckersley/José Fernández and Jazz Chisholm Jr. as Glenallen Hill/Wally Judnich/Andre Dawson.

• Sandy Alcantara (Tommy John surgery) is determined to rehab "as quickly as possible," he tells FOF's Kevin Barral. Keep our injury and rehab tracker bookmarked for the latest updates on him and other Marlins players.

• I satirized the goofballs who devise and share illogical hypothetical trades via Baseball Trade Values by highlighting five especially absurd proposals that were validated by their simulator.

• Anthony Bender, Nick Fortes, Braxton Garrett and Jesús Luzardo attended Monday's Miami Dolphins game together.

• As if Eury Pérez wasn't easy enough to identify in public, the 6'8" right-hander has inked his left leg from the knee down to demonstrate his Dominican pride.

Photo by Kevin Barral/Fish On First