Offishial News, 2/6/24: Latest shortstop rumors and underrated Jon Berti

🔹 Monday's Caribbean Series scores: Curacao defeated Nicaragua, 6-3; Venezuela defeated México, 6-1; and Panamá defeated Puerto Rico, 9-7. Fish On First's Kevin Barral and Noah Berger are practically living at LoanDepot Park the rest of this week to bring you the best possible tournament coverage. Follow them for live updates.

🔹 The Marlins have announced 20 non-roster invitees to Spring Training. Javier Sanoja, Patrick Monteverde and Bennett Hostetler are among the prospects who'll be first-time NRIs. No surprises regarding minor league free agent signings—all of those had been previously reported, headlined by Trey Mancini.

🔹 Nick Ahmed, Tim Anderson, Adalberto Mondesi and Amed Rosario are among the free agent shortstops that the Marlins are still eyeing, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports. Ahmed and Mondesi could be had on minor league deals. Anderson arguably has the highest upside. Rosario figures to be the most expensive.

🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Bobby Witt Jr. (11/$288.8M) signed a massive extension with the Royals, Ryan Brasier (2/$9M) signed with the Dodgers, Jakob Junis (1/$7M) signed with the Brewers, Phil Maton (1/$6.5M) signed with the Rays and the Dodgers traded Caleb Ferguson to the Yankees for two prospects.

🔹 Anthony Bender spoke to Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald about his readiness to return from August 2022 Tommy John surgery.

🔹 Locked On Marlins ponders why Marlins attendance is so pitiful.

🔹 If a shortstop signing never materializes, Jon Berti figures to be the primary Marlins starter there this season. Maybe that's not so bad, according to MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince, who selected Berti as the shortstop on his all-underrated team for 2024.

🔹 RHP Noble Meyer ranks 92nd on Keith Law's Top 100 MLB prospects list. Meyer placed 48th and 57th on Baseball America's and MLB Pipeline's lists, respectively.

🔹 Happy 26th birthday to Marlins RHP Anthony Maldonado. The 2019 draft pick has posted a 2.71 ERA, 3.31 FIP and 1.02 WHIP in 153 innings pitched during his minor league career. Maldonado is entering his first season as a member of Miami's 40-man roster.

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