Marlins Spring Training Journal: How players are embracing their youth, grim projections

JUPITER, FL—They’ve heard the jokes. They’ve seen the tweets. They know what the projections are.

The Miami Marlins are not shying away from how young they are. Instead, they embrace it as part of the challenge.

“Everybody puts their shoes on the exact same way,” outfielder Derek Hill said on the first day of spring training. “So it doesn't matter what the payroll is. It's who goes out there and competes the most every single day.”

Hill himself was claimed off waivers by the Marlins last August and slashed .234/.259/.402 in 114 plate appearances with Miami. The 29-year-old, along with the majority of his teammates, will be making approximately the league's minimum salary in 2025 due to limited MLB service time.

Only seven players on the Marlins roster will make over $1 million this year. Even including Cal Quantrill's new $3.5 million deal, Roster Resource estimates that the Fish will have the lowest Opening Day payroll in the majors.

“You've got to be able to play with the $300-400 million guys,” Hill said. “You have to go out there and make them feel the exact same pressure that we feel when we're on the field.”

The Marlins are also among the youngest and most inexperienced teams in baseball going into 2025. The only position player with at least three years of MLB service time is Jesús Sánchez with 3.118. Hill and Jonah Bride, at 29.1 years old, are the oldest hitters on the roster.

When the Marlins traded Jake Burger to the Texas Rangers over the offseason, they lost a guy that many had considered a clubhouse leader. 

“The Burger trade was the one that hurt a lot just because he was kind of that (veteran presence)," Griffin Conine said. “So I think now it'll start to sort itself out once we all get together.” The first full-squad workout of spring training is scheduled for Monday.

Conine, son of Marlins Hall of Famer Jeff Conine, was called up to the majors in late August of last year. The 27-year-old had a .777 OPS and three home runs in 89 plate appearances. 

After the Marlins were essentially gutted at the 2024 trade deadline, the patchwork of waiver claims like Hill and call-ups like Conine actually outperformed some of their veteran counterparts that were dealt away. Their .259 team batting average after the All-Star break was fifth-best compared to their .234 average before the break. They also went from scoring 3.5 runs per game to 4.5, and their slugging percentage went from .354 to .412.

The team finished with a 62-100 record—third-worst in the majors—but it was clear that Miami still felt eager to compete together. That drive is even more apparent this spring.

This year’s Marlins roster will rival the 1998 and 2006 teams in terms of lacking age and experience. The former set a franchise record for losses, but the latter outperformed expectations by recording 78 wins, with Joe Girardi winning the National League Manager of the Year award.

With the lack of one specific veteran leader this year, Conine said the team will have to step up as a collective.

“We've all been here long enough to know ways to act, things to do, how to do it the right way, create culture in the clubhouse,” Conine said. “So I think it's going to be more of, instead of looking for the one guy that's older to create it, we're going to have to kind of band together and (create it).”