Marlins trade Jon Berti to Yankees

Less than 24 hours before their season opener, the Miami Marlins, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays finalized a trade involving infielder Jon Berti, as first reported by Craig Mish of SportsGrid. In exchange, the Fish received outfielders John Cruz (Yankees) and Shane Sasaki (Rays). Catcher Ben Rortvedt went from New York to Tampa Bay.

Berti joined the Marlins as a minor league free agent entering the 2019 season. Outside of a couple injuries, he had been a staple of their roster since the middle of that season. He led the majors with 41 stolen bases in 2022. Then last year, he established new career highs in games played (133), batting average (.294) and home runs (seven) while also making more starts at shortstop than he had in all of his previous MLB seasons combined. Overall, Berti produced 7.0 fWAR in Miami.

The 34-year-old Berti was set to earn a salary of $3.625M in 2024 with one more year of arbitration eligibility remaining after that. He clearly had positive trade value and the Marlins used that to slightly deepen their ailing farm system.

"You want to take one eye on the future and one eye on the present team at the same time," Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix told the assembled media (including Fish On First's Noah Berger) at LoanDepot Park on Wednesday afternoon. "This trade probably helps us a little bit more in the future, but I'm also optimistic about the younger players that we have here that could step in in the short term."

Cruz has played two professional seasons since signing with the Yankees out of the Dominican Republic. He put up great numbers in the Florida Complex League in 2023: .294/.376/.531 slash line (131 wRC+) with 10 homers and nine steals in 48 games. Bendix boasted about Cruz's "interesting combination" of power and contact at such a young age. The 18-year-old will most likely begin the 2024 campaign with Low-A Jupiter and earn a spot on our next FOF Top 30 prospects list update.

Sasaki, 23, was drafted and developed by the Rays. He posted a 130 wRC+ at the High-A level last season and his minor league career wRC+ is 132. Bendix describes him as a "well-rounded player." The right-handed-hitting Hawaiian has gotten the majority of his defensive reps in center field. He was left unprotected for the Rule 5 Draft this past offseason, but did not get selected.

I project Sasaki to be assigned to Double-A Pensacola.

So who fills Berti's spot on the Marlins active roster? He had been expected to spend a lot of time on the left side of the infield spelling Jake Burger and Tim Anderson when needed. The 40-man roster candidates to choose from are Jacob Amaya, Jonah Bride, Xavier Edwards, Victor Mesa Jr. and Dane Myers. Of that bunch, Myers had the most impressive spring training performance. But in the short term, I think the priority will be bringing up somebody with decent defense at third base, which favors Bride.

The 40-man is currently at 39 players.