Ely Sussman

Player status updates, insightful stats and more information to fully equip you for today's Marlins game. Here are the latest Miami Marlins game notes, produced by the Marlins communications department and relayed to our loyal SuperSubs... View full article

Marlins news roundup for 3/29/24 On Thursday, 32,564 fans came out to Little Havana for Opening Day. They witnessed Sixto Sánchez's return from a three-year injury hiatus (and his first career blown save), plus the Marlins regular season debuts of Tim Anderson, Christian Bethancourt, Declan Cronin, Vidal Bruján and Jonah Bride. Reigning National League batting champion Luis Arraez had an unprecedented 0-for-6 game and the Marlins as a whole went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position (so did the Pirates). The Marlins lost to the Pirates, 6-5 in 12 innings. Here's more Marlins news and content for you: 🔷 I have uploaded Cronin, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Loud Miami Fan GIFs from Opening Day to our Fish On First GIF Database. Become a SuperSub for as little as $4 per month to download and use them yourself! 🔷 The Marlins are now 10 years removed from the last time they won a season opener with fans in the stands (excluding 2020). 🔷 Nice to see Bally Sports Florida add instant pitch type identification to their scorebug. 🔷 Four different guests joined myself and the Fish On First staff on the two-hour regular season premiere of FOF LIVE. These were our series predictions. FOF LIVE is presented by Berger & Hicks. If you’ve been injured as a result of somebody else’s negligence, give them a call at (305) 670-7050. 🔷 Seven Marlins players began the season on the major league injured list: Sandy Alcantara (60-day IL, Tommy John surgery); Edward Cabrera (15-day IL, right shoulder impingement); JT Chargois (15-day IL, neck spasms); Braxton Garrett (15-day IL, left shoulder impingement); Eury Pérez (15-day IL, right elbow inflammation); Josh Simpson (15-day IL, left elbow ulnar neuritis); and Xavier Edwards (10-day IL, left foot infection). 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, the Diamondbacks obliterated the Rockies on the strength of a 14-run third inning. Tyler O'Neill (Red Sox) set a record by homering in his fifth consecutive Opening Day game. Ultra-talented but oft-injured Twins infielder Royce Lewis suffered a quad strain that will probably send him to the IL. 🔷 There are 80 more Marlins home games throughout the rest of the season. Don't go to LoanDepot Park without consulting this new, thorough ballpark guide assembled by Noah Berger. 🔷 First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. ET tonight with probable starters LHP A.J. Puk and LHP Martin Pérez. It will be Puk's first career start in the majors. The Marlins have a 57.8% chance to win, according to FanGraphs. 🔷 Tonight is also the 2024 season opener for the Triple-A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (7:05 p.m. ET first pitch), hosting the Gwinnett Stripers (Braves affiliate). Marlins podcast episodes View full article

Big Fish Small Pod for Friday, March 29, 2024 Ely Sussman recaps Thursday's thrilling but ultimately deflating Miami Marlins loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. More insight here from Kevin Barral, who covered the game from the pressbox. Find Big Fish Small Pod on the Fish On First YouTube channel, our new-look Apple Podcasts channel and wherever else you get your pods. FOF's audio programming also includes The Offishial Show, Fish Unfiltered, Swimming Upstream and more. The Fish On First podcast is now being presented by MPT College Consulting! They pride themselves on helping clients navigate the college application process. This includes preparation for standardized testing, guidance through high school, assistance with essays and applications, and choosing the right college. Visit them today at mptcollegeconsulting.com to learn more about their services and schedule a free consultation. Follow Ely (@RealEly) and Fish On First (@FishOnFirst) on Twitter. Join the Marlins Discord server! Complete Miami Marlins coverage here at FishOnFirst.com. View full article

And...here...we...go. Welcome to FOF's first Miami Marlins game thread of the 2024 season! SuperSubs can access exclusive game notes here. The staff and I will be livestreaming leading up to first pitch, as will be the case prior to every Marlins series opener. Enjoy live on-site coverage via Kevin Barral, Noah Berger and Danis Sosa (photos).

Player status updates, insightful stats and more information to fully equip you for today's Marlins game. Happy Opening Day! Here are the latest Miami Marlins game notes, produced by the Marlins communications department and relayed to our loyal SuperSubs... View full article

I'll warn you one last time about Sixto: won't be a starter this season! I'll savor every pitch he throws, though.

Marlins news roundup for 3/28/24 For anybody who's unfamiliar, I compose these Marlins news roundups every weekday morning. The 2024 Opening Day edition is particularly meaty... 🔷 A day away from embarking on his sixth season in the Marlins organization, Jon Berti has been shipped to the Yankees as part of a three-team trade. Jonah Bride is expected to slide into his vacated active roster spot, per SportsGrid's Craig Mish. 🔷 Kevin Barral has more on the outfield prospects that the Marlins received in return, John Cruz and Shane Sasaki. Cruz is bigger asset of the two. He'll rank in the top half of our Fish On First Top 30 prospects list when we next update it. 🔷 Here are Marlins season predictions from 15 FOF staffers and contributors. We kept it simple, just forecasting Miami's win-loss record and team MVP. As is typically the case, my prediction was relatively pessimistic. 🔷 The Marlins made another tiny trade with the Rays, acquiring right-hander Burch Smith from the Rays for cash considerations. Smith will be in the Opening Day bullpen, according to Peter Bendix. 🔷 FOF can confirm that Declan Cronin and Bryan Hoeing also earned bullpen jobs, which seeming fills out the roster. Non-roster invitee Vladimir Gutierrez missed the cut, but accepted an assignment to Triple-A (rather than opting out of his minor league contract). 🔷 The Marlins announced a partnership that makes SeatGeek the "official ticketing marketplace" of the team and LoanDepot Park as a whole. Also, the Marlins appointed Myrna Vaca as executive director of the Miami Marlins Foundation. 🔷 The Triple-A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp and Double-A Pensacola Blue Wahoos finally announced their coaching staffs. Same managers as last season. Traditionally, minor league coaching staffs are made public before spring training rather than cutting it so close to their season openers. 🔷 Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald details the full-circle journey that has taken Jesús Luzardo from Marlins fan to Marlins ace. 🔷 Son Los Marlins writes about how the Marlins' pitching depth is being tested immediately. 🔷 Nick Gordon and Jazz Chisholm Jr. collaborated on a hip-hop single, "Upset Your Maker." It's...not awful! 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, David Rubenstein received unanimous approval from the other MLB owners to begin new control person of the Orioles. Will Smith (10/$140M) signed a contract extension with the Dodgers that runs through the 2033 season. 🔷 Today's on-site Marlins game coverage will be handled by Kevin Barral and Noah Berger. There is a "parade to the park" starting around 1:00 p.m. at Domino Park. Gates to ballpark open at 2:00 p.m. The roof might be open—we'll find out closer to first pitch. The first 30,000 fans to get there receive rally towels (doesn't seem as though they're going to draw 30,000 anyway). Pregame ceremonies on the field begin at 3:30 p.m. Luzardo and Mitch Keller are the probable starters. 🔷 Can't be there in person? Join us virtually for a two-hour special edition of Fish On First LIVE instead, streaming on YouTube/Twitter/Facebook. In addition to FOF panelists, we're expecting four special guests to drop by. We encourage SuperSubs to make series predictions—we'll track your Prediction Time points on a leaderboard throughout the 2024 season. FOF LIVE is presented by Berger & Hicks. If you’ve been injured as a result of somebody else’s negligence, give them a call at (305) 670-7050. Marlins podcast episodes View full article

Perfect. Yeah, super simple just like this 👆🏻 for anybody else submitting.

Yes, extremely awkward timing. Actually a good career move for Berti who should get even more playing time initially with the Yankees (mostly at 3B) than he would've in Miami. But you'd like to see a team provide one of its longtime players with more advance notice so it doesn't turn their life upside-down.

My money would be on Vladimir Gutierrez or Mychal Givens, depending on which kind of pitching staff need arises first.

Watch all seven homers that new Marlins prospect Shane Sasaki hit for the High-A Bowling Green Hot Rods in 2023. View full video

In a three-team, not-yet-official trade on Wednesday, the Miami Marlins sent longtime utility guy Jon Berti to the New York Yankees in exchange for two prospects: Yankees outfielder John Cruz and Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Shane Sasaki. Berti had two years of club control left. Meanwhile, Cruz and Sasaki aren't yet on the 40-man roster. I project Cruz to be assigned to Low-A and Sasaki to Double-A. You can read more about the players involved here. It's shocking timing so close to the start of the season, but putting that aside, how do you think the Marlins did here? Please cast your vote in the poll.

Berti was seemingly a lock to make Miami's Opening Day roster and would have been entering his sixth year in the Marlins organization. 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. View full article

No matter how close it is to the real competition, there's just very little correlation. We get reminded of it year after year after year. It's more so about looking for tangible changes in player skills, approach and athleticism.

Marlins news roundup for 3/27/24 Do you want Miami Marlins news delivered directly to you in the morning? Sign up for our email newsletter! 🔷 There was baseball at LoanDepot Park on Tuesday, an intrasquad scrimmage involving both Marlins big leaguers and minor league backups. Kevin Barral recaps how Max Meyer, Trevor Rogers and Edward Cabrera performed and what they had to say afterwards. 🔷 As I projected, unavailable Marlins right-hander Huascar Brazoban has been placed on the restricted list. Brazoban entered the new year as a probable pick for Miami's major league bullpen, but he is still unable to travel to the United States due to visa issues. The transaction creates a vacant spot on the 40-man roster. 🔷 Miguel Rojas didn't really deny any of the clubhouse anecdotes that Jazz Chisholm Jr. told about him in an interview earlier this month, but he says Chisholm "crossed a line" by attacking his character. Rojas is disappointed that Chisholm did not respect his veteran teammates. Rojas doesn't sound optimistic about them mending fences in the future: "I'm not up to having a person in my life that thinks that I'm a bad person or a piece of s***." 🔷 Louis Addeo-Weiss and Kevin Barral put the lefty-heavy Marlins starting rotation in historical context. 🔷 I provided Marlins insight for The Good Phight's 2024 NL East preview. It includes my takes on Jazz Chisholm Jr., Sixto Sánchez, payroll and more. 🔷 On Miami Mic'd Up with Jeremy Taché (episode embedded below), Peter Bendix justified the Marlins' signing of Tim Anderson despite severe struggles in 2023: "You can find lots of examples of players who have five, six, seven really good years in a row and then a bad year, and you can say, 'Okay, what happened to those guys the following year (this year for us)?' A lot of those guys bounced back! A lot of them bounced back to very similar levels as before. And the key thing that those guys had in common was, number one, they're not that old, they're not 37-38 years old, and number two, there were some health concerns that might have contributed to the poor season and there's reason to believe those are behind him. That is no guarantee, but you watched him during spring training. You see that he's moving really, really well, really fluidly. Some of the things that were hampering him that frankly he played through that other players probably wouldn't have played through, which in my opinion speaks very positively about Tim, but probably brought down his numbers in a way last year that might not be entirely fair." 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, Jordan Montgomery (1/$25M) signed with the Diamondbacks. Even with an easily attainable vesting option for 2025, it is a shockingly inexpensive deal for one of the best players in this past offseason's free agent class. Plucked from the Marlins farm system via the Rule 5 Draft, Nasim Nuñez has made the Nationals' Opening Day roster. It would be a stretch to say Nuñez "earned" the spot—he had a 2 wRC+ in spring training games—but the Nats will test him in regular season action before they consider returning him to Miami. 🔷 Follow along with Noah Berger (@NoahBergerMedia) for live coverage of today's team workout. Marlins podcast episodes View full article

Yes. I can sorta see what Jazz was thinking, being a year removed from his dark times, recognizing that he's in a better place now and being eager to express that. But a more mature person vents like that among family and friends instead of going in front of a microphone to embarrass and burn bridges.

We tweet Miami Marlins GIFs from the @FishOnFirst account on a daily basis—highlights, celebrations, funny reactions, etc. However, the app does not allow you to directly download these GIFs for unlimited personal use. That is where the GIF Database comes in! Exclusively for SuperSubs, I curate a series of Google Drive folders holding my best GIFs (more than 500 in total entering the 2026 regular season). Save your faves and use them to express yourself online. Here are a few free examples of recently created GIFs. To access the rest, become a SuperSub and click the link below... View full article