Ely Sussman

It's a fascinating question. Like I imagine most people feel, I expect Pérez to have the best overall career, but development is rarely linear. Throughout his career so far, he's rarely been allowed to pitch deep into his starts and it's difficult to project how he would handle that initially. For 2024 alone, I lean toward Luzardo. He's capable of more or less repeating his performance from last season.

Here's what you need to know with 59 days to go until Marlins Opening Day... 🔹 The defending Caribbean Series champions, Tigres del Licey, defeated Estrellas Orientales on Saturday to clinch the Dominican Winter League title and earn an opportunity to repeat at this week's tournament. Ageless former Marlin Emilio Bonifácio played a major role in helping them get there. Tiburones de La Guaira clinched the Venezuelan title on Sunday. One of my personal favorites, Harold Ramírez, is a starting outfielder for them. Fish On First will be providing extensive Caribbean Series coverage here. 🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, the Tigers extended infield prospect Colt Keith (6/$28.6M). The deal could cover up to nine years if all club options are exercised. Keith is the seventh player to a receive a pre-debut contract extension of this nature and the second one this offseason, joining Jackson Chourio of the Brewers. Free agent Héctor Neris (1/$9M) signed with the Cubs, Adam Ottavino (1/$4.5M) signed with the Mets and Alex Wood (financials not yet reported) signed with the Athletics. 🔹 Kevin Barral asked A.J. Puk about competing for a starting rotation spot and his thoughts on the Marlins' front office changes. Kevin also wrote the first of our team-by-team Caribbean Series previews, leading off with Mexico. 🔹 Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald wrote about the critical relationship between Peter Bendix and Skip Schumaker. 🔹 Bendix divulged more about his personal life in the final part of his interview with MLB.com's Christina De Nicola. He's an alum of Cleveland Heights High School, graduating a few years ahead of Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. 🔹 Schumaker dressed up and jetted up to New York to accept his 2023 NL Manager of the Year award. Watch his full speech below. 🔹 For the first time in 2024, we're preparing a Marlins Jeopardy contest! Can't do it without a category of your audience questions. Submit them here for a chance to be featured on the show. 🔹 The Prospects 1500 staff ranked the top 50 Marlins prospects. 🔹 And lastly, congratulations to Parker Heyser. He is the winner of our SuperSub Eury Pérez jersey giveaway. We are immensely appreciative of everybody who has SuperSub'd through the first 10 days of our new site's existence! We'll do our best to make it a worthwhile investment throughout the year with more periodic giveaways like this. Marlins Podcast Episodes View full article

Luis Arraez and Jake Burger became the first players to try them out during Friday's FanFest. After almost 24 hours of build-up, the Miami Marlins showed the world two additions to their 2024 uniform mix on Friday, as modeled by two of last year's most popular player acquisitions, Luis Arraez and Jake Burger. Arraez strutted around wearing the revised black uni, while Burger modeled a brand-new blue one. The Marlins have changed the lettering on their black uni from black to white, relenting to the years-long complaint that the black-on-black design was too difficult to read due to lack of contrast. That's a minor yet indisputable improvement, in my opinion. The blue addition has been brewing for years, according to former Marlins communications chief Jason Latimer. The club has utilized this variant of blue during Spring Training since the 2018-19 rebrand, but never for regular season games. Both the black and blue uniforms read "Marlins" across the chest, unlike the standard home whites and City Connect unis, which have "Miami" in that position. No specifics yet on how often or on what occasions you'll be seeing these worn on the field. Which of the two do you like more? View full article

Here's what you need to know with 62 days to go until Marlins Opening Day... 🔹 Thursday's winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, RF/3B Vidal Bruján went 0-for-4 with a walk, run scored and outfield assist. His Estrellas Orientales rallied from a 5-0 deficit to force extra innings, but still lost. They're facing elimination on Friday. In Panamá, C Christian Bethancourt helped Federales de Chiriquí to a blowout win. They can clinch a league championship (and a Caribbean Series berth) with another victory today. 🔹 Check out Marlins Media Day interviews on the Fish On First YouTube channel featuring Josh Bell, Jake Burger, Braxton Garrett, Bryan De La Cruz, Jesús Sánchez, Andrew Nardi, Nick Fortes and Ryan Weathers. Nardi said he has reworked his seldom-used changeup into a splitter and Weathers has added a two-seam fastball. Perhaps the most encouraging takeaway was De La Cruz admitting his defense and baserunning needed improvement and devoting the vast majority of his offseason work to those areas. Despite being in Miami's lineup practically every day, DLC accrued only 0.2 fWAR last season with those deficiencies negating a lot of his production at the plate. 🔹 The Marlins are updating their uniforms, as first reported by Billy Gil of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. The hints put out on Thursday suggest these are common sense improvements. We'll see them debut at today's FanFest. 🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Joc Pederson (1/$12.5M) signed with the Diamondbacks and David Robertson (1/$11-12M) signed with the Rangers. Robertson's August slump in Miami didn't come back to bite him after all. He's actually getting a slight pay raise from the previous year. 🔹 Results are in from our January 2024 confidence poll. Combining results from the website poll and Twitter replies, the average response was 4.89 (on a scale of 1-10). I'll run the next poll in late February right before Spring Training games get underway. 🔹 Thanks to Cali from the Battered Marlins Fans podcast for joining us on the latest Fish On First LIVE. The show is now 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. 🔹 Baseball America posted their updated Marlins Top 30 prospects list, including new international signee Luis Cova at No. 4. Their list includes 2023 draft picks OF Mark Coley, RHP Xavier Meachem and LHP Emmett Olson—haven't seen them on anybody else's Top 30. 🔹 Follow Isaac Azout and Kevin Barral for live FanFest coverage. You can also listen to the Marlins Radio Network from 3-5 p.m. for interviews with Skip Schumaker, Jesús Luzardo, Tanner Scott and others. 🔹 One more reminder that we'll be selecting a SuperSub to win a Eury Pérez jersey! Sign up here by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. ET to be eligible to win it. Marlins Podcast Episodes View full article

Five years after completely rebranding, the team is teasing more changes that will be revealed at Friday's FanFest. We were bracing for a subdued Marlins FanFest this year. The scheduling is unconventional and the fanbase is largely dissatisfied with the team's offseason idleness. Then on FanFest eve, a report by Billy Gil from The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz changed the mood: Well, I shouldn't be hyperbolic. There are some disgruntled people so fixated on the Marlins current roster and its flaws that they cannot generate any enthusiasm for cosmetic changes. However, from what we can see from the team's tease and deduce with common sense, this is good news. We clearly are not talking about a full-blown rebrand—those need to be unveiled much earlier in the offseason when they happen. The color scheme is staying the same as is the font. This is about taking more subtle steps in the right direction. In my opinion, the weakest link in the Marlins' pre-existing uniform rotation was the black-on-black, which had been used for both home and road games in 2023. It was simply hard to read the lettering, even when TV cameras provided a close-up view. Replacing the back lettering with white should make a significant difference. Years after I—then as site manager of Fish Stripes—began advocating for the Marlins to wear blue during meaningful games, they seem to be finally giving in. The blue Spring Training/batting practice uniforms have been extremely popular since debuting in 2019. Making that blue the base color of a regular season uni ought to be awesome. Separate article coming soon once the Marlins give us a complete view of these threads! View full article

Yup, unfortunately. One of the subtle changes with him has been the drop-off in making contact when chasing pitches outside the zone. Not as severe as García's problem with that, but Mancini will need to be more selective to extend his career.

Here’s what you should know with 63 days to go until Marlins Opening Day… 🔹 It's the highest-profile signing for the Marlins so far this offseason, albeit it's another one of the minor league variety. Trey Mancini will be a non-roster invitee at big league camp. He is coming off the worst year of his seven-season big league career, but isn't far removed from being an adequate, everyday right-handed bat. I give Mancini about a 65% chance of cracking Miami's Opening Day roster. 🔹 Christina De Nicola of MLB.com also reports that the Marlins have signed RHP Elvis Alvarado coming off a fantastic showing in winter ball (0 R in 12.2 IP). The Marlins are up to nine NRIs, including Alvarado and oft-injured José Devers (entering his seventh season in the organization). 🔹 In Barry Jackson's latest for the Miami Herald, he reports that Peter Bendix is simply being disciplined when it comes to free agency. Bruce Sherman has not set any sort of rigid "payroll ceiling" and there is room to add veteran talent without necessarily offloading other contracts. Shortstop is the "most likely" position that they're considering addressing before the dust settles. 🔹 Louis Addeo-Weiss isn't buying that hopeful spin. He sees a potential rebuild on the horizon. 🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Fish On First's own Noah Berger reports that Bally Sports Florida is doing English-language broadcasts for most Caribbean Series games. A familiar voice to Marlins fans, Craig Minervini will be the play-by-play announcer. 🔹 Kevin Barral created your guide to Marlins FanFest, which is coming up on Friday from 4-10 p.m. Free tickets! Free parking! Hope you can make it. 🔹 Lots of Marlins players are back in town in advance of FanFest. Jake Burger brought his family to a Miami Heat game. The team enlisted Peyton Burdick, Edward Cabrera, Bryan De La Cruz, Xavier Edwards, Steven Okert, Eury Pérez and George Soriano to mingle with sponsors at the ballpark (pictured above). 🔹 Marlins Media Day is being held today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Follow Isaac Azout and Noah Berger for updates. 🔹 We'll break down the most interesting quotes and observations tonight from 6-7 p.m. during Fish On First LIVE, streaming on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram. The show is now 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. 🔹 Congrats to Marlins reliever Kaleb Ort, who was honored by his alma mater, Lowell High School (MI), with a jersey retirement. Marlins Podcast Episodes View full article

The everyday player upside is still there. That's very ambitious, though. I'd almost prefer it if he had extreme splits, something to indicate with more certainty that he can help as a part-time guy like old friend Coop, who raked against LHP last season. Maybe that's why Mancini is a minor league deal guy while Coop is destined for some kind of guarantee.

The "majority" of the tournament's 25 games will be carried by the same regional sports network that's been the longtime home of the Marlins. Earlier this offseason, the Miami Marlins boasted about securing an exclusive partnership for the broadcast rights of the Caribbean Series. Their press release made it clear that the event would get English-language coverage as it moves to U.S. soil for the first time in decades. With the start of the tournament only a week away, we have more clarity about those broadcast plans, courtesy of Fish On First's own Noah Berger: Craig Minervini has been with Bally Sports Florida for most of the network's existence. His 22 seasons of Marlins work have centered around pregame/postgame hosting duties, but also included in-game reporting and occasional play-by-play. In 2023, Tommy Hutton, Rod Allen, Gaby Sanchez and Jeff Nelson rotated as Marlins TV analysts. Sanchez would seemingly be a logical candidate to contribute to these broadcasts considering he participated in winter ball during his playing career and makes his year-round home in Miami, but that's just my speculation. It's also possible that Bally goes outside the Marlins family for Minervini's boothmate. Bally also handles local broadcasts for the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers. The Heat have four games that overlap with Caribbean Series matchups, while the Panthers have two. However, the Caribbean Series utilizes a lot of morning and mid-afternoon start times to mitigate these conflicts. The Spanish-language calls for most Serie del Caribe games will be available on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+. They've been carrying that side of it for several years. Two active Marlins, Vidal Bruján and Christian Bethancourt, are hoping to participate on behalf of the Dominican Republic and Panamá, respectively. Newsbreaker Noah and Kevin Barral will have credentialed coverage for you from LoanDepot Park throughout the Caribbean Series. View full article

Trey Mancini is coming to Marlins camp this spring on a minor league deal, as first reported by the New York Post's Jon Heyman (and confirmed by Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald). The Marlins have previously signed Matt Andriese, Jonathan Davis, Tristan Gray and several others as non-roster invitees, but Mancini comes with the highest profile. He has slashed .263/.328/.448 (109 wRC+) in 831 games across seven MLB seasons, accruing 6.3 fWAR. Best known for reaching his 35-homer peak with the 2019 Baltimore Orioles, Mancini won a World Series title with the 2022 Houston Astros. Last offseason, he signed a two-year, $14M deal with the Chicago Cubs, but got designated for assignment in August. He briefly played in Triple-A for the Cincinnati Reds organization, though they declined to call him up for their September playoff push. Mancini's defensive reps have been evenly split between first base and the corner outfield spots (with plenty of DH reps as well). He is below average no matter where you put him. Trey Mancini Career Hitting Stats Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards 2016 24 BAL AL 5 15 14 3 5 1 0 3 5 0 0 0 4 .357 .400 1.071 1.471 274 15 0 1 0 0 0 /DH 2017 25 BAL AL 147 586 543 65 159 26 4 24 78 1 0 33 139 .293 .338 .488 .826 120 265 12 6 0 4 1 73D/H9 RoY-3 2018 26 BAL AL 156 636 582 69 141 23 3 24 58 0 1 44 153 .242 .299 .416 .715 95 242 17 5 0 5 1 73D/H 2019 27 BAL AL 154 679 602 106 175 38 2 35 97 1 0 63 143 .291 .364 .535 .899 134 322 22 9 0 5 3 93D/7H 2020 Did not play in major or minor leagues (Illness) 2021 29 BAL AL 147 616 556 77 142 33 1 21 71 0 0 51 143 .255 .326 .432 .758 106 240 19 8 0 1 4 3D/H 2022 30 TOT AL 143 587 519 56 124 23 1 18 63 0 0 53 135 .239 .319 .391 .710 103 203 12 10 0 5 2 D379/H 2022 30 BAL AL 92 401 354 39 95 16 1 10 41 0 0 35 86 .268 .347 .404 .751 116 143 4 9 0 3 2 D39/7H 2022 30 HOU AL 51 186 165 17 29 7 0 8 22 0 0 18 49 .176 .258 .364 .622 76 60 8 1 0 2 0 D73/H9 2023 31 CHC NL 79 263 235 31 55 12 0 4 28 0 0 21 78 .234 .299 .336 .635 71 79 5 2 0 3 1 3DH/9 7 Yrs 831 3382 3051 407 801 156 11 129 400 2 1 265 795 .263 .328 .448 .775 110 1366 87 41 0 23 12 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Recent production makes ex-Marlins All-Star Jorge Soler the far more desirable player. That being said, you may be surprised by how eerily similar their career stats are. Both are entering their age-32 season, too. Mancini's chances of cracking the Marlins Opening Day roster would be fairly strong if any one of Josh Bell, Jake Burger, Bryan De La Cruz. Avisaíl García or Jesús Sánchez were to suffer a preseason injury. For him to force the issue without a corresponding injury, he'd need to demonstrate that his 2023 power outage (4 HR in 263 PA) was an anomaly. View full rumor

Here’s what you should know with 64 days to go until Marlins Opening Day… 🔹 Tuesday's winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, 3B Vidal Bruján went 2-for-4 with a run scored. The best-of-seven championship series between Estrellas Orientales and Tigres del Licey is tied up at 2-2. In Panamá, Christian Bethancourt's team, Federales de Chiriquí, advanced to the Probeis finals. 🔹 Per SportsGrid's Craig Mish, the Marlins are hiring Brandon Mann to be their new pitcher strategist. Mann briefly pitched for the Rangers in 2018 after spending years gaining velocity at Driveline Baseball. He then went to work for Driveline, assisting players with data-driven pitch design. Fascinating stuff. The Marlins have obviously been effective at cultivating homegrown pitchers in recent years and finding ways to further their development even once they've reached the majors, but doesn't hurt to bring in somebody with additional tricks for getting the most out of their arms. 🔹Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Gary Sheffield fell short by 11.1% in his final year of eligibility on the writers' ballot. Alex Carver eloquently disputed each of the commonly cited objections to Sheffield's candidacy. He'll have to wait two more years before getting a look from the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee. 🔹 Sheffield got emotional discussing his relationship with Jim Leyland, who's going into Cooperstown this year. Worth watching even though they won't be inducted together: 🔹 The Marlins Fan Confidence Poll is going to be a new monthly tradition around here. On a 1-10 scale, tell us how you feel about the direction of the franchise. I'll be tracking the ebbs and flows of the mean and median poll results. 🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Rhys Hoskins (2/$34M) signed with the Brewers, Matt Moore (1/$9M) signed with the Angels and Joey Gallo (1/$5M) signed with the Nationals. 🔹 Our own Kevin Barral was at Florida International University on Tuesday where free agent pitchers Yoan López and Vladimir Gutierrez threw in front of MLB scouts, including one from the Marlins. Those right-handers could likely be had on minor league deals. Marlins prospect Paul McIntosh did the catching for López. McIntosh says his focus this offseason was improving the accuracy of his throwing and "everything catching-wise." 🔹 Peter Bendix feels "pretty comfortable" with the Marlins' current shortstop-by-committee situation, he tells Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. Bendix reiterates that "there’s still a lot of offseason remaining" to fortify the roster. 🔹 In compliance with Major League Baseball's player development standards, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos are installing a new tarp and giving away their old one. To be entered to win it, make a quick video stating the case for why your school or baseball program deserves it and tag them on social media. View full article

Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the BBWAA, as announced on Tuesday night. They'll join revered manager Jim Leyland in HOF's Class of 2024. Unfortunately, former Marlins great Gary Sheffield missed the cut in what was his 10th and final year on the BBWAA ballot. Read Alex Carver's take on Sheffield's snub. Sheffield played parts of six seasons for the then-Florida Marlins from 1993-1998, contributing to their first-ever World Series title. He continues to hold franchise records for highest career on-base percentage (.426) and weighted runs created-plus (155) among players who had at least 1,000 plate appearances as Marlins. Oh yeah, and he played another 2,018 games with seven other MLB teams and was a great presence in the heart of their lineups, too. Sheffield's next chance to get into Cooperstown could come in December 2025 when the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee convenes again. He'll have to receive at least 75% support from the 16-person committee, comprised of members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, executives, and veteran media members.

You're spot on with that very last point. Beyond being a quiet offseason of acquisitions, it's been such an uninspiring one. As capable as he seems to be, Bendix is still unproven as a lead front office decision-maker. I don't think he can sell fans on the idea that retaining most of last year's cast is sufficient to make this team genuinely good in 2024.

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Here’s what you should know with 65 days to go until Marlins Opening Day… 🔹 Leading off, I just want to thank everybody who became a SuperSub on Monday. Even with some users dealing with technical difficulties, we set a new single-day record for sign-ups! You can join them here. 🔹 Monday's winter ball notes: In the Dominican Republic, RF Vidal Bruján went 2-for-4 with a walk and a caught stealing. 🔹 The Marlins Fan Confidence Poll is going to be a new monthly tradition around here. On a 1-10 scale, tell us how you feel about the direction of the franchise. I'll be tracking the ebbs and flows of the mean and median poll results. 🔹 Elsewhere around baseball, Aroldis Chapman (1/$10.5M) signed with the Pirates and James Paxton (1/~$12M) is close to finalizing a deal with the Dodgers. 🔹 In the second part of an interview with MLB.com's Christina De Nicola, Peter Bendix emphasized the importance of "getting a buy-in from the player" when trying to change something about their game. "You might have the best idea in the world, [but] if you can't both communicate that to the player and get his buy-in, that idea doesn't matter," Bendix says. He also describes baseball operations success as "entering as many seasons as we can with legitimate playoff aspirations, playing meaningful, exciting games in September." 🔹 Laura Georgia explores Ryan Weathers' baseball background and comes away optimistic that he has the intangibles to cope with his past MLB struggles and perform better than ever in 2024. 🔹 The results of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame election will be revealed tonight at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Network. There are five candidates (Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer, Todd Helton, Billy Wagner and Gary Sheffield) who've received at least 75.0% of the vote on the 200 publicly known BBWAA ballots. I'll lean pessimistic and predict that only Beltré and Helton get elected this year. 🔹 Fish On First's Noah Berger created a new "media" Twitter account (@NoahBergerMedia) to separate his Marlins reporting from his personal life. Please follow him there. Marlins Podcast Episodes View full article