Ely Sussman

The Marlins have taken another step toward properly celebrating the franchise's history by establishing the Marlins Legends Hall of Fame. "Each year, we’ll celebrate former players, coaches, managers, and staff members for their contributions to not just the Marlins organization, but also our South Florida communities," the club says. The class of 2025 consists of former players Jeff Conine and Luis Castillo and former managers Jim Leyland and Jack McKeon, each of whom won at least one World Series title with the Fish. A statement from Marlins chairman & principal owner Bruce Sherman: "We are proud to launch the Marlins Legends Hall of Fame and create a deserving tribute for legends who have played integral roles in shaping our franchise. This year's inaugural class set the standard for what it means to be a Marlin, and we are thrilled to honor them this season. Through inspiring dedication and a lasting legacy, they left indelible marks on our community both on and off the field." Conine was an original Florida Marlin, acquired from the Kansas City Royals in the 1992 expansion draft. From 1993-1997, he made two National League All-Star teams and slashed .291/.360/.467. He was the everyday first baseman for the '97 championship team. Conine returned to Florida in a 2003 midseason trade, contributed to winning another ring that October and stayed through 2005. Since retiring in 2007, most of Conine's post-playing career has been spent working for the Marlins. He's currently a special assistant to Bruce Sherman. His son, Griffin, is on the current Marlins roster. Castillo is the only player to play even more games as a Marlin (1,128) than Conine did. The speedy second baseman is their all-time leader in hits (1,273), runs scored (675) and stolen bases (281). His 10 total seasons is also a record, as is the 35-game hitting streak he had in 2002. 44blrc_1.mp4 Leyland only managed the Marlins for two seasons, but one of those culminated in the '97 title. That team's 92-70 regular season record and plus-71 run differential still stand as all-time franchise bests. Leyland was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2024. The hiring of McKeon in 2003 was one of the most effective in-season managerial changes in MLB history. He took over a Marlins team that had started off 16-22 and they went 75-49 (.605 winning percentage) from that point forward. Starting Josh Beckett on short rest in World Series Game 6 is the most iconic managerial decision in franchise history. The elderly cigar aficionado is the only full-time Marlins manager to win the majority of his career games (.522 W-L%). Plaques of each Hall of Fame inductee will be featured at loanDepot park in the newly expanded Marlins Museum. There will be pregame ceremonies on the following days to honor the HOF inductees with special giveaway items for fans who attend: Jeff Conine on March 30 Jim Leyland on July 6 Jack McKeon on August 3 Luis Castillo on August 24 Congrats to Conine, Castillo, Leyland and McKeon on receiving this honor.

Jack McMullen has been hired to serve as the Miami Marlins' lead play-by-play radio broadcaster, multiple sources tell Fish On First. The team made it official with an announcement on Friday morning. McMullen's duties previously belonged to Kyle Sielaff from 2023-2024. On January 17, Sielaff became the team's television play-by-play voice, necessitating a quick search for his successor. This will be McMullen's first taste of the major league level. A 2020 graduate of Syracuse University, he was an announcer for the Triple-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 2022-2024 (sample here). The position involved both play-by-play and color commentary, plus creating digital content and assisting with media relations. He is also Just Baseball's director of podcasting, covering all 30 MLB organizations as host of The Just Baseball Show and The Call-Up. McMullen is originally from Illinois. Follow him on Twitter. McMullen is the fifth different lead radio voice that the Marlins franchise has had, joining Joe Angel, Dave Van Horne, Glenn Geffner and Sielaff. Last season, Sielaff and Paul Severino provided play-by-play for practically every Marlins regular season game on radio and TV, respectively. In 2025, Craig Minervini will have an expanded role on both mediums. For "at least 35 games," McMullen and Minervini will share the radio booth and split up the play-by-play, according to the Miami Herald's Barry Jackson. The Marlins have been using a rotation of radio analysts in recent years. In 2024, that included Kelly Saco (52 games), Rod Allen (40 games), Gaby Sanchez (40 games) and Jeff Nelson (22 games). Triple-A Jacksonville broadcaster Scott Kornberg did the remaining eight games in the booth. Kornberg was another candidate for the vacant play-by-play job, per sources. AJ Ramos is being added to the rotation this season, Jackson reports. Ramos pitched parts of six seasons for the Marlins (2012-2017). He posted a 2.78 ERA and 3.24 FIP in 325 relief appearances, recording 92 saves and earning a 2016 NL All-Star selection. xzy6os.mp4 Stephen Strom is entering his third season as Miami's pregame radio host. Before "passing the mic" to McMullen, Sielaff will co-host a two-hour radio show from Saturday's FanFest alongside Strom from 5-7 p.m. It'll be available on NewsRadio 610 WIOD and the Marlins Radio Network social media accounts. You can hear McMullen's game broadcasts locally in South Florida this season on FOX Sports 940 AM or stream them from anywhere via the MLB app. McMullen will be on the call for all 30 Marlins spring training games, beginning with the February 22 Grapefruit League opener against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Shams Charania did not get hacked when breaking the Luka Dončić trade news and neither did MLB.com's Christina De Nicola when reporting Tuesday night that the Miami Marlins have signed journeyman catcher Rob Brantly to a minor league deal that includes an invitation to spring training. Difficult as it is to believe, yes, Brantly is still an active player all these years later. Brantly was previously in the Marlins org for two-and-a-half years, acquired from the Detroit Tigers in a 2012 midsummer trade along with Brian Flynn and Jacob Turner in exchange for Omar Infante and Aníbal Sánchez. He debuted in the majors shortly after being acquired, split time behind the plate with Jeff Mathis in 2013 and was claimed off waivers by the Chicago White Sox during the 2014-15 offseason. Somebody who caught the likes of Heath Bell, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson, Tom Koehler and Ricky Nolasco could potentially become a member of the 2025 Marlins. The 2012-2013 Fish remain the only team that's ever given Brantly a long leash to prove himself in The Show. What a fascinating career snapshot this is (courtesy of Baseball-Reference). He has played MLB games in seven of the last 11 seasons, but never more than 14 games in any given year. There have been three separate seasons in which he's made exactly one appearance. Brantly is the 65th player who's been invited to Marlins big league camp. At age 35, he's nearly five years older than fellow NRI Albert Almora Jr., the next-oldest player in camp. Brantly joins Nick Fortes as the only catchers in camp with major league experience—you could argue that is worth something. Barring injuries to Fortes and Rule 5 Draft pick Liam Hicks, he won't be in consideration for an Opening Day roster spot. The purpose of this signing seems to be simply finding a non-40-man substitute for Jhonny Pereda after Pereda was claimed off waivers last week. Lots of bullpen sessions need to be caught in Jupiter over the next two months! If Brantly remains with the Marlins at the conclusion of camp, expect him to be assigned to Triple-A Jacksonville and catch once or twice a week.

The Miami Marlins released the following prospects from their DSL Marlins and DSL Miami rosters on Friday: LHP Andelzon Abad, OF Khris Almonte, RHP Luis Espinoza, OF Daniel Gaitor, SS Adrian Ibarra, RHP Jeyson Mejía, C Kevin Novoa, RHP Johan Palacios, LHP Robert Puente, RHP Brandon Smith, LHP Alfonso Suriel, RHP Fraylin Suriel, RHP Hiroshi Takahashi and RHP Roosevelt Trinidad. These are essentially corresponding moves to make room for the 18 new players who have joined the organization since the 2025 international free agency period opened on January 15. Still, it's notable that they are cutting ties with several guys who received substantial signing bonuses in recent years. As covered in Fish On First's international free agent signings guide, Gaitor ($300k bonus), Ibarra ($190k) and Almonte ($140k) received six figures from the Fish. Each of them made their Dominican Summer League debuts in 2023 and performed worse in 2024 while repeating the level. Listed at 6'9", Palacios was the tallest prospect in the Marlins farm system, but wasn't throwing enough strikes to earn a stateside opportunity. The top performer of the bunch was Luis Espinoza (pictured above), a reliever who posted a 2.53 ERA with a manageable walk rate across 46 ⅓ innings pitched in the DSL. None of the newly released players ever appeared on any edition of the FOF Top 30 prospects list or received serious consideration for a spot.

The Marlins overhauled their major league coaching staff heading into this season and there have been substantial changes made throughout the minor leagues as well, Fish On First farm director Alex Carver reports. The Triple-A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp will have a new manager, hitting coach and pitching coach with the departures of Daren Brown, Greg Colbrunn and Jeremy Powell from those respective roles. Kevin "Smoke" Randel had been the longest-tenured manager with a Marlins MiLB affiliate, but instead of returning to Double-A Pensacola, he has taken a different role within the organization. At lower levels, Nick Weisheipl (Low-A Jupiter) and Gianni Bloom (Dominican Summer League) have announced themselves that they'll be managing affiliates for the first time. Marlins Opening Day is 52 days away. More Marlins news and content below: 🔷 Happy birthday to Anthony Bender. The right-handed reliever is turning 30 years old, which makes him the only 30-something player on the Marlins 40-man roster. Signed to a minor league deal four years ago, Bender has made 141 appearances for Miami, posting a 3.37 ERA, 3.31 FIP and .229 BAA in 133 ⅔ innings pitched. He is highly likely to be part of the Opening Day bullpen. 🔷 Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA has unveiled its 2025 season projections. The median projection for the Marlins is a 62-100 record, identical to last season. They're projected to score the fewest runs in the majors (616). 🔷 Our Marlins Jeopardy trivia competition returns on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. ET! I'm the quizmaster for this one. The questions will focus entirely on the past seven seasons of Marlins baseball (since 2018). If you have trivia from that time period, submit it here for a chance to be featured in our audience questions category. 🔷 Congratulations to Jeremiah Geiger on being named the new host of the Locked On Marlins podcast. He'll be uploading pod episodes every weekday moving forward, beginning today. 🔷 Marlins FanFest week is here. Fish On First will publish a guide to the event as Saturday draws closer. A family of Pensacola Blue Wahoos fans won a free trip to Miami for it after building a Blue Wahoos snowman. 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, Jack Flaherty is returning to the Tigers (2 YRS/$35M), whom he signed with last offseason. He'll be able to opt out after the 2025 season. Although it's a nice raise for Flaherty, it was widely expected that he'd get a longer deal as a 29-year-old coming off a very productive 2024 campaign. Former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent passed away at the age of 86. Vincent held the position from 1989-1992 and oversaw the birth of the Florida Marlins as an expansion franchise. Marlins podcast episodes

Just four months after inking South Korean right-hander Woo-Suk Go to a two-year, $4.5 million deal, the San Diego Padres were ready to cut their losses. Go was part of the package that the Miami Marlins received in exchange for Luis Arraez last May, but he wasn't an asset in the trade—the Marlins took on the remainder of his contract as a favor, enticing the Padres to part with better prospects than they would have otherwise (Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee and Nathan Martorella). Following the trade, Go continued to underwhelm in the upper minors. After only seven relief appearances as a member of the Marlins organization, he was designated for assignment to create space on their 40-man roster. The Marlins would shatter their single-season franchise record by using 45 different pitchers in 2024, but he wasn't one of them. Even so, the Marlins haven't entirely given up on Go yet. They owe him a $2.25 million salary in 2025 regardless, which is more than any reliever who's actually on Miami's roster. Before flushing that money down the drain, he's been given the opportunity to make another impression during spring training as a non-roster invitee to big league camp. Go had seven seasons of professional experience in the Korea Baseball Organization before signing with the Padres, peaking as one of the league's best closers. And yet, he's still just 26 years old, younger than many of his fellow Marlins NRIs. Perhaps the team wouldn't be as patient with a comparable player who was already in his 30s. Coming over from the KBO, Go's fastball velocity was believed to be "sitting 93-95 mph, up to 98," according to a scouting report from Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs. We didn't see that in stateside competition. His four-seam fastball only averaged 92.8 mph during Triple-A appearances, peaking at 95.7. It also had a relatively low spin rate of 2,120 rpm, which would have ranked around the 13th percentile of qualified MLB four-seamers last season, per Baseball Savant. With that pitch as his primary weapon, he struggled to induce swings-and-misses. The table below is courtesy of Thomas Nestico's pitching summary app. Go was victimized by ineffective defense in 2024. He posted a 6.54 ERA, but a substantially lower 4.87 FIP. It's reasonable to expect his .370 batting average on balls in play to improve even if he pitched in front of the same group of fielders moving forward. That being said, a turnaround in luck would only take Go so far. The quality of the swings taken against him may also be an indication that he was too predictable. Opponents loved ambushing Go on the first pitch of a plate appearance. When putting those pitches in play, they slashed .480/.500/1.040 with eight extra-base hits. Here's new teammate Eric Wagaman clobbering a belt-high fastball for a 422-foot home run. bG4xa1ZfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1VnbFpCbEJRVUFJQURGdFdVd0FBQVFaUUFGa0hBZ0lBQlFGUlZsWU5WUW9IQWdFRA==.mp4 Runners went 12-for-14 when attempting to steal bases against Go (an incredible throw by Will Banfield prevented them from going 13-for-14). It's not uncommon for relievers to be neglectful of men on base, but unless the quality of Go's stuff ticks up, he has little margin for error. He'll be allowing a lot of balls in play if ever summoned to the majors and those become more damaging when you're nonchalant about letting guys advance into scoring position. Inviting Woo-Suk Go to big league camp is understandable when the Marlins truly have nothing to lose. However, after closely reviewing his previous campaign, I didn't come away with much reason to be optimistic. He doesn't have any sort of background as a starter and only topped out at two innings in his longest outings, making him an awkward fit even for mop-up duty. The 2024 Marlins received solid bullpen production from some unexpected sources. Let's see if that trend continues into 2025 with Go.

Eight players returning from the 2024 Miami Marlins have selected new uniform numbers entering 2025, the team announced on Wednesday. In the cases of Griffin Conine and Ryan Weathers, there is a nostalgic twist: they'll be donning numbers that previously belonged to their fathers. It's important to be specific about this because Jeff Conine and David Weathers each had two separate stints with the Marlins and wore different numbers during those stints. The elder Conine aka "Mr. Marlin" was No. 19 as a member of the inaugural Florida Marlins in 1993 and kept it through the 1997 World Series. When Conine was traded back to Florida in August 2003, the number belonged to Mike Lowell, so he switched to No. 18. Although Jeff was a more productive player during his No. 19 era, Griffin is only old enough to remember his No. 18 era—I'm going to assume that influenced this decision. The Marlins gave David Weathers his first extended opportunity to establish himself in the big leagues from 1993-1996, logging 342 ⅓ innings. He wore No. 35 throughout that period. He eventually made his way back to the Fish in 2004 as No. 25, but only for the final few weeks of that season (16.2 IP). Ryan is understandably honoring the longer stint even though it took place before he was born. Last season, Weathers had No. 60 and Conine had No. 56. Health permitting, Weathers is a lock to be in the Marlins starting rotation. He posted a 3.63 ERA, 4.11 FIP and .234 BAA in 86 ⅔ innings pitched during a campaign that was interrupted by a fluky finger injury. At age 27, Conine finally got his first taste of the majors late in the season and made a strong impression (.268/.325/.451, 114 wRC+ and 0.4 fWAR in 30 G). There's a lot of uncertainty about how the Marlins will align their 2025 outfield, but I project him to make the cut on Opening Day as part of a right field platoon. More uniform number notes: The Xavier Edwards switch to No. 9 was a long time coming. "That's my favorite number, my mom's favorite number and the number I've worn my whole baseball career," he told Fish Unfiltered in August. Edwards just had to wait for the previous number wearer, Josh Bell, to be traded. Jesús Sánchez used to be No. 7 in 2022 and 2023. He only became No. 12 during spring training last year to appease free agent signing Tim Anderson. Javier Sanoja's old No. 86 went to first-year manager Clayton McCullough (more coaching staff numbers here). A complete list of 2025 player uniform numbers, including offseason acquisitions and spring training non-roster invitees, will be available in two weeks.