Sean Millerick

Just three months ago, Miami Marlins fans were toasting the most successful and exciting Marlins team in two decades. Fresh off a playoff appearance, hopes were high for competing again in 2024. Three months later? Those same fans are wondering if their team will even come close to a .500 record, and just what they did to deserve their lot in life as a baseball fan. Okay, that’s extreme. There is a lot to like about the 2024 Miami Marlins. If left untouched, they can easily have one of the most exciting young rotations in all of MLB, and that’s even without staff ace Sandy Alcantara in the fold. Luis Arraez is one of the best hitters in the game. Jazz Chisholm is one of the most exciting players in the game. I can’t honestly remember the last time Miami had a pair of relievers as dynamic as Andrew Nardi and Tanner Scott. Reigning NL Manager of the Year winner Skip Schumaker is doing a really good job of looking like the best manager the Marlins have had since Jack McKeon retired the first time in 2005. He elevated last year’s club, and he can do the same thing again. When the dust settles on the 2024 campaign, the whole of that team will be greater than the sum of its parts. Just like in 2023. However… The Miami Marlins are the only team in MLB to not sign a free agent to an MLB contract. This is true. True despite the fact that their best player in Alcantara is out for the season. True despite the fact that last season’s home run leader, Jorge Soler, is no longer part of the organization. True despite the fact that Miami’s offense was just about the worst to ever make the playoffs, and only three clubs in 2023 scored fewer runs. No team in the NL scored fewer. In short, the Miami Marlins have done nothing to improve an offense that was very bad at driving in runs last season. With Soler no longer in the mix, they aren’t even running it back. The only case that can be made for offensive improvement is that Jacob Stallings and Joey Wendle weren’t brought back. Considering how terrible they were combined offensively last year (-1.4 WAR), it can be reasonably argued that replacing them with anyone technically counts as improvement. Still, that’s poor consolation indeed for a long-suffering fanbase. Which is what the Miami Marlins are currently on pace to do, and have done thus far, is tantamount to organizational malpractice. It’s shortsighted. It’s cheap. It’s just plain wrong. Admittedly, some changes in operational philosophy needed to be made, especially if you accept as a given the constraints under which Bruce Sherman is choosing to operate the team. Many changes, in fact. Every new dollar being put into scouting, into analytics, into staffing is a net positive that should pay dividends down the road. There’s also the fact that the 84-78 record Miami put up in 2023 was supported by a ridiculously unsustainable 33-14 record in one-run games. Expecting a repeat of that would be crazy, and if nothing else, it’s patently clear that Sherman is not drinking the Kool-Aid and acting crazy. Throw in the fact that Sandy Alcantara is out for the season, and it makes perfect sense to take a somewhat longer-term view in 2024. Believe it or not, though, a team can make long-term and short-term improvements at the same time. Sometimes those short-term improvements can come from internal growth. Standing pat would make perfect sense if the 2023 Marlins were a team full of rookies expected to further develop this season. Either that, or if the farm system was ready to promote a couple top offensive prospects that could tip the scales. None of those are the case here, though. A fact that is a large part of the problem Sherman is hoping Peter Bendix starts to fix. And it must be fixed. Yet that still leaves Miami Marlins fans—and thus Bruce Sherman’s customers—with a team that not even the most optimistic of fans can squint and see a path towards returning to the playoffs. A team for which zero reason presently exists for believing will score more runs this season than they did last season. Which is just cruel. Sign a couple aged veterans for 1-year deals, and let fans talk themselves into believing in the upside case. Go back in time and slide a qualifying offer across the table to Soler. Go ahead and trade one more pitcher, but do so for MLB ready talent as opposed to prospects that are a year or two away. Do something that makes it possible to believe 2024 success is possible if everything were to break right, even if unlikely. This isn’t even strictly a money thing. It’s entirely within the realm of possibility for the 2024 Marlins to spend less money and be a better team. Doing nothing at all, though? Not signing a single free agent? Not making any apparent effort to build upon the goodwill the club earned from fans last season by being competitive, and adding to that roster to push them towards a playoff berth? Marlins fans deserve better than that. Not going all in is one thing. They shouldn’t. Not doing anything? That’s something else entirely. It’s enough to drive any fan crazy. More importantly, it’s enough to drive more than a few South Florida sports fans towards finding something else to do with their time. Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images