One Regend

and austin slater's 1m too essentially what the marlins offseason boiled down to was "welp we got pete fairbanks. that's it. that's the entire offseason." and just checked out of the entire offseason the moment they signed him didn't even extend Eury Perez or Otto Lopez over the offseason man what a dumpster fire of an offseason

This is one of those "addition by subtraction" moves. I never understood why they felt it was necessary to bring Chris Paddack when Brax has been their rock for 5 years and Robby Snelling had nothing left to prove in AAA, but they at least admitted there was a problem, instead of brute forcing it for half a season. This move and optioning Agustin Ramirez to AAA were honestly W moves. I sincerely hope they start giving Gus reps at 1B in AAA because at this point in his career, he needs those reps. He should never catch pitchers ever again. If having the ABS system by his side to help him focus more on catching and blocking pitches didn't help him with his garbage defense, I don't know what else will.

honestly this needed to happen 30 games ago agustin ramirez has been by far the worst catcher in baseball by a country mile, and the marlins front office stubbornly convinced themselves that he's their team's catcher. how many runs did we give up because of his passed balls? or wild pitches that could've been blocked by a competant catcher? or the runners that advanced bases because he cant throw base stealers out? he's talented with the bat but watching him play defense behind the plate and give up free runs every game is akin to torture. i've been saying this last year, i've been saying this all offseason, and i've been preaching it this season all year long, the man is built to be a first baseman. stop pretending he's a catcher and move him to where he could actually succeed.

I've always been confused by the decision to have an all-righty starting rotation. At that point you're just begging the opposing lefties to feast on your team. No, having good lefty relief pitching doesn't solve that problem. The Marlins have a habit every 5 or so years, or every time they hit the reset button on the franchise, to sign a guy that, everyone in the baseball industry knows isn't good, and wouldn't even sign him to a league minimum deal, to serve no purpose on the team but block prospects that are more deserving of the 26-man spot from getting their reps at the major league level. The Marlins did this with Cal Quantrill last year, and they triple-dipped this year by signing Christopher Morel, Austin Slater, and Chris Paddack. This year is Wasted Potential: The Season, for the Marlins. It's infuriating to watch.

I'm quite puzzled. Pulling Eury Perez makes sense. Phillies hit a lot of home runs, and Eury Perez is very widely known for giving up too many home runs. But to go to a guy who was literally just called up, with the game being a bloop and a blast away from the Marlins re-taking the lead? Really? Was there no guys in the bullpen with high-leverage experience they could've gone to?

Don Mattingly was decent at keeping the clubhouse together, but you aren't going to win a championship with him at the helm. He might help guide your team to the playoffs, but no further than the Wild Card or XLDS.

I still think Joe Mack should be catching, but I'd be fine with moving Hicks to 1B (with the occasional spot start at catcher to give Mack days off) if he keeps mashing the way he is. But, under those circumstances, never ever let Agustin Ramirez catch games ever again. Either have him exclusively DH or have him take ground balls at 1B so he can prepare as backup for 1B.

As I said previously, Owen Caissie was our best hitter for the first 1 1/2 to 2 weeks of the season. Sending him to AAA would send the wrong message to him. The best course of action is hope he gets out of his current funk and regains the form he had in those beginning weeks of the season, and even better if he maintains it for the rest of the season.

I was 100% against the Christopher Morel and Austin Slater signings. You had in-house options that would do exactly what they bring to the table, but much younger and controllable. There was no reason to waste resources in such a matter. I was also against the Ryan Weathers trade, too. There was no reason to sell low on him especially when he gave our team quality innings when he was healthy. He had legit ace upside and we kinda just gave him away for a package of projects that may or may not work out (emphasis on the latter), and that's not something I hold hope for. I'm on the fence of Edward Cabrera. I had a feeling he was going to break out the moment he left the Marlins , because he had so much talent, but he could never put it together with us. Now it's looking like he's putting it together with the Cubs. I wouldn't mind this trade so much if we got a stud prospect out of it. Owen Caissie was our best hitter for the first 2 weeks of the season. Now he's ice-cold, batting .142 with 22 strikeouts and 1 walk in his last 13 games. If he can regain the form he had earlier in the season and maintain that form, I'll be happy with the Edward Cabrera trade. It's a big if, though, since there's 162 games in the season. I'd forgive these awful moves if the front office swallowed their pride and accepted that Agustin Ramirez is not a MLB-caliber catcher and let him field ground balls at 1B during spring training, and if the front office realized just how good Kemp Alderman really is. Maybe you could argue that they're holding Alderman back for service clock, but that doesn't really change the fact that literally anyone in AAA could perform better than the production we were getting out of Austin Slater and whoever we're throwing at 1B.

If I was Clayton McCoullough, I would've made the same move if we had an actually competant bullpen. Max Meyer hasn't proven himself at this level and I also wouldn't trust him beyond 5 innings until he gives me reason to, unless he's against a team like the White Sox or Rockies who are easy 6-7 quality innings no matter who's on the mound. The problem is, the bullpen is a total gasfire. That's what makes this decision iffy.

Actually a lot of that was Farhan Zaidi. Buster Posey inherited all of those problems from Zaidi before him and now he's tasked with fixing this mess.

So how long are they going to continue the Gus charade before they finally realize he's hot garbage behind the dish? Even with ABS helping guide him as a catcher, he's still been absolutely terrible defensively.

Yeah, no, I'm not buying the excuse of cold weather over their poor play. And yes, I also very much didn't like it when the Dolphins & Tua pulled this same dumb excuse. 29 other teams have to play under the same conditions, and about half of them also regularly have home games played in warm weather. They need to stop making excuses and git gud.

I get it. The Marlins didn't show up at all. But does that mean y'all aren't showing up either? 🤣 I'm kidding. Um, yeah. Xavier Edwards hit a 1-out triple in the first inning. Agustin Ramirez makes an unproductive out by striking out looking. (Looking? Really? SWING THE BAT. You have a runner at 3rd with less than 2 outs!!) And the next batter couldn't cash in a single to get the run home. That set the tone for basically the rest of the game.

I have more faith in Max Meyer putting it together than Jacob Berry. And that's saying a lot because Max Meyer isn't impressing me.