One Regend

Agreed. If we were actually competing for a wild card spot, it'd be one thing to pull him early, but right now, the only thing we're competing for is a chance at the #1 overall draft pick of next year. Let him ride a little bit.

I call BS on that. That clubhouse was the same clubhouse that had no problems employing the services of Aroldis Chapman and Domingo German. Clubhouse dynamics should be the last thing they should be worried about with their 10-21 skid. There's a clear double standard here.

This was an obvious reach of a draft pick. This was a stacked class, and this was a franchise that sorely needed talent. Derek Jeter and Gary Denbo set this franchise back 10+ years, and draft picks like this one doesn't help. I'm sorry, but second-rounder Carter Johnson isn't worth reaching on this first round pick.

Good that they're finally cutting bait. First Avi, and now TA7. If Josh Bell doesn't get it together, he may very well be next. He has a .644 OPS in his last 28 games, which is the entirety of June, clearly indicating this isnt an early season slump. This is a hard decline for a guy who isn't getting any younger at Age 31. No one on the trade market wants a 1B/DH type guy who can't get on base nor hit home runs.

Well, Victor Mesa Jr can actually stay healthy, for one.

They should've traded Luzardo during the offseason. There, I said it. They boned themselves by trying to feign "competitiveness." By not trading Luzardo in the offseason, they put themselves in the literal worst case scenario: Worst team in Baseball (I don't count the White Sox and Rockies as real baseball franchises), and has next to nothing to trade away to get prospects for the future. Now Luzardo sucks and is hurt, and now they can't get anything for him in return. I thought they were on the right track by shipping Arraez at the start of May, but they had a winning record in May, and that somehow convinced them to not ship off any more pieces. It's painful being a fan of a team that's bad and has no clue how to steer the team in the direction it needs to go.

The Twins would laugh at us and mock us for such a proposal. A pitcher who has a history of volatility and injury history, and a pitcher who is damaged goods, for a guy who is a literal superstar. If they didn't hand over Royce Lewis when we were shopping Pablo Lopez, there's zero shot they're handing him to us now for pitchers of far lower quality than Pablo Lopez.

...Absolutely nothing has gone right for the Marlins this year. The team sucks, and there's no hope for the future. Only pain. It's a good thing everyone is too busy laughing at the White Sox to notice we are just as bad.

It appears you've posted this thread in the wrong place. Whoops.

I'm also not one to put Bendix in the fire just yet. It's too soon to judge his transactions. But he was certainly right about one thing: The Marlins weren't going to do jack squat with the core players they have now. Their unicorn 2023 season was their best chance to do anything, and they couldn't do anything more than an early Wild Card exit. It's frustrating for Marlins fans to see an organization blow the team up after already experiencing a team blowup, but it needed to be done. It's either admit your team core stinks, or continue spinning the wheels of mediocrity. Bendix chose the former option. And I agree with this direction that they are taking. The only knock I have on Bendix is that he should be wheeling and dealing more. Commit to the rebuild and trade off more valuable pieces. I want to see Luzardo, Jazz, and Tanner Scott gone. They don't need to wait until the trade deadline to find a worthwhile haul. In fact, keeping them around would be a net negative because that would give them the illusion that the team is better than what they really are. (See also: The entire month of May) No point in keeping them around at all. But above all, I just hope Bendix's team does a better job developing and drafting their prospects than Denbo & Svihlik did.

If it were up to me, if I were asked to make that trade again, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Bleday was never going to work here. Not with the hitting philosophy we had here. That said, it goes to show the fantastic (ly awful) work the Marlins coaches put into developing their players. I'm so glad that we've moved on from the Svihlik/Denbo era.

Or maybe those prospects were never really that great to begin with. I wouldn't necessarily pin the blame on Bendix here, as these weren't his prospects. But if our new wave of prospects in the 2024 draft (and beyond) start floundering, then I'd give Bendix's team the side-eye.

This was one of the last plays Avi made before being DFA'd. We paid $53 million for this crap. I think there's a chance Misner still would've been at 3rd base, but any good outfielder who actually hustles, instead of jogging, like what Avi did here, would've maybe kept Misner at 2nd base. And even if they didn't, they certainly would've tried. This is just sad to watch.

We not only were paying a man $53 million for 4 years to be below replacement level in every aspect. We were paying him to dog plays with zero hustle. Miguel Rojas got on Jazz for his work ethic, but no one dared question Avisail Garcia? Just what is going on in that clubhouse, exactly? Good riddance, all around.

Selling high on him right now would indicate that the Marlins are all-in on blowing the team up. If that's the case, I'm all for it. Jazz is a good player, but he isn't going to be around when the Marlins become good again. Best to trade him now while he still has trade value. I think the Dodgers would be a perfect fit for him -- Jazz has Hollywood written all over him, Gavin Lux is on the IL, and they don't have a good answer at 2B in the pipeline. I also don't see Mookie Betts sticking at SS long-term. And even when the Dodgers get all of their guys back, Jazz still offers value as a lefty in a platoon role -- something that he will eventually be, because with his poor offense against lefties, he's not full starter material. This is probably the best time to trade Jazz, and the Marlins would be foolish to not take this opportunity while they are tearing down the team.

For the tank standings, the Marlins with their winning streaks in May have now allowed the Mets and Angels to crawl uncomfortably close to challenging them for the draft lottery. While the winning is nice for the fans, it's not good for the team's bottom line if they want to have a shot at some real prospects. Especially if they want to get their hands on Ethan Holliday. Seeing them lose like this to the Rangers felt like a much-needed fall back to reality for this team. The Marlins need to rebuild, and they need to rebuild the right way. They don't need to be "competitive". They need to do what they need to do.

They only started Sixto Sanchez out of necessity, because they literally do not have any other good choices. If I had to guess, they would've much preferred him to come out of the bullpen. Even still, his lack of whiff ability, something he had a problem with even in his rookie season in 2020, means he's also very limited in his role as a reliever too. Sure, he can induce ground balls, but there's only so much he can do when he can't strike out batters. Now, granted, his 4.70 FIP means he still pitched a lot better than his over-6 ERA suggests, but I still would not count on him as a reliable asset by any means. If anything, I think in that Rangers game, he may have thrown the last pitch for the Marlins. Once he's elligible to come off the IL (if he doesn't have another setback and require shoulder surgery, which, considering his history, could happen again), he will likely be a DFA candidate. I can forsee a pitching-starved team like the Chicago White Sox taking a chance on him. Again, I'm not going to count out a career renaissance for Sixto Sanchez. But it certainly won't be in a Marlins uniform, that's for sure.

To be honest, that is a question we will never find out. Granted, AAA numbers don't always tell the story. Some guy can post pedestrian numbers in AAA (Ex: Max Muncy before he came to the Dodgers system) and turn out to be a quality piece of the core. But that rarely happens these days, so we need that certainty of dominance to feel somewhat confident that a prospect of ours can be more than just a bat that can only be used in platoon roles. Right now, an example of such a AAAA player with the profiling of a platoon role ceiling is Jesus Sanchez, and I greatly fear that with such poor numbers against lefties, Jazz is slowly heading in that direction too.

Victor Mesa Jr is probably the best impact bat we have in our system right now. Mesa Jr has made great strides, going from a guy with no pop to a guy with a 15-HR bat with the potenial for more, and great defense in the outfield. He has played well in AAA, but here's the problem I see with him, and it's been a problem that I have been seeing with A LOT of our hitter prospects since the 2018 firesale: They're doing well in AAA, but they're not exactly slaughtering the competition. They're knocking on the door, but they are not bulldozing the door down with a tractor. Not once have I seen our "vaunted" prospects have an OPS above 1.000 in AAA in their audition to be called up. Troy Johnston came the closest last year with a .948 OPS, and it was a crime how he was left unprotected in Rule 5 for a Marlins organization starved for impact bats. (He's off to a slow start, but I hope he gets that power stroke back that put him on the radar in the first place.) All in all, this continues a frustrating trend for post-2017 hitting prospects: Doing fine in AAA but not killing the competition there. As for every single prospect we've had since 2017 that have done this? They have all turned out to be AAAA players.

I'm not surprised about them DFAing Woo-Suk Go. Ever since he's arrived in the organization, he was unable to strike anybody out (a quality that is very much needed for relievers), and his groundball rate took a massive step back, which meant when he was pitching, hitters were making hard contact, Oh yeah, and the Marlins were paying him $3.9 million for this type of production. Not gonna fly if a player is this pedestrian in AAA. No wonder the Padres wanted him gone that badly.

I see Otto Lopez as our new Jon Berti. Because Victor Mesa Jr. is knocking on the door soon, that may displace Jazz to be placed back in the middle infield where he rightfully belongs. Also, it's about time to call up Troy Johnston. He's proven that AAA is too easy. Why keep Josh Bell's contract when it's a lost season? Also, why not Will Banfield? Surely, he can't be worse than the non-factors we have behind the plate right now.

I wanted to see Edwards this season, but he's on the 60 day IL and there's a good chance we might not see him this season. I also disagree with Conine seeing playing time until he can figure out a way to cut down the whiffs. But the rest should honestly be given the green light. I think Mesa Jr and Johnston has done enough to show the team that they're ready for the big show. Johnston's shown he's been ready since last year. And with how disasterous the Fortes/Bethancourt experiment has been, it wouldn't hurt to give Banfield a shot at catching to see what he can do.

If the Dodgers don't win the World Series with that roster, then they need to delete their franchise. They have a literal superteam. There's zero excuse for them not to win it all. Encouraging start from Ryan Weathers. I'm still not sold on his upside, though. But we'll see.

He is the one of very few hitters we have that is actually hitting above sea level this year. He's our best bat right now. There's only so much that last year's stats can tell you about a player. It's honestly more about the market of a Corner OF/DH type player than just DLC himself.

I think, by far and away, what makes this team so frustrating to watch is sitting through 2018 and 2019 watching awful baseball for all 324 games, only to come out of those awful seasons with this reality. We tanked 2018 and 2019, and this was the best we could do?