The Marlins added four straight players to the 40-man list of 100-game losing streaks last season. That’s four new acquisitions — infielder Eric Wagamana substitute Liam Hicksa football player Max Acosta and first baseman Matt Mervis — increased their current minimum wage in NL by … well, zero, basically. Wagaman signed a major league contract as a free agent. Hicks was a Rule 5 pick. Acosta went inside Jake Burger trade. Mervis was exchanged Vidal Brujan after the latter was selected for assignment in Miami.
The only team currently projected to have a lower salary than the Marlins is the Athletics, and the A’s have been active enough this winter that it looks like they’ll add a player or two and skip Fish. (A’s GM David Forst is already on record as saying he hopes for another addition or two.)
Currently, the Marlins project a salary of $67MM, per RosterResource. Their proposed CBT number is $84MM. Both of these numbers are mainly due to the $12MM owed since the release Avisail GarciaHis four-year contract expires in 2025.
Even by the Marlins’ standards, the 2025 payroll is down significantly from recent seasons. Miami posted payrolls of $84MM, $110MM and $106MM respectively over the past three seasons. That’s not a lot, of course, but those numbers are light-years higher than current thinking. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic suggested that the Marlins, like the A’s, may have to spend some money to maintain their profit-sharing status. They haven’t been nearly as good as the A’s in recent seasons, but the Fish certainly aren’t the paragon of running an aggressive program. Miami’s recent offseason activity (or lack thereof) does not bode well for the next additions. Their signing is one free agent last season Tim Anderson one year, $5MM deal.
Miami spent a combined $25MM Jean Segura again Johnny Cueto last season, although that was under a different front office regime. Second-year president of baseball operations Peter Bendix made it clear — with actions rather than words — that he had no faith in the roster he inherited to return to contention after the unexpected 2023 postseason.
Fish is waiting more than a month for the 2024 season before trading Luis Arraez to the Padres, and when the deadline passed they traded nine more amazing players who had opened the season on the roster. In just three months, Bendix has traded nearly 40% of its Opening Day inventory (including JT Chargois again Huascar Brazobanwho weren’t on the Opening Day roster only because of injury and visa issues, respectively.) Had Jesus Luzardo barring injuries, Miami could have traded 11 of the 26 players from the Opening Day club.
Given those trends, there’s little reason to think the Marlins will use any leverage in the upcoming payroll. And while the idea of ”buying” is floated around, there’s a lot more to it than actually being done – so much so that I’m often hesitant to spend much time thinking about the concept at all. However, given not only the specific position the Marlins find themselves in but the broader context of this one season, it feels like the Marlins are missing an opportunity if they don’t seriously try to drive this type of work.
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