Miami Marlins Rumors: Large Gap in Extension Talks with Adeiny Hechavarria

The Miami Marlins, for some odd reason, identified Adeiny Hechavarria as one of their core players they wanted to lock up longterm this off-season. Hech joined Jose Fernandez, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, and Henderson Alvarez as players the team showed interest in getting signed to an extension. Only an Yelich extension has been signed.

Unfortunately (or fortunately as it may turn out), the Miami Marlins and Hechavarria have tabled talks about a potential extension, due to a sizeable gab in talks. This is according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.

"### The Marlins say talks on a longterm deal with Adeiny Hechavarria, who is under team control through 2018, have been tabled. We hear there was a large gap."

Obviously for the Marlins to talk extension with a guy whose not eligible to be a free agent until the 2019 season, the team has to be pretty high on him. Despite defensive metrics that say otherwise, the Marlins believe Hechavarria is one of the better short stops in the game, due to his defense.

The Marlins recently signed both Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich to extensions many around baseball felt were fair, if not even team friendly extensions. So while the Marlins do value Hech a lot, it does not necessarily mean the team values him the same way monetarily. 

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Hechavarria posted a .276/.308/.356 slash line with a 82 wRC+ and ranked among the bottom tier of short stops offensively last season. Even though his numbers were well below average last season, it was a huge step up from his career slash line of .250/.285/.329 with a 78 wRC+ in 1,296 career plate appearances.

With the talks being private, we have no idea what the Miami Marlins are offering and what Hechavarria and his agent are countering with. Unless Hech and his agent are off their rocker, we know negotiations are not going to be anywhere near the 7-year $58 million extension Andrelton Simmons signed with the Atlanta Braves last February.

Such an extension would be silly, as it would exceed even Christian Yelich’s extension.

Simmons, while not great with the bat either, owns a .252/.297/.372 career slash line with a 84 wRC+, but much of that line was brought down by his down season last year, where he posted a .244/.286/.331 slash line and a 71 wRC+. Simmons also has 21 more career home runs to his name.

When you include Simmons defense, which has been rated not only among the best not only among active players, but among all-time players, Simmons has been nearly 11 wins better than Hechavarria, according to Fangraphs WAR.

It is encouraging to see that while the Miami Marlins spend a lot of time gushing over Hechavarria, they don’t monetarily overvalue him, as his statistics still don’t match up to the hype surrounding him.

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