Miami Marlins Rumors: Marlins Not Looking to Sell, yet

The Miami Marlins after last nights 5-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs fell to 20-32, 12 games below the .500 mark for the season. If the team continues to struggle, the team could look to sell their pieces and get ready to make another run with their current core next year.

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That is not, however, the case of right now, as Joe Frisaro reports on his blog, The Fish Pond, that the Miami Marlins have not given up on this season and aren’t ready to become sellers, yet.

"From what I’m told, the Marlins have not quit on the season. They aren’t thinking about trading away core pieces. Dealing Prado doesn’t make much sense for Miami, especially since he is under contract through 2016. The Yankees are picking up $3 million of the $11 million Prado is making this year and next."

Frisaro mentions the New York media talking about Martin Prado as a potential fit for the New York Mets for the oft-injured third baseman David Wright. Wright is working his way back from his back injury and has already suffered a couple of setbacks.

Prado has not been as billed for the Marlins in 2015, posting a .284/.318/.370 slash line with a 90 wRC+, which is well below his career mark of 107. Prado has actually owns a .318 BABIP this year, up from his career .311 mark. So it’s hard to pin luck as the fault for his troubles at the plate.

Martin is also posting his career worst walk rate of just 3.4%, which is down from his 4.5% last season, and 6.5% for his career.

Despite his struggles, Frisaro feels Prado is an part of the Marlins clubhouse, because of his leadership.

"Prado is a leader on this team. Dealing him would be a tremendous blow to the clubhouse, and a signal of retreat to a market that is tired of rebuilding. Giancarlo Stanton didn’t sign here long term to see the towel thrown in after two months."

While I don’t know how Giancarlo Stanton would react to a potential trade of Prado, not dealing him because of a fear of losing the clubhouse sounds crazy, as the team probably already lost the faith of the majority of the clubhouse when they fired well respected manager Mike Redmond only to bring on their general manager Dan Jennings to become the manager.

Trading Prado, a 31-year old league average player, would not signify another rebuild. With a depleted farm system, the Marlins need to trade some of their veteran chips to help rectify the farm system and prepare for another run next season.

Throwing in the towel this season doesn’t mean throwing in the towel for the next 3-4 seasons, like Frisaro is implying in his article.

While I do agree with him that it’s too early for the Marlins to become sellers, his reasoning to not trade Prado makes little sense.

The problem most the media, fans, and players have with the Miami Marlins franchise is that they never function as a normal major league baseball team. Any other team in the Marlins situation last year would have dealt the now demoted Steve Cishek and capitalized when his trade value was at the highest. The Marlins instead opted to give Cishek a $6.5 million chunk of the smallest payroll in baseball. Another move that made little sense.

A player like Martin Prado will be a wanted man at the trade deadline this July at the trade deadline and the Marlins should cash in, if they aren’t able to turn their season around.

They shouldn’t worry about breaking the clubhouse, as some of their earlier moves have already alienated a large chunk of the fanbase and the clubhouse.

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