Miami Marlins: Value and Roster Construction

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Oct 16, 2015; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez (13) dumps water on first baseman Eric Hosmer (35) as he is being interviewed after game one of the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays at Kauffman Stadium. Royals win 5-0. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

I’m writing this as the Kansas City Royals and the Toronto Blue Jays have started playing Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Both of these teams have for the best part of a decade struggled to find consistency and actually contend.

The Royals are in their second ALCS in as many years and Alex Anthopolous made some ridiculous moves this deadline that it’s hard to believe that a team can actually have as much talent as this current Blue Jays roster does.

The Marlins last played in the playoffs in 2003 they haven’t really come close since. At this point it’s hard to find a reasonable Marlins fan or other interested party that will actually defend this organization.

Jeffrey Loria, David Samson, Mike Hill, Dan Jennings and the rest of the front office at this point have two modes that they operate in, either “all in” or “market correction.”

Ironically going all in is usually much more harmful to the team than the market correction cycles. The 2015 season was an “all-in” year and it cost them almost all of their organizational depth to acquire a bunch of veteran pieces, a story we are all familiar with at this point.

I don’t want to keep harping on the negative or beating the proverbial dead horse. What the Miami Marlins need are solutions and a clear plan for moving forward.

Next: Draft & Player Evaluation

Feb 26, 2015; Goodyear, AZ, USA; Cincinnati Reds catcher Kyle Skipworth (73) poses for a picture during photo day at the Reds Player Development Complex. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Drafting and Player Evaluation

The Miami Marlins best course of action moving forward would be to have ownership fire all the key baseball decision makers and start fresh with an analytics regime.

The Marlins biggest problem isn’t that they can’t find talent. Their biggest problem is that they restrict where they want to find that talent. Simply put the organization restricts itself to drafting “toolsy” High School players and ignores both the college ranks as well as the international free agent market.

Changing their drafting philosophy going forward will guarantee that they find more Colin Morans and less Tyler Koleks.

The biggest issue with the Marlins philosophy is that it almost consciously ignores the tenets of what has become accepted wisdom in the sport, since the rise of sabermetrics and the use of metrics in decision-making.

The Marlins still act as though the best way forward is to rely completely on the wisdom of their scouts and to ignore all other data available.

The Marlins approach works as it has led to them finding Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, J.T. Realmuto and Jose Fernandez. But it also has meant a lot of busts from Kyle Skipworth to Matt Dominguez. All of those players were drafted out of high school and have some sort of undeniable skill set.

Denying yourself from drafting college players as well as playing a major role in the international free agent market both in Latin America as well as Asia is not the best way to run an organization in 2015.

The philosophical issues keep the Marlins a step behind the rest of the Major Leagues in terms of finding talent. As long as they think this way they will never draft the next Carlos Rodon or Kyle Schwarber, or sign the next Jung Ho Kang or Yoenis Cespedes

Next: Value, Depth, & Trades

Sep 30, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Miami Marlins starting pitcher Jarred Cosart (23) is taken out of the game by manager Dan Jennings (26) during the fifth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Value, Trades and Depth

The Mike Hill-Dan Jennings era has made it plain that they have no conception of what value is and how to maximize the value of their organizational depth.

In short the series of trades made between the trade deadline in 2014 and the winter of 2015 made it clearly obvious that Marlins didn’t know when they had a good thing. They threw it all away for a pieces that add up to less than what they gave up. As senior editor Ehsan Kassim pointed out in his 3 moves that sunk the Miami Marlins in 2015 and beyond.

Take for example the Jarred Cosart trade.

The Marlins have in him a marginal back of the rotation guy, that in parts of two season in the Majors has never struck more than 6.07 per nine innings. He has an unsustainably high walk rate and is entirely too dependent on controlling the quality of contact and other volatile factors, such as strand rate to be successful.

In 2015 Cosart had a 5.12 FIP and 17.5% HR/FB rate, which in almost 70 innings pitched, yielded him a -0.3 fWAR.

The Marlins gave up Colin Moran and Jake Marisnick, Francis Martes, and the first pick in the competitive balance draft, in order to get Cosart, Enrique Hernandez, and Austin Wates.

Marisnick, who was amongst the outfielder mix in Houston along with Preston Tucker, Colby Rasmus and George Springer, didn’t have a hugely impressive offensive year. He only slashed .236/.281/.383, which added up to a 80 wRC+. However, Marisnick’s value isn’t in his bat. He provided the Astros depth as well as the gold glove caliber defense.

Marisnick had 1.5 ultimate baserunning rating, a 1.1 weighted stolen base rating, and most impressively a 9.3 UZR. That UZR was the eleventh best amongst all outfielders in baseball.

On the back of his baserunning and defense alone had a fWAR of 1.8 (2 fWAR is a league average player).

Now ask yourself wouldn’t the Miami Marlins have been better off with Marisnick instead of either Ichiro Suzuki or Cole Gillespie, for when they need to replace either Stanton or Ozuna like they did this year?

The story is very similar with Colin Moran, who this year at AA with Houston, slashed .306/.381/.459 and had a 10.3% walk rate.

If Prado gets hurt next year or leaves after wouldn’t it be better to have Moran as depth?

The Marlins trying to go all in 2015 was the reason they failed because they gave up all of their depth to attempt to do so.

Next: 2016 Free Agency

Sep 30, 2015; Arlington, TX, USA;Texas Rangers first baseman Mike Napoli (25) is congratulated by designated hitter Prince Fielder (84) after he hit a two run home run in the third inning against the Detroit Tigers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

2016, Free Agency and Value

The Miami Marlins undeniably have a very solid core of position players that can lead them to a playoff berth in the near future. What they need is to address the two major issues above to actually become a contender.

Something else they need to is invest wisely in crafting a roster that will lead them to higher on the win curve in 2016.

The Marlins, in 2015, had 15.8 position player fWAR and 10.1 pitching fWAR, which adds up 26 wins. Replacement level is 48 wins, add 26 to that and it gets the Marlins 74 wins.

Which means the team underperformed their expect win level. Assuming that a team needs to win 90 games to make it to the Wild Card game, the Marlins need 16 WAR to get to that level. That is a very conservative number, as the Cubs won the second wild card with 97 wins this season.

The most expedient way to get there is by adding depth to the lineup and assuring that the rotation will not become a bunch of minor leaguers, as soon as something goes bad. In order to realistically contend the Marlins need a starting pitcher on the level of Jordan Zimmerman to slot behind Jose Fernandez as well as another middle of the rotation type arm.

On the other side they need to not trade Marcell Ozuna and have to find complimentary pieces for their intriguing players.

Signing Mike Napoli to be a platoon partner with Justin Bour and another OF to replace Ichiro as soon as he gets to 3000 hits would be a good start.

They should make Tomas Telis the backup or institute a platoon between Realmuto and Telis. Miguel Rojas is a good utility infielders and should retain his role.

Next: Conclusion

May 18, 2015; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria before a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

Conclusion

The Miami Marlins have a long road ahead of them in rebuilding their minor league system, but their Major League core is good enough to win now. They should hope that with a few signings they can reasonably hope to improve in the short-term.

However, the structural issues are such that it’s hard to make an argument about the team winning, while this current regime is in place.

Follow Marlin Maniac on Twitter @MarlinManiac for all your Miami Marlins news, opinion and analysis!

Next: MM RTD: #BringHanleyHome; An Ideal Marlins Off-Season

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