Miami Marlins: Value and Roster Construction

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