Three things Miami Marlins need to do to contend this year

Cool it with the sell off chatter

Lastly, the Miami Marlins need to clearly, and forcefully nip something in the butt right now.

Which is that this team is going to try to make the postseason themselves. Not trade away more parts to help another contender’s chances.

The obvious example here would be Stanton. Jeffrey Loria and friends shrewdly decided to waste a couple weeks of feel good vibes by stoking the trade fires underneath baseball’s largest contract.

It’s hard to enjoy a home run chase when you know that your owner sees it as a chance to possibly save himself a few million more than he was counting on.

Let’s come out and say Stanton is staying in Miami. Be cute if you want Jeff, and say as long as I own the team, Stanton will be a Marlin. But allow fans to enjoy both the chase for Roger Maris and the 2017 postseason without wondering if they’re going to wakeup and find out he’ll be hitting No. 62 in Fenway.

But it goes even deeper than Stanton. On the previous slide, I almost made the case for adding a reliever. For shaking lose Juan Nicasio or Drew Storen. But if you peruse the listing of the current Top 20 August trade targets at MLB Trade Rumors, you’ll find that one of the Top 3 targets is the man pictured on this page.

That’d be current (thanks to two July trades) Miami Marlins closer Brad Ziegler.

Enough.

Next: Dave Hyde comments underscore challenge for Jeter

Bad enough to hear zero chatter on that score, even if it is somewhat understandable given the current ownership situation. But to actually see buzz that the front office might be looking to hamstring the team down the stretch, that’s the kind of thing that causes one to rethink bothering to pay attention at all.

Simple, free fix that might even spike September attendance Marlins brass. Just say this team is staying together down the stretch, and leave all trade talks at that until the offseason.