Miami Marlins: Four Difference Makers Against the Yankees

There was a movie a few years ago called “Any Given Sunday.” In that movie, Al Pacino taught us that in a professional sporting match, any team can match up with any team on “any given Sunday.”

This statement proved true for the Miami Marlins, but it was on a Tuesday.

In Tuesday’s game, the Miami Marlins earned a measure of revenge against the Bronx Bombers with a 9-1 victory. This, one day after getting sandblasted with a 12-1 setback.

I used the Wins Probability Added metric (WPA) to help ascertain which players performed better (or worse) in the higher leverage situations. In other words, if the Miami Marlins are winning, 6-0, a plate appearance doesn’t count as much. Conversely, an at bat with two on and two out in the bottom of the 13th has a very high leverage.

There’s something else you need to understand about WPA. Every game has a collective WPA of zero. The winning team will finish with a total of .50, and the losing team will have -.50. It doesn’t matter if the two teams combine for 50 runs or it finishes at 1-0, the WPA will still add up to zero. Also of interest, if two clubs split a two game series, each team’s individual WAR will also be a collective zero. At the end of a 162 season, in fact, an 81-81 club will have a mark of, you guessed it, zero.

WPA is not a great predictor of future performance. What it can tell you is which players performed best when the chips were down. As such, it’s a great metric for telling the story of one ballgame, or in this setting, one series. In these games, blowouts both, an early inning plate appearance, when the game was close, is worth much more than a plate appearance near the end. That’s why you’ll find Didi Gregorius, with his two-homer performance on Monday, pretty far down the list. That’s because his home runs were hit after the contest was pretty much decided.

Since the series between the Miami Marlins and the New York Yankees started, catcher J.T. Realmuto has been activated and catcher Chad Wallach was optioned to the New Orleans Baby Cakes.

This article will take a look at how the 20 Miami players performed in the series. We will start with the top, and work our way to the bottom. For comparison’s sake, I’ll list the Yankees and their WPA overall values for the series.

Aaron Judge +.211

Luis Severino +.185

Brett Gardner +.061

Gary Sanchez +.054

Tyler Austin +.043

Luis Cessa +.002

Adam Warren +.001

Chasen Shreve –

Dellin Betances –

Jace Peterson –

Chade Green –

David Robertson –

Aaron Hicks -.014

Didi Gregorius -.022

Ronald Torreyes -.036

Neil Walker -.042

Miguel Andujar -.053

Giancarlo Stanton -.089

Masahiro Tanaka -.301

Jarlin Garcia +.183

Jarlin Garcia is making an early case for MVP of the Miami Marlins. I’ve put together six of these “Grading the Marlins” articles in the early going this season, and Garcia is on three of them near the top.

Garcia, who led the Marlins last season with 68 appearances as a rookie out of the bullpen, has now only allowed one hit in 11 innings as a rotational starter. He now holds the record for longest scoreless streak to start a career as a starter, by going 10 1/3 innings before allowing a hit.

Garcia was already the best piece of Miami’s bullpen to start the campaign. He started his season on March 30th, in Miami’s 17-inning, 2-1 victory against the Chicago Cubs. Garcia got through five frames in that outing before allowing a hit, and struck out six while giving up a hit and two walks in six innings completed.

In his next appearance, on April 5th, he went four solid innings in a 5-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. He did give up his only runs of the season so far in that one, on a two-run, seventh-inning homer by Maikel Franco.

Miami’s rotation went from five men down to four after the first time through, as Odrisamer Despaigne was moved to the bullpen. Garcia joined the rotation the third time through, drawing Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets on April 11th.

Garcia was superb in his first start, earning a 73 GameScore by going six no-hit innings against the Miracle Mets. He struck out three and walked two, getting 44-of-77 pitches in the strike zone.

Tonight, Garcia continued to mystify opposing hitters from the Five Boroughs. He pitched into the fifth inning before allowing a hit. Garcia did walk five in the early going, but settled down to get through five innings in total. Only Miguel Andujar hit safely against him, with a one-out, fifth-inning double. He then stranded Andujar by striking out Brett Gardner and getting Aaron Judge to fly out to center field.

Garcia currently leads major league baseball with a 0.86 ERA and just 2.57 hits allowed per nine innings.

J.T. Realmuto +.158

J.T. Realmuto spent the first two weeks of the season on the DL with a bruised back. He could only watch helplessly as the Miami Marlins struggled to a 4-12 record before joining the team yesterday.

Realmuto was activated for a rehab start in Jupiter for the Hammerheads on Saturday. He homered in his first at bat, eventually going three-for-three with a double and a walk in an 18-13 Jupiter win over the Daytona Tortugas. The team combined for a Florida State League record with 11 combined home runs.

Realmuto joined the team on Monday, although he was not activated prior to the series opener. In his absence, the Marlins have rolled out a combination of Chad Wallach and Bryan Holaday. Holaday slashed a .179/.258/.214 line, with a double and two RBI. Wallach, who is somehow less gifted as a hitter than Holaday, slashed .129/.182/.161 with a double and two RBI. Miami sent down Holaday in favor of Realmuto prior to Tuesday night’s contest.

Realmuto was slotted fifth in the order in his first game of the season. The Marlins were already ahead by a 1-0 score with nobody out and the bases juiced in the top of the first for J.T.’s first plate appearance. Realmuto reached first base on an error by opposing shortstop Gregorius, scoring Starlin Castro and Miguel Rojas. Since the bases were loaded, Realmuto was credited for an RBI on one of the two runs (+.079).

With a four-run lead in the third inning, Realmuto whiffed on a Masahiro Tanaka offering with nobody on base to end the frame (-.005). In the fifth, with the Marlins still holding the four-run advantage, Realmuto went deep with two outs and two on for a 7-0 lead. Castro and Justin Bour scored on the moonshot (+.084).

Realmuto added a leadoff single in the eighth inning (+.001), then advanced to second on a wild pitch (+.001). Don’t let that put you off though. The official scorer didn’t give him credit, but he was running with the pitch and probably was about to steal that base on the play regardless. Realmuto scored on a Tomas Telis single to right field.

Justin Bour +.078

Justin Bour didn’t start off the season very fast. Just like last season, his bat didn’t wake up until late April. Through game 10 of this season, Bour was slashing just .162/.225/.189, with no home runs and just two RBI. That all changed with the 11th game of the season, against the New York Mets on April 10th.

In that contest, Bour went deep twice, each time to the opposite field for two-run homers. He’s also homered twice since then, collecting nine RBI in total for a team-leading 11. Over the seven games since his poor start, he has slashed .364/.462/.909.

In the series opener on Monday, Bour opened the second inning with the Marlins down by two and drew a free pass (+.038). Trailing by five in the fourth, he flew out with a runner on second and one out (-.018).

In the seventh inning, with the Yankees clinging to a precarious 11-run lead, Bour hit a one-out single to left field (+.000) and took second on a wild pitch (+.000). He collected Miami’s only RBI of the night with one out and the bases loaded, grounding in to a 3-4 fielders choice to score Bryan Holaday (-.001).

In Tuesday’s game, Bour batted cleanup. In the first inning, already with a one-run lead and nobody out, he hit a single with two on base (+.061). With a four-run lead in the third, he grounded out for the second out of the inning (-.008).

In the fifth inning, with a man on first, a 4-0 lead, and two outs, Bour drew a walk (+.007). He then scored on J.T. Realmuto’s three-run home run. He ended the seventh on a double play ball (-.002) and struck out with nobody on base to end the Marlins’ ninth (-.000).

The rest of the Miami Marlins looked like this:

Miguel Rojas +.040

Derek Dietrich +.027

Tayron Guerrero +.010

Drew Steckenrider  +.007

Kyle Barraclough +.001

Yadiel Rivera +.001

Chris O’Grady +.000

Junichi Tazawa +.000

Brad Ziegler +.000

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Bryan Holaday -.015

Cameron Maybin -.016

Tyler Cloyd -.022

Tomas Telis -.029

J.B. Shuck -.051

Brian Anderson -.122

Caleb Smith -.292

Next: Grading the Marlins against the Pirates

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