Marlins CEO Derek Jeter frustrated over this season’s progress

The Miami Marlins are on pace to lose 100 games this season, which is not what team CEO Derek Jeter had in mind when the 2019 MLB season started.

Facts are facts. The Miami Marlins are going to finish the 2019 MLB season as one of the worst franchises. After what we all thought would be a promising season, one where the team could take another step forward and show the baseball masses that it is a team on the rise, the franchise has fallen on hard times.

Miami is currently 48-85 for the season and despite the heroic walk-off win against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday night, victories in that fashion have been few and far between. Frustration has set in throughout the front office and trickled down to the clubhouse. Miami lost 98 games last season with less talent on the roster.

It now seems 100 losses is almost a guarantee at this rate. And with the team not being able to execute offensively on a consistent basis and a young pitching staff switching from hot to cold like a light switch, the future of this team with Don Mattingly on board as skipper seems unlikely.

More from Marlins News

• Miami Marlins news: Another target gone
• Why didn’t the Miami Marlins sign JDM?
• Miami Marlins rejected Boston‘s trade offer
• Miami Marlins are pursuing Michael Conforto
• Miami Marlins need to spend to win

Team CEO Derek Jeter was vilified for dismantling the team when he took over at the end of 2017. He made trades, pushed buttons, ticked off the fanbase and made no apologies for his decisions. The return is one of the best minor league systems and help on the way – in the future.

For now, the Miami Marlins are in a holding pattern without success.

“Look, man, I get it. People judge teams by what you do at the major-league level. It can be frustrating,” Jeter said Wednesday in a story that appears in the Miami Herald. “You ask all the players here. It’s been a frustrating year when you’re not winning as many games as you’d like.”

Jeter is trying to take a franchise that hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2003 or had a winning season since 2009, and make it a winner – but it takes time and patience. Patience is something the former New York Yankees captain admits he has little of.

On Thursday, Marlin Maniac’s Kevin Kraczkowski wrote about avoiding the 100-loss plateau. It won’t be easy, but we all hope the team can catch lightning in a bottle.

“With 31 games remaining on the schedule (now 30), the Miami Marlins must win at least 16 of them to turn the trick. Firstly, they’ll play two more games at home against the Cincinnati Reds, followed by a six-game road trip with three each versus the Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates,” Kraczkowski writes.

“Following that, they have the Kansas City Royals for three at home, the Milwaukee Brewers for four at Marlins Park, the San Francisco Giants for three at 3Com Park, the Arizona Diamondbacks for three at Chase Field, three at home versus the Nationals, then a seven-game road trip to end the season, with four versus the Mets and three against Philadelphia.”

No small task. And given the changes in the roster beginning tomorrow with expansion, it becomes tougher to predict how well the team will adjust.

The Marlins are going to count on their young pitching staff, hope the return of injured veterans and the mixture of prospects can give this team it has lacked this season – momentum. This is a franchise in need of some good luck. Maybe the addition of players who are hungry to prove they belong on the next level will do that.

Until then, we will wait to see if the Marlins are a team to watch in the future. Jeter has asked fans to have patience in this process. Hopefully, he develops some of his own as well.