The moves the Miami Marlins were right not to make these moves

I’m not a fan of Kim Ng’s work as the Miami Marlins general manager. I already wrote about it earlier. Despite the fact that I don’t see her as a good general manager, there were moves that The Fish HAVEN’T made with her in charge that turned out to be good. Let’s take a look at some of those moves and see why they ended up being successful.

The Miami Marlins were right not to make some of these moves.

Last off-season there was a lot of talk about the Miami Marlins hometown boy Nick Castellanos to the team. Allegedly this even played a part in Derek Jeter’s exit from the team. It turned out that not signing Castellanos was the right call. He is a bad defender better suited for DH duty and is currently batting .267/.309/.397 with 12 home runs and 59 RBI in 122 games and 476 AB. That’s good for -0.3 WAR since he’s defense also matters. -0.3 WAR. He is being paid $100 million for 5 years and he’s actually making them worse based on WAR. Can you imagine how much backlash we would get if we signed him!?

There’s more… not signing SS Carlos Correa didn’t hurt us either. Another $100 million + player, Correa does currently have 3.3 WAR but with a bit underwhelming .269/.351/.429 batting line along with 14 home runs and 39 RBI in 97 games and 368 AB. Last season he batted .279/.366/.485 with 26 home runs and 92 RBI. He might not even reach 20 home runs for the season at this point. His defense declined from an impressive 2.9 dWAR last season to 0.9 this season.

What if the Miami Marlins emptied out the farm system for generational superstar RF Juan Soto? Would that have made sense? He wouldn’t have turned our season around and would’ve been under contract for only the next two seasons. He currently has 4.5 WAR but is batting an underwhelming .252/.413/.481 for the season. That’s not to say that he’s a “bad player”, just that he wouldn’t have been worth the cost.

The Miami Marlins shouldn’t be “cheap” this off-season, but some investments were right not to be made. Nick Castellanos would’ve been our worst ever contract, Carlos Correa would’ve been a disappointment and Juan Soto would’ve cost us the farm for no reason: Some moves were right not to have been made.