Kim Ng made some questionable comments

Kim Ng doesn’t admit when she makes mistakes and refuses to take responsibility. This time she justified her bad decisions by talking about events from three years ago:

Before I explain just how stupid that logic is, some of these moves can still work out so maybe she’s not too wrong…just mostly. Now, I understand that she couldn’t just publicly say “those signings were bad and the players suck”. Jorge Soler and Avisail García are still Miami Marlins players, and calling them “bad signings” will insult them, come off unprofessional and disrupt team morale.  It’s also insulting to pretend that their 2022 stats don’t matter and that everything is fine.

Kim Ng didn’t have to justify her mistakes and pretend that everything is fine.

Kim Ng wasn’t asked if her signings of Avisail García and Jorge Soler were “mistakes”, she was asked if The Fish need “major” or “minor” improvements. Considering how historically bad our hitting was this season, she shouldn’t have used this opportunity to defend her moves from the last off-season. She should’ve said that that we need “major improvements”, and added that she hopes that “internal” ones will be some of these improvements. That would be true and would not have come off insulting to the fans or the players.

Kim Ng either didn’t have enough finances to work with, or just didn’t know what she was doing as much as she thought. Or both. Back to what she was quoted as saying, Avi hit 29 home runs in 2021…his contract year. He never even came close before, with 20 from 2019 being his highest previous total. Those 29 home runs were an obvious fluke, so obvious that it was even reported as such in fantasy guides.

The last thing that Kim Ng should’ve done is given Avisail García a multi-year deal. He is a career .265/.319/.420 hitter. He was never going to be our middle of the order bat. Jorge Soler was a streaky injury-prone player with power, who was 27 when he finally played over 101 games in a season. That was 2019, when he hit those aforementioned 48 home runs.

Jorge Soler followed that up with a .228/.326/.443 batting line in 2020 and a .192/.288/.370 batting line in the first half of 2021. 2019 looked like a fluke, until he batted .269/.358/.524 in the second half and won the World Series MVP award. He still finished that season with a .223/.316/.432 batting line. Would you have given him $15 million a year with player options?

Kim Ng gave out bad contracts and instead of acknowledging it without bashing the players, she is pretending that those were good deals. I hope that Avi turns it around and that Soler is healthy next season. I hope that Soler is motivated to play better next season, as he can then either hit the open market or take a pay cut with a $9 million player option. If he doesn’t though, what will she say then?