Miami Marlins lucked into avoiding bad moves

The Miami Marlins have a reputation for being “cheap” and not spending money. This is despite the fact that we can actually afford top free agents, owners just choose not to spend on them. Last off-season two big moves were discussed that never came to fruition. One was signing Nick Castellanos to be our new right fielder. The other was acquiring CF Bryan Reynolds from the Pittsburgh Pirates. That didn’t happen either as you know.

The Miami Marlins lucked into not making a couple of bad moves.

Lets be realistic the reason why the Nick Castellanos moce didn’t happen, is because Bruce Sherman didn’t want to spend money. The fact that it worked out well is just luck. Castellanos was great in 2021, batting .309/.362/.576 with 34 home runs and 100 RBI. Add the fact that he’s from Florida and he seemed like a perfect fit.

There were some red flags with Castellanos, namely his really bad defense, but it was overlooked by most fans. As it turned out, the Miami Marlins passing on Nick Castellanos was a good move. He received $100 million for 5 years but has batted .263/.305/.389 with 13 home runs and 62 RBI. Making things worse, his defense is still bad and he was worth -0.1 WAR. It seems like he’s a “contract year player” who will likely never hit that well until his next contract year. His bad defense only puts the icing on the cake.

The Miami Marlins lucked into avoiding the Nick Castellanos contract. What about Bryan Reynolds? Reynolds batted .302/.390/.522 last season with 24 home runs and 90 RBI. We wanted him after that, but Pittsburgh wanted us to basically give up our farm for him. We declined. The question was whether it was really a smart decision?

It turns out that it was. Bryan Reynolds declined this season, batting .262/.345/.461 with 27 home runs and 62 RBI. Was he still a good player? Yes. Was he a great player? No. Was he worth our top prospects? Hell no. He also had a -1.1 dWAR. -1.1. He was actually a terrible defender in center field and would be a defensive downgrade from our current options.

Bruce Sherman was likely too cheap to spend on Nick Castellanos, but that turned out to be the right call. Castellanos is a bust whose defense makes his contract even worse. Bryan Reynolds is an above average player, but is terrible in center field and would’ve cost too much to acquire. The Miami Marlins got lucky not to sign Castellanos and we’re smart to pass on Reynolds.