Miami Marlins crippled by fear of being crippled as MLB Winter Meetings unfold

If you had asked any reporter heading into the MLB Winter Meetings, they would have told you that the Miami Marlins were loaded for bear, ready to aggressively spend to improve the club.

Yet if you turn those microphones towards anyone actually employed by the Miami Marlins organization...you get a very different message.

Shocking, right? That message is now starting to slowly trickle down through the reporters with the strongest Marlins ties as well- that fans should perhaps not expect big things after all. The team has been telling anyone that will listen that they believe they have in house options to solve lineup issues at the corners and in terms of handedness.

That last bit had been out there before the meetings even started, leading most among the fanbase to speculate that the Miami Marlins were just posturing. Sure, Griffin Conine could play first base. Nevermind that he's never done it before- Chris Pratt pulled it off just fine in Moneyball. Devision De Los Santos too- totally MLB ready because of those winter ball stats. Why not turn Connor Norby into an outfielder? Heck yes, Agustin Ramirez can be a real life MLB catcher.

Some of those ideas are better than others, but all of them lead to same conclusion that the Marlins want rival front offices to take: Miami doesn't have to do anything but show up Opening Day with a 26-man roster and cash those sweet, sweet revenue sharing checks.

Consequently, the only fireworks from the Marlins so far during these Winter Meetings have been a team announcement that they will actually have fireworks Opening Day.

Now to some extent, they probably really do believe in some of those in-house "solutions." After all, there was ample evidence last season that the Marlins have become very good at developing players, and that perhaps more than there has been in over twenty years, there is a real plan at work in the organization. Honestly, it would be a surprise if some Marlins player didn't surprise us all this season with a breakout effort.

However, that's only part of the story. Last week, Marlin Maniac published a piece on how it is imperative that the Marlins reach a point where they can avoid paying a Marlins tax on free agents. All of the verbiage that has come out in the last forty-eight hours? Only proof of concept that the Marlins are still being asked to pay that tax at these Winter Meetings. That's going to be a non-starter for Peter Bendix to push Bruce Sherman to crack open the piggy bank.

That Marlins Tax piece covered this, but at the risk of going back on a pledge made therein, the problem goes back to Avisail Garcia. I suppose if you wanted to take a very uncharitable view of what Jorge Soler did during his Marlins tenure, him as well. The issue even predates Sherman-era decision making if you go back to Wei-Yin Chen, the last big free agent signing of the Loria era. Sherman didnt't sign off on that move, but he sure signed plenty of checks for him as a result of it. A big factor in moving on from Kim Ng and putting Bendix into the driver's seat was a desire to avoid the risk of underwater contracts. The Marlins simply can't afford to move on from a contract mistake and conduct business as usual the following season in the same way their NL East opponents can.

Because let's not mince words, the Marlins were seriously hamstrung by the twin hits of Chen and Garcia. Those moves played a large role in huge, and unpopular, consequences for the product Miami was willing to put on the field. Caution is a logical, and necessary, takeaway on the Marlins' part from those failures.

However, that caution can quickly become its own kind of burden if it reaches the point of crippling fear to spend, period. Which is the point that the Marlins might have reached this winter.

This Marlins roster is ready to be invested in. Organizational depth has been rebuilt. Once the competitive window has opened, that depth is what you use to replace more known, proven quantities on the MLB roster. It's not what you use an excuse not to do any bolstering in the first place. The Chen contract has been long gone. The Garcia contract is all but gone. The needle is pointing up for the Marlins nationally in a way it hasn't in years, or at least was until Miami pulled a 180 on the spending talk this week. Even that doesn't change the view that the talent is in place in a way it hasn't been since before the team stopped calling themselves the Florida Marlins, and moved into loanDepotPark. The Marlins have the potential to make a lot of noise the next couple seasons.

Until the Marlins shake off that fear of putting more money into the payroll though? Team success will remain just that- potential success. And that ballpark will remain empty more often than not, fireworks or no.