Miami Marlins rivals are about to make a mistake in free agency

It's not an exciting off-season for the Miami Marlins at this time. It seems that it's division rivals who are receiving all of the attention. We can only guess as to who The Fish might eventually target, in waht increasingly looks to be a quiet off-season for the team. That's not surprising considering the team doesn't typically spend much anyway of course. However, now the division rival Atlanta Braves are making a mistake.

Miami Marlins division rivals are making what appears to be a bad move.

Bad contracts that hurt a team's payroll are one of the consequences of being active in free agency. It's therefore important to find a fair middle ground between making large expenditures on free agents and building up an elite farm system. Atlanta is more of a mid-market team that sometimes runs big market payrolls, but now it looks like they're after making a mistake.

Orlando Arcia is not putting up superstar numbers at SS to say the least. He batted just .218/.271/.354 with 17 home runs and 46 RBI, in 157 games and 551 AB for Atlanta in 2024. It certainly makes a lot of sense for the team to then be looking for an upgrade.

Willy Adames seems like such a player. The issue however is that he's just a bad contract waiting to happen. Adames batted .251/.331/.462 in 2024. He also had 32 home runs and 112 RBI in 161 games and 610 AB. The batting average is a concern already, as is his career batting line of .248/..322/.444. The typically good defender was also only worth -0.7 dWAR in 2024.

One of the things that I dislike in a hitter, is if he has more strikeouts than hits. That's something that Adames has made his trademark over the years. Even this season, he had 153 hits and 173 strikeouts. Such players don't age well and combined with his lack of contact are massive red flags. Last season, he actually batted .217/.310/.407.

I'd be happy if Atlanta signed Willy Adames, as he will be a bad contract and it will obviously help the Miami Marlins. Atlanta's pursuit of SS will hopefully lead to such a result.