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3 surprising predictions that affect the Miami Marlins
The Miami Marlins made some big roster moves before the season and tomorrow I will be making more detailed predictions for the 2023 season, with regular season and playoff predictions that will involve players. I decided to do a little preview by making 3 surprising predictions for the season. Some of these will be really shocking and against the grain, but that's the point. Anything can happen during the season and surprises will happen. Did most people predict the Philadelphia Phillies to win the pennant last season? I'm not saying that all of these will definitely happen, I'm just saying that there's a good chance that they will.
3 quick surprising predictions that affect the Miami Marlins.
1. Shohei Ohtani will be traded to the NL at the trade deadline
Shohei Ohtani is a free agent at the end of the season and he repeatedly said that winning is important to him. The Los Angeles Angels have not even made the playoffs in the 5 years he's been on the team. They don't look like a playoff team now either. He will reject all extension offers and they'll trade him at the deadline...to the NL. Not to their LA rivals for obvious reasons, but to the New York Mets or the Milwaukee Brewers or the St. Louis Cardinals. Maybe the Atlanta Braves.
The Los Angeles Angels are not going to the playoffs. They have one of the worst bullpens in the Majors (just look at what Fangraphs thinks); their lineup is weak and full on injury-prone players and their rotation outside of Ohtani is projected for ERA's around 4.00. This is a team that will have to deal with the Houston Astros, Texas Rangers and the Seattle Mariners in their own division.
They're not going to be in playoff contention by the trading deadline, and Ohtani will almost certainly not want an extension. He will be the biggest name moved at the trading deadline, to some team with a solid farm ready to push their chips in. The only team I don't see them trading Ohtani to is the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers will be in playoff contention, running away with their division as usual, but there's no way that the Angels trade Ohtani to their biggest rivals. The backlash from the fanbase would be the biggest in team history.
NEXT: The NL East won't be as competitive as we think...
2. The New York Mets will show their age
The Miami Marlins have a big advantage over the New York Mets.
I wrote about this before, all of this hype about the New York Mets will end up being for nothing. It's the New York Mets, they NEVER do as good as you expect. It never happens. When they won their last World Series (back in 1986), the belief was that this was the beginning of a dynasty...not so much. They didn't even make it back to the World Series until 2000.
They had a trio of elite pitching prospects in the 1990's and that never worked out. They seemed to be on the way to winning it all in 2006, and didn't make it past an 83 win team in the playoffs. This still looked like the beginning of a run of successful teams... but they didn't make the playoffs again until 2015. Hell, that 2015 pennant winning team seemed like the beginning of a dynasty and that didn't even come close to happening. The rule with the Mets is to never expect them to contend, because they will find a way to lose.
Steve Cohen is a great owner, but this team is headed for a big decline. Fangraphs projects 91 wins, which is ironically close to what I predicted for them. That's definitely a step down from the 101 wins they had in 2022, but still puts them in playoff position. What if they played worse than that? Considering the team it is, expecting failure is much more realistic than expecting them to succeed. I mean they weren't even supposed to lose to the San Diego Padres in the opening round of the playoffs last season.
Justin Verlander is 40 years old. It's unprecedented for someone his age to still be so good. I suspect he won't be as good as he was in 2022 and maybe aging will finally hit him. It's already hitting his fellow ace Max Scherzer, who is 38 years old. Scherzer pitched a full season career low of 145.1 innings (aside from the shortened 2020) in 2022. He also saw his strikeout rate continue to decline, a sit has annually since 2019. It's odd to me that this is flying under the radar.
Their rotation depth is already tested and closer Edwin Diaz is injured for the season. RF Starling Marte is 34 and in decline; CF Brandon Nimmo is injury-prone and DH, 3B and LF look like holes to me. This is a team that overachieved in 2022 and will be disappointing to its fans in 2023.
NEXT: A team will be calling the Miami Marlins for starting pitching at the Trade Deadline...
3. The St. Louis Cardinals will be looking for starting pitching at the Trade Deadline.
The St.Louis Cardinals will try to trade with the Miami Marlins.
The St. Louis Cardinals will be trying to win the NL Central for the second straight season this year. Personally, I would be surprised if they do as they won't get career years from 1B Paul Goldschmidt and 3B Nolan Arenado again for one thing. Goldschmidt was worth 7.8 WAR in 2023 and won the NL MVP award with a .317/.404/.578 batting line with 35 home runs and 115 RBI. He's projected to bat .273/.358/.481 by Fangraphs' Steamer with 29 home runs and 94 RBI in 2023 and to be worth 4.3 WAR. That's roughly 4 less wins.
Nolan Arenado batted .293/.358/.533 with 30 home runs and 73 RBI in 2022. He was worth 7.9 WAR. Fangraphs's Steamer projects him to bat .269/.332/.480 with 29 home runs and 99 RBI with 5.2 WAR. That's roughly 3 less WAR. St. Louis won the NL Central over the Milwaukee Brewers by 7 games last season and they're losing 7 wins already. It gets worse from there...
The projected ERA's (Fangraphs' Steamer) for the St. Louis rotation....
Adam Wainwright: 4.36
Miles Mikolas: 4.09
Jordan Montgomery: 3.67
Steven Matz: 3.79
Jack Flaherty: 4.12
Want a bold take? St. Louis rode Goldy's and Arenado's career years along with Milwaukee's unexpected collapse to a division title in 2022. A division title that they were very lucky to have. They were easily swept out of the playoffs right after that. They are not a playoff team in 2023 without an ace. This makes me think that they turn to the Miami Marlins for just that. They will want to trade one of their many young hitters for a starting pitcher.
Can you imagine St. Louis offering Dylan Carlson, Tyler O'Neill or Nolan Gorman for trade? I can. Will that trade happen? I'm not sure that the Miami Marlins will be willing to thin the team's starting pitching depth any further, but for the right bat who knows? The two teams do line up for a trade very nicely.
Next. Miami Marlins farm system ranking.... dark