Miami Marlins aggressively pursued Bryan Reynolds

The Miami Marlins pursued Bryan Reynolds seemingly forever at this point. Now it doesn't look as if a new CF will be acquired at all, as The Fish are going with Jazz Chisholm Jr. in CF. This is a surprising development and definitely wasn't seen as the final result to The Fish's long-term pursuit of Reynolds to take over CF. New details came out about Reynolds's situation and the Miami Marlins' pursuit of his services...

The Miami Marlins heavily pursued Bryan Reynolds.

Back in December, Bryan Reynolds requested a trade from the Pittsburgh Pirates after the two sides couldn't agree to an extension. Pittsburgh offered him a 6 year/$76 million extension that Reynolds apparently felt offended by. He wanted 6 years/$126 million according to the new reports. Reynolds has between three and four years of service time before hitting free agency and it doesn't appear that he will re-sign with the team.

According to the reports, the Miami Marlins were one of the most serious if not the most active team pursuing Bryan Reynolds. This is good news as it shows that Kim Ng was indeed actively trying to improve The Fish and acquire Reynolds. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh had an "astronomical" demand in a trade return so nothing got done. You can't really blame Kim for refusing to overpay, as for all of his positives, Reynolds is still coming off a terrible defensive season in CF with a solid but unspectacular .262/.345/.461 batting line.

So what happens now? I guess trade talks could be revisited at the trading deadline, if Pittsburgh is out of playoff contention as expected and the Miami Marlins are. Of course nothing indicates that Pittsburgh's asking price will change, or that having less team control over him will motivate them to make the trade more necessarily. The likeliest scenario is that Pittsburgh won't trade Reynolds until closer to his free agency, at which point they might finally feel more motivated to move him and will lower their asking price.

The New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers and Colorado Rockies were the other teams with reported interest in Bryan Reynolds. For now I'm confident that Jazz Chisholm Jr. will get the job done in CF.