Miami Marlins lose a SS

The Miami Marlins lost some shortstop depth. Jose Iglesias opted out of his Minor League contract with the team. The Fish have been going through some good times lately, with some better times potentially ahead. It's definitely unfortunate to lose some depth, but will the team miss Jose Iglesias? Can Joey Wendle handle the workload as a starter, with the backups currently available? Let's take a look at the situation...

The Miami Marlins lost SS depth that could potentially be an issue.

The Fish entered the season with Joey Wendle as the starter at SS. Wendle is currently injured and has been batting .111/.000/.111 in 4 games and 8 AB so far this season. Wendle is a career .270/.321/.397 hitter, who will probably turn things around upon coming back from injury. Besides Wendle, there's Jon Berti available on the bench. Berti is a career .243/.330/.351 hitter, who is currently batting .224/.246/.310 in 18 games and 58 AB.

It's clear that even with Wendle potentially turning things around, the Miami Marlins are not going to get solid offensive production from the SS position. Could Jose Iglesias have been better? Iglesias is a career .279/.319/.382 hitter in 1096 games and 3770 AB. He batted .292/.328/.380 in 118 games and 439 AB for the Colorado Rockies last season. The Fish actually could have prevented Iglesias from opting out by adding him to the Major League roster. That didn't happen of course.

Why didn't The Fish add Jose Iglesias to the Major League roster? One option could be his declining defense. Iglesias had a surprisingly poor -1.4 dWAR in 2021 with the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels. He did have a better 0.3 dWAR with the Colorado Rockies last season, but it's possible that the improvement wasn't important enough for The Fish. Iglesias was projected by Fangraphs to bat .268/.307/.368 rest of season.

I don't have much of a problem with the Miami Marlins letting Jose Iglesias go. I don't really see him as an upgrade over Wendle or Berti. Wendle is a better defender and Berti is faster and more useful on the bases.