Miami Marlins make multiple surprising roster moves prior to Opening Day

The Fish may have finalized their rotation and cleared up the DH situation

Neil Raymond

Max Meyer / Eric Espada/GettyImages

This has been a busy week for the Miami Marlins. J.D. Martinez finally signed with the team...but it wasn't The Fish. He signed with the New York Mets and as you can tell, Marlins X wasn't happy and neither was I. Some roster moves were announced today and the rotation for Opening Day was basically finalized. Let's dig in...

Miami Marlins made some interesting roster moves today and they're worth analyzing.

Let's get something out of the way, Miami Marlins fans deserve a competitive team. The fans deserve an ownership group that spends money on the team, and the team not spending money should never be accepted. We should keep pointing out that the team must spend to be competitive. There are no excuses for not doing it.

I was very disappointed at the J.D. Martinez non-signing, but I've come around. I saw his latest projections on Fangraphs...and they're not good. One of them is a .241/.309/.440 batting line with 23 home runs. Is that worth $12 million a year? Not really. I'll hold out hope that finances wasn't the primary obstacle to signing him.

Max Meyer is back in the Miami Marlins rotation! This is after he was assigned to Minor League camp, so it comes a little bit out of left field. He had a pretty good Spring Training, as he produced a 0.00 ERA in 3 games and 7.0 innings pitched, with 5 strikeouts and a walk. This is his chance to stake a claim to a spot permanently. I have high hopes for him and see him living up to the old hype.

The other news are not as positive, Trey Mancini opted out of his Minor League contract and is back on the open market. I'm disappointed about this, as I was hoping that he could make the team at some point. He batted just .234/.299/.336 last season for the Chicago Cubs, but it looks like he won't get the chance to improve on that with the Miami Marlins this season.

I'm disappointed with how the Trey Mancini signing worked out, but Max Meyer holds a lot of promise. I also hope that the Miami Marlins will spend when necessary, even if it's not at the levels a Miami team should.

Neil Raymond

Neil Raymond has been a lifelong Miami Marlins fan, with the 2003 playoff run being one of his favorite childhood memories. Neil has been called a "walking encyclopedia" for his knowledge of MLB statistics and the sport's history. He follows every game and actually invented his own statistic for player value on his side project BaseballAnalyzed.com. Writing for Fansided's Marlin Maniac since 2022, he also loves Fantasy Baseball and as such is an FSWA member. Neil also loves to travel, read and follow "Futbol" teams: Germany, Argentina, Greece, Inter Miami, Bayern Munich and NYC FC.