The Miami Marlins made the right non-moves in the off-season

The Miami Marlins made the best trade of the entire off-season, acquiring NL MVP candidate Luis Arraez for a mid-rotation starter. That trade was actually criticized for The Fish at the time! Those takes are now completely laughable, considering how much of a win it already is for the team and Kim Ng. What about moves that didn't happen? It turned out that some of the biggest ones worked out perfectly for the Miami Marlins as well...

Some major non-moves worked out perfectly for the Miami Marlins.

Let's get something out of the way, there's never been a good excuse for the Miami Marlins not to spend in free agency. The moves that I'll be discussing were definitely impacted by "cheapness" (for lack of a better word), but they ended up working out incredibly well. I should add that despite all of the excuses, the Miami Marlins can afford top free agents.

The first non-move was The Fish not signing SS Carlos Correa. I didn't expect the team to spend what it would take to sign him, but when he signed with the low payroll Minnesota Twins in 2021... I didn't want to hear any more excuses not to spend. With Correa back on the free agent market, The Fish needed to make a move. What happened next could not have been predicted... Correa is back with Minnesota. He's back with Minnesota, but after deals with BOTH the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets fell through due to injury concerns. He's now batting .212/.287/.403 in the worst season of his career.

1B José Abreu was an actual Miami Marlins off-season target, and Kim Ng even made him an offer. The offer was actually competitive but short one year. Abreu ended up signing with the Houston Astros....and being worth a remarkably bad -1.0 WAR this season. He has a .232/.283/.325 batting line this season, and being 36 years old is more likely to decline than improve. Houston is now stuck with him for two more seasons.

These two non-moves really stick out to me and worked out well for the Miami Marlins. Nothing would destroy any chance of the team spending big in the future, then a bad contract such as Correa's. Being stuck with a declining Abreu would've hurt a lot as well, especially as The Fish were actually in on him. Both non-moves worked out perfectly.