The Miami Marlins off-season SS decision was still the right one

SS Tim Anderson has been a major disappointment with the Miami Marlins. So much so that there's been talk on social media that the Miami Marlins didn't do enough at the position. With catching already another problem, it does look like Peter Bendix should've done a lot more. Could he have though? Who was available instead? Let's take a look....

Tim Anderson was the best available SS option for the Miami Marlins.

Hindsight can be very tricky. It's easy to look at bad moves made in the past and talk about how inexcusable they were. While in some cases there indeed were better moves available, in many other cases there were not. Such is the case with Tim Anderson. Let's take a look at the SS market last off-season.

It's pretty brutal to say the least. Pretty much the entire free agent SS class was filled with backup players and struggling players. Anderson was by far the best available SS, based on his recent All-Star performances, despite his down 2023 season. You can of course point towards the trade market as another option.

There's an issue with the trade market.... we don't know who was actually available out of the players that weren't traded. The fact that none of the big names were traded, is pretty clear that they were either not shopped at all, or the price was too high to acquire them.

Would the St. Louis Cardinals trade Masyn Winn? Would the Baltimore Orioles trade Gunnar Henderson? It's pretty clear that the answer is a resounding "no". Would the Houston Astros trade Jeremy Pena? Not for any small return. The Washington Nationals were surely not trading foundational piece CJ Abrams. We can keep going down the list, but let's make it clear that there were no rumors that any of these big names (or any others) were available, and no reason to believe that the price was reasonable.

Tim Anderson was simply the best available SS for the Miami Marlins. He didn't work out, but he was worth signing at the time.