Tim Anderson rejected multiple teams to sign with the Miami Marlins

There's a Spring Training competition for two rotation spots. There's no competition at SS however. Us Miami Marlins fans were excited when the best remaining free agent SS chose where to play in 2024. It turns out that it could've been on a whole different coast instead. That's right, Tim Anderson almost signed with a California team. What were the offers? Wwhy did he chooe Miami?

Tim Anderson chose the Miami Marlins over multiple teams this off-season.

Tim Anderson was one of the best SS's in the game from 2019-2022. He batted .318/.347/.474, with 51 home runs and 163 RBI, in 374 games and 1565 AB. He was worth an impressive 12.5 WAR for that time period. Things fell apart in 2023 however. That season, Anderson batted .245/.286/.296, with a home run and 25 RBI, in 123 games and 493 AB. It was a poor performance that was worth -2.0 WAR and -0.9 dWAR.

Speaking of dWAR, Anderson had a poor -0.3 dWAR for 2022 as well. He did however have a strong 1.0 dWAR in 2021 and an elite 2.3 dWAR in 2018. Can the 30 year old get back to those highs in 2024? Can he fix his hitting? Was it due to playing through injury? Time will tell if Anderson can bounce back in 2024.

The Miami Marlins were pursuing Tim Anderson as early as the 2023 Trade Deadline. At the time, Kim Ng and not Peter Bendix was in charge of the team, so it looks like this pursuing has lasted through two organizational leadership groups. It was Bendix of course who finally managed to get him.

The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels have been pursuing Anderson all off-season! It make sense why they would, as neither team has a sure thing at the position at the moment. San Francisco will be giving top prospect Marco Luciano (.231/.333/.303 in 2023), and the Angels will be going with Zack Neto (.225/.308/.377 in 2023). It look like both teams were willing to go with Anderson instead, that is unless they saw him more as a second baseman or a utility bench option.

We don't actually know what those teams offered Tim Anderson, but we can assume that they were one-year deals for not much more money. I strongly assume that the Miami Marlins offered him a starting job at SS, or he simply preferred to be on the East Coast. He made the right decision in any case.