Gone Fishin': Miami Marlins Reality...checked

Good morning, everyone. It is Monday, July 3rd, 2023, and welcome to another episode of the Gone Fishing Podcast, part of the 5 Reasons Sports Podcast Network. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe all of our stuff here at 5 Reasons. There's a lot going on, especially right now in Miami Heatland. Obviously, the Panthers are going through their offseason, making their additions, making their big deals, and your Miami Marlins continue to fight for a playoff spot. A 3-in-3 week, although one that left us with a little bit of a bitter taste in our mouths as they go to Atlanta, and they are shown just how far away they are really from that level of contention. You know, the Braves kind of reminding the Marlins that there is indeed levels to this, and while the Marlins, I don't think that this makes them a bad team, but I do believe that this does kind of serve as a little bit of a reality check for those of us who were flying high at 14 games over 500. So, I want to get into the best players of the week at the big league level. I'm going to go with Jazz. You know, since he came up, he's hitting .348, .375 on base, .696 slugging for a .1071 OPS, two homers, five runs batted in in the six games between Boston and Atlanta, and Jesus Lizardo, his start in Boston was a gem. Six and a third innings, no runs, one walk, three hits, nine strikeouts. At the minor league level, I'm going to give it to Torin Montgomery, hitting .357 with a .526 on base and a .571 slugging for a .1098 OPS in five games at Jupiter this week, and Austin Allen. I do want to just give him a shout out for his three home run game, seven RBI game the other day at Jacksonville, and going back since May 3rd, Allen, who is a little bit of a journeyman catcher, not too many at bats in the big leagues. He is 29 years old, so it's not necessarily like this guy's a prospect, but you see production like this since May 3rd. He's hitting .312 with a .395 on base, a .752 slugging, an .1148 OPS since May 3rd, and he's bashed 10, 11 home runs in that time as well. So when you see that level of production, it does kind of make you take pause and say, maybe there is something worth exploring here, and I think the Marlins should look into that, considering the state of... I think the weaknesses on the team were kind of re-highlighted to us again this past week, so we will see how things go there. And for your minor league pitch of the week, I'm going to go with a reliever. I'm going to go Jeffrey Yan at Double A Pensacola. He's been fantastic of late. This week, he appeared in two games, three innings pitch, no record, one save, no earned runs, one walk, no hits, four strikeouts in those games. So the Marlins are 48-37. They're nine games back at the Braves in the NLEs, although we can pretty much forget that ship, but they are still three games up in the wildcard, so there is still plenty to play for, despite the doom and gloom that's out there right now. I know that you're looking at this team, and there's probably a lot of that P word pretender being thrown around right now, and I think that it's fair to wonder about it, but I don't think getting beaten by the best team in baseball, no matter how handily, really, over a three-game sample size is going to erase what they had done in the previous 82 games. So I do think that would be a little bit short-sighted to kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater there, but I do want to get into what needs to happen for the Marlins now where their weaknesses are heading into the deadline, and where I think that they should be making some additions to this ballclub. So the first theme of this podcast is going to be, I really want to just turn the page on this. They're starting a three-game set against St. Louis at home, a very winnable series. I think that this is a spot where previously Marlins teams would have just collapsed. The last few years, and granted, there hasn't been a Marlins team with a start like this in a long time, but in the last few years there have been teams that have been kind of competitive, hanging around 500, and then they've hit a spot in the schedule where they just go on a long, protracted losing streak and kind of just knock themselves out of the playoff race. And I think that they need to avoid kind of that at all costs right now. Obviously, they have a little bit more cushion built up, but I do think that they should still be vigilant about, hey, listen, let's turn the page. Let's right the ship. We've got St. Louis coming in for a three-game set. We can win this series and just take it one series at a time. There's no shame in losing to Atlanta. I think right now, ultimately, I think with the Braves, it's just a matter of, I mean, boy, if they play at this level all year long, they're winning the World Series and nobody's standing in their way. But I think that's when it's important to kind of reiterate that we're looking at a long baseball season. It's 162 games. It's very rare for the team that is just overwhelmingly the best team in baseball in June, July, to be the best team in October. And so I think, honestly, you kind of just have to hope that the Braves are peaking really early. And then I want to get into a little bit of what I think that the team needs to add right now. So they brought Jazz off the I.L. As I mentioned, he's been really solid. They brought Segura off the I.L. and he's been not great still. He's been a little bit better than he had been before going on to the I.L., but I don't know if it's enough to really change the perception of the organization at this point or to change that. Certainly not to change the fan base towards Gene, but I do think that there are some things to be looked at there, especially at third base and especially when you've got a guy like Dane Myers in AAA who's still just absolutely, absolutely bashing the ball in OPS of 12-0-1 in what has been a pretty significant sample size at this point. Over 15 games, he's been at the AAA level. So I think that's also a very interesting thing to bring up due to the fact that they only have 39 guys on their 40-man roster, so they do have a spot to make a call up if necessary, whether that is Dane Myers, whether it's Austin Allen, because I think that you still look at Jacob Stallings on this team and you say, we can do better. I think Nick Fortes is fine if he's going to be a backup catcher, but I don't think he's much more than that in this league. And with Stallings, he just hasn't shown the capability, at least this season, or he hasn't shown the capability since he's been in a Marlins uniform to really hit at an acceptable level, at the big league level. And I don't say that to pile on Jacob. I'm sure he wants to succeed and he puts in the work. But it just goes to show that this is a results-oriented business, and some decisions are going to have to be made at catcher, whether your targets are somebody like Yasmany Grandal or Jaimer Candelario or even the more ambitious amongst us who want to try to bring in Luis Robert Jr. I don't think a move quite that big would be on the table for the fish, but I do think that they can make significant upgrades at this deadline, and I do think that they should make significant upgrades at this deadline. I think when you're looking at the roster in totality, you look at third base, you're looking at catcher, whether it's Jaimer Candelario, Yasmany Grandal, Luis Robert, anywhere where you guys can get significant upgrades. I've heard some people try to say, maybe flip one of your starters to the Reds and see if you can't get Christian Encarnacion Strand. I don't know how likely something like that is, but he'd be a fantastic get. If possible, he'd immediately slot in to be your third baseman in the future for years to come. And that's one of those deals that might be beneficial for both sides, especially as the Reds look to add a little bit of pitching. I do think that the Marlins ought to look into right-handed relief pitching as well. They're very lefty-heavy in the bullpen right now. Okert, Scott, Nardi's been great. Puck has been very good. But guys like Floro has been up and down. Brazoban, again, he's gone through his struggles. Anthony Maldonado, who was a really strong call-up candidate for this squad, went down onto the 7-day IL. So we'll see there. But this team is treading a little bit of water, and they're probably going to be losing a piece or two right now. Misch reported that it was likely that they were going to shut down Uri after his start against the Braves, and I think that him struggling has kind of given them a window to do that. And that's not to say that... I mean, Uri had a game against Atlanta. There's no two ways about it. But I don't think that that overshadows what he's done in totality for the entire season for them. But I do think that this is a really opportune moment, perhaps, for them to shut him down. I don't know how far away Edward Cabrera is. I know that he's throwing again. But according to the latest reporting, I believe Jordan McPherson in the Herald had, that Cabrera is likely out until the break. So I don't know how even likely it is that, you know, maybe they get a day off where they can skip Uri's spot in the rotation, kind of go with four guys until the break. I do want to congratulate Jorge Soler for being added to the All-Star team as a DH, as a reserve. He absolutely has earned it this year. He's been fantastic for the fish. So I did want to just give him a little bit of congratulations there. But ultimately, the theme of this podcast is to turn the page. You know, you get swept by Atlanta, but you swept, you swept Boston. So all in all, the road trip was 500. You know, I think, I think if a lot of the people that, you know, are poopooing the Atlanta series and absolutely, it was awful. There's no two ways about it. There's no excusing it. At least not in the way they got beat. You know, it's one thing if you lose a bunch of 5-4 games to Atlanta and you get swept that way, whatever, it happens. But they got, they got annihilated. Plain and simple. You know, they started that series at a zero run differential, and they're ending it at a negative 22 run differential. You know, that's a proper butt-kicking, certainly. So I do think that, you know, had they done something like 2-1 versus Boston on the trip, and then 1-2 versus Atlanta, we'd be looking at it probably a little bit differently. Although functionally, I think the results are pretty much the same. Thankfully, the Dodgers lost the series to the Royals. The Phillies dropped the series to the Nationals. So it does kind of just show you how random overall baseball can be. You know, I'm sure it being the Braves had a lot to do with it. I'm sure the Marlins also just had three bad games as well. That's not to say that they should just, oh, well, it was just three bad games, throw it away. You know, there's no need to try to improve anything. There's plenty of need to try to improve things, especially when, you know, you're not certain what the prognosis with Jazz even is right now. You know, he hurt his back on a swing. Seems like it might be an oblique, so usually that's about a week or two injury. So I assume that he's probably going to be out through the all-star break and come back on the other side of it. You know, it's a tough spot for the Fish to be in because it seems like a lot of things are starting to trend downwards for them. And this is actually going to be probably one of the most important stretches of the season here. If they can tread water between now and the all-star break to where there's still 10, 11, 12 games over 500 heading into the break, I think that they would be in a really good spot. But they ought to be canvassing the league right now for any upgrades they can get. I know that this far out from the deadline, teams aren't necessarily at their most willing to make deals, particularly because there are teams that quite frankly still believe that they can compete. And hopefully Miami makes that decision for St. Louis a little bit easier this week with the series win. So that is all I have for today. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will be back next week here to talk about what the Marlins did in their week and any kind of transactions, updates, player movement, injuries, anything of the like. We will have it all here. Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. Thank you guys so much for listening and I will see you next time. Later.