Did the Marlins' win blockbuster with Jays?
With the benefit of hindsight now that we're more than halfway through the 2013 season, let's review the blockbuster offseason trade between
Toronto Blue Jays and
Miami Marlins and see just how much a little perspective changes things.
Back on November 19 of last year, the Marlins were coming off a 69-93 campaign -- their worst since 1999 despite spending big the previous offseason in preparation for their new stadium -- and so they sold off their high-priced talent by trading
Jose Reyes,
Josh Johnson,
Mark Buehrle,
John Buck and
Emilio Bonifacio to the Jays for
Yunel Escobar,
Adeiny Hechavarria,
Jeff Mathis,
Henderson Alvarez as well as prospects
Jake Marisnick, Justin Nicolino and Anthony DeSclafani.
In all, twelve plays changed teams. Not only were the Marlins widely considered the losers of the trade, they also were heavily criticized -- and rightly so in some sense -- for yet another fire sale.
Now, though, only nine months later, things look quite a bit different, don't they?
Toronto, which almost instantly became a consensus favorite to win the AL East and contend for their first postseason since 1993, has suffered through a brutally disappointing season; since late April, they've been stuck in last place in the division for all but two days.
meanwhile,
the Marlins may be a budding juggernaut:
Miami is stockpiling a dangerous combination of young talent
If you're shocked by the idea of actually having something positive to say about the laughingstock
Miami Marlins, you'd be far from alone. They have arguably the most despised owner in sports in Jeffrey Loria, a man who successfully talked Florida taxpayers into publicly funding a gaudy stadium
that no one goes to. They underwent yet another fire sale last winter, less than a year after opening the new park. They just bid farewell to Loria's hand-picked hitting coach
Tino Martinez after allegations of verbal and physical abuse, all while the offense Martinez led
challenges historical marks for futility.
that means that just about no one seems to have noticed that the Marlins have the fourth-best record in the National League (29-24) since May 31, two bona fide superstars under the age of 24 and a roster that is turning over the placeholders to include young and talented prospects.
It's not easy to be a Marlins fan right now -- but as you could see watching
Jose Fernandez strike out
14 batters on Friday night -- they are shaping up as a juggernaut in the not-too-distant future.
When the team moved into its brand-new park last season, they did so with an excess of pomp and circumstance by signing
Heath Bell,
Mark Buehrle and
Jose Reyes to expensive free-agent deals. But as the team stumbled on the field, the selloff soon began, and after pitcher
Ricky Nolasco was sent to the Dodgers last month, it left the team without a single player making more than $2.75 million in 2013.
With the roster gutted of talent other than elite slugger
Giancarlo Stanton, new manager
Mike Redmond was forced to staff his lineup with past-their-prime veteran fill-ins like
Greg Dobbs (.262
wOBA) and
Juan Pierre (.261 wOBA). It didn't help that Stanton was sidelined for much of the first half by a bad hamstring, and the team's start was so atrocious that it fulfilled every critic's claim that Loria cared only about revenue sharing and tax breaks, not spending on a winning roster.
Jose Fernandez might be the best young starter in MLB.
But what was often lost in that accounting is this simple fact: the 2012 team was awful. It lost 93 games, cost around $93 million dollars and was a year older. While it was difficult to avoid piling on for the horrible optics of blowing the team up so quickly after moving into the new park, if there was a mistake made here, it wasn't the Toronto trade. It was the players they had spent money on in the first place.
Meanwhile, the Marlins have reloaded by working with the talent imported in those deals to fill in around their two young superstars, Stanton and rookie pitcher
Jose Fernandez. Stanton's
ongoing injury problems remain a concern, yet he remains one of the most fearsome sluggers in the game. Fernandez, the team's first-round pick in 2011, just turned 21 on Wednesday, yet is one of the
very few starters in baseball with a
FIP below 3.00.
By May, 22-year-old
Marcell Ozuna was seeing considerable time in the outfield, and for each of the last nine games, the starters have been
Christian Yelich (21, Keith Law's No. 6 overall
preseason prospect),
Jake Marisnick (22, Law's No. 82 prospect, acquired from Toronto) and a now-healthy Stanton, still only 23.
The youth movement can be found nearly everywhere. When the Marlins hosted the Mets on Tuesday, seven of the nine starters were 25 or younger, including promising 23-year-old starter
Nate Eovaldi, acquired in the Ramirez deal, and slick-fielding 24-year-old shortstop
Adeiny Hechavarria, who came from the Blue Jays. That number could have been eight if 23-year-old catcher
Rob Brantly (acquired from Detroit for
Anibal Sanchez) hadn't had the night off. Eovaldi was actually the oldest pitcher they'd had in three nights, since he was following Fernandez and 22-year-old
Jacob Turner, who came with Brantly from Detroit and has a 3.31 FIP in 11 starts.
While the offense struggles to come together, other than Stanton and
Logan Morrison -- who is still only 25 -- the pitching has been excellent. No team had a
lower FIP in July than the 2.94 the Marlins did, as the bullpen has been effective and Fernandez, Eovaldi and Turner front a rotation that includes 23-year-old
Henderson Alvarez, who also came from Toronto.
There's more help on the way, as 21-year-old lefty Justin Nicolino (yet another piece from Toronto, and No. 62 on Law's list) was recently promoted to Double-A, where he joins 2012 first-round pick Andrew Heaney in the rotation.
This new young group of Marlins will be further reinforced by what looks likely to be a top-two pick in next year's draft, but the question here will always be about whether ownership will spend to build a competitive team or just continue to cycle off trades for minimum-salary players. At some point soon, they'll need to decide on the future of Stanton, though trading him could bring back an enormous bounty that could potentially fill several holes.
