‘Holy crap. They had some studs.’ Christian Yelich and your 2019 World Series champion Miami Marlins
By Marc Carig May 29, 2019
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Christian Yelich shook his head at a memory from a past life, this one from the final days of another lost season. In five years of toiling for the Marlins, he rarely experienced “playing for something past the first two weeks.” Motivation had to be mined like a precious metal. Some nights, with so few people in the stands, there would be nothing to muffle the conversations taking place in the visitors’ dugout. Even in the middle of games, he remembered how he could hear every word being spoken.
“You’d like to say that you put the same effort forward no matter what,” Yelich said recently. “But I think the attention to detail and the concentration is probably more now — in stretches — because it really, really matters. Not to say that it didn’t matter before. The stakes just weren’t as high.”
Now, the stakes are high, and every night it really, really matters. Yelich, 27, is the reigning Most Valuable Player of the National League, the dynamo that last season powered the Brewers to within a game of the World Series. He’s royalty in Milwaukee, where puppies are named after him, and where he’s cheered when shown crushing beers at Bucks games, because, hey, when in Rome. Along with Giannis Antetokounmpo, he stands at the center of a city’s sports renaissance.
Yelich is also the most egregious One That Got Away for the sport’s most woebegone franchise. His great leap forward as a player only followed his liberation via a trade from the Marlins, who underwent a talent drain so massive that it will take years to fully appreciate the scope of the impact. Underpinned by disparate motivations, it encompassed two different ownership groups, unfolding over two distinct waves. The first was the consequence of ill-advised attempts to make contenders out of pretenders, a recurring exercise in futility that encapsulated years of mismanagement. The second was a direct response to the first, a calculated decision by new management to rebuild by first razing the ruins that it had inherited.
Taken together, the fallout is staggering.
Yelich, along with Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, Dee Gordon and J.T. Realmuto, had been established stars by the time they were jettisoned. But their departures might not have been a given had it not been for an initial run of decisions, in which the Marlins may have unknowingly gutted a championship-caliber starting rotation.
With the Reds, Luis Castillo has become the ace of the staff and one of the best young pitchers in the game, all after he was traded away by the Marlins twice. With the Padres, Chris Paddack has become one of the faces of a resurgent franchise, a self-styled sheriff with the cowboy boots and charisma to match. With the Yankees, Domingo Germán has become a savior in a sea of injuries, with the rest of his repertoire finally catching up to his crackling fastball.
All three were members of the Marlins organization. All three would have been under team control for 2019. All three are on track to be first-time All-Stars in the midst of a breakout. None of them came in Miami.
“Holy crap,” Paddack said recently. “They had some studs.”
The Marlins have long been known for their teal and their teardowns. But those previous deconstructions had followed World Series triumphs. This one came before any rings could be won. As they muddle through the darkest days of a painful rebuild, it’s easy to wonder about the greatness of a team that never got the chance to be.
What if the Marlins had kept all that talent rather than letting it go? What if they could combine it with the players that they actually kept? How would their current roster be transformed this season with an outfield of Yelich, Ozuna and Derek Dietrich, with Stanton working his way back from the IL? What about an infield anchored by Gordon? Or how about Realmuto, baseball’s best catcher, handling a starting rotation in which the most senior member would be 27?
The Marlins smartly plucked Caleb Smith from the Yankees in a trade. They’re now reaping the rewards of a breakout season. But what if Smith could have been joined by Castillo, Paddack and Germán?
The Marlins viewed Domingo Germán as a future reliever, and Yankees GM Brian Cashman seemed to agree, calling the right-hander a “lottery ticket.” But what Cashman didn’t say until years later is that the Yankees considered Germán the top pitching prospect in the Marlins’ system. (Peter G. Aiken / USA Today)
Perhaps there would be stories written about a franchise on the rise, even after it being rocked to the core by the tragic death three years ago of their homegrown phenom, José Fernández. Maybe there would be a glossy magazine cover, featuring a photo of that smiling starting rotation, flanked by Yelich, whose 20 home runs currently lead the major leagues. It’s not difficult to imagine a bold editor adorning that cover with a provocative headline: “Your 2019 World Series champions.”
Such things are unknowable, of course.
But the numbers project a powerhouse, built around a homegrown core, adorned with a blend of brilliant young talent and sage veterans. When roughly measured by Baseball Reference’s version of wins above replacement, the 2019 Marlins would be on pace to win 102 games, and that’s even with Stanton on the shelf. All that winning would come at a cost of roughly $110 million, hardly exorbitant when compared to the rest of the league.
In essence, the Marlins would be a model franchise, not much different from the Astros.
“It’s crazy, huh?” said the Reds’ Anthony DeSclafani, another useful big-league arm that the Marlins traded away for a minimal return. “It’s everything you need.”
A glance of the Mashup Marlins’ 25-man roster shows that he’s not far off:
Position Player Current team 2019 bWAR*
Lineup
2B Dee Gordon Mariners 0.4
RF Christian Yelich Brewers 2.9
CF Marcel Ozuna Cardinals 0.8
C J.T. Realmuto Phillies 1.7
LF Derek Dietrich Reds 1.4
1B Neil Walker Marlins 0.7
3B Brian Anderson Marlins 1.0
SS Miguel Rojas Marlins 0.6
Bench
LF Curtis Granderson Marlins -0.1
C Chad Wallach Marlins 0.3
1B/OF Garrett Cooper Marlins -0.2
Util Jon Berti Marlins 0.3
Util Rosell Herrera Marlins -0.8
Rotation
RHP Luis Castillo Reds 2.3
RHP Chris Paddack Padres 1.5
RHP Caleb Smith Marlins 1.3
RHP Domingo Germán Yankees 1.0
RHP Trevor Williams Pirates 1.6
Bullpen
RHP Nick Wittgren Indians 0.9
RHP Anthony DeSclafani Reds 0.2
RHP Jose Ureña Marlins 0.3
LHP Wei-Yin Chen Marlins -0.7
RHP Nick Anderson Marlins -0.2
RHP Austin Brice Marlins 0.2
RHP Sergio Romo Marlins -0.2
* Through Memorial Day.
In an alternate universe, the 2019 Marlins would be a typical contending team with first-world problems. They’d be in search for help on the bench. They’d be canvassing the league for bullpen arms ahead of a heated pennant race. Instead, they are a haphazard collection of misfit parts, assembled not to win, but to merely endure a lost season. The Marlins of real life are 17-34 through Memorial Day, on pace to win 54 games, a shadow of what they could have been. They owe their fate in part to decisions made years before.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Marlins viewed themselves as contenders. Under former owner Jeffrey Loria, oftentimes, the mandate was to win. But notoriously, it was always with the bottom line in mind. This proved problematic. A pattern emerged. Loria could be swayed by impulse and impatience, according to people familiar with the club’s inner workings. And his cast of trusted lieutenants, just as eager to chase a winner, did him no favors by consistently misjudging the team’s talent. Those issues hastened a string of miscalculations.
Believing themselves to be contenders in 2015, the Marlins looked to upgrade before the season, when they sent Germán along with Garrett Jones and Nathan Eovaldi to the Yankees for a package of David Phelps and Martin Prado. At the time of the trade, the Marlins viewed Germán as a future reliever, and Yankees GM Brian Cashman seemed to agree, calling the right-hander a “lottery ticket.” But what Cashman didn’t say until years later is that the Yankees considered Germán the top pitching prospect in the Marlins’ system, recently telling
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal that Germán was included only because of an
insistence in also acquiring Phelps. While both Phelps and Prado were useful pieces, it mattered little as the Marlins finished in third place.
Germán, 26, is enjoying a breakout for the Yankees this season with a 9-1 mark and a 3.43 ERA.
Chris Paddack, 23, looks like a future star with the Padres, confounding hitters with a lethal changeup. He debuted earlier this season, pitching to a 1.93 ERA in his first nine big-league starts. (Jake Roth / USA Today)
In 2016, the Marlins once again saw themselves as contenders. So when they began the year 41-38, they doubled down by trading for closer Fernando Rodney. They’d hoped to emulate the Royals, who had ridden their “super bullpen” to a victory in the World Series. Though Rodney had a 0.31 ERA at the time of his acquisition from the Padres, there was ample evidence to doubt the sustainability of his performance. He was also 39, another red flag for regression. But under Loria, working on a tight budget was standard operating procedure, and Rodney’s price proved too enticing. He had a base salary of $1.6 million on a contract that expired at season’s end. He was cheap. According to a source, that’s what ultimately swayed the Marlins to relent, when Padres general manager A.J. Preller would not come off his demand for the promising righty named Paddack, who happened to be on a 15-inning hitless streak at Low-A Greensboro.
Rodney’s ERA shot up to 5.89 during his three months with the Marlins, who faded from contention.
Paddack, 23, looks like a future star with the Padres, confounding hitters with a lethal changeup. He debuted earlier this season, pitching to a 1.93 ERA in his first nine big-league starts.
“At the time, I was young,” Paddack said. “It didn’t really cross my mind until you see what could’ve been. Especially (since) they’ve been struggling a little bit this year, too. All the Marlins fans are pissed off, obviously. I would say it’s cool to say I was one of the guys who could’ve been a special part of that team or whatever. But I think everything kind of lines up for itself.”
However, even when things lined up for the Marlins, it wasn’t enough to save them from themselves.
As part of their failed playoff push in 2016, Miami bolstered its pitching staff by acquiring Andrew Cashner, Tayron Guerrero and Colin Rea from the Padres. But when Rea got injured in his first start with his new team, the clubs amended the deal. That meant that the Marlins would get back one of the four players it had moved in the deal, a live arm named Castillo. He wasn’t destined to stay.
Castillo had initially arrived in a trade from the Giants in 2014, though according to a source, the Marlins’ decision-makers were never truly convinced that he’d ever make the leap from being a thrower to being a pitcher. They’d pegged him as a reliever, at best. Nevertheless, Castillo remained a popular target for rival teams. And just six months after getting a mulligan on a trade, the Marlins dealt Castillo again. This time, he was sent to the Reds for righthander Dan Straily, who spent the next two seasons as a somewhat useful but below-average innings eater.
Castillo, 26, is 5-1 with a 2.45 ERA in the starting rotation for the Reds. These days, he’s viewed as their undisputed staff ace.
Luis Castillo has become the ace of the staff and one of the best young pitchers in the game, all after he was traded away by the Marlins twice. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
