On July 3, with the Miami Marlins emerging as surprise contenders in the NL East, owner Bruce Sherman appeared to remove ace Sandy Alcántara from the trade market by calling him a “franchise icon.”
Hey, that’s different.
A week later, when the Marlins reached 10 games over .500 for the first time in three years (and for just the third time since 2011), a story in The Athletic citing unnamed sources said Miami would be buyers before the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Doubling down on the turnaround.
A week ago Thursday, with the All-Star break wrapping up, Sherman re-emerged to tell the Fish on First Podcast that Marlins president Peter Bendix “has a green light” to add to Miami’s roster in pursuit of winning the division.
Go Fish!
Since the Marlins fell hard, we’ll back of the Atlanta Braves in the division and all but erased from wild-card contention.
With the trading deadline days away, there’s still time for Sherman to say something else and have it blow up, but he must have learned his lesson by now. That’s too bad, because you know we were going to hear about the Home Run machine moving back inside the ballpark, re-installing the fish tank behind home plate, and hiring back the Clevelander Girls. Those dreams seem dead.
This is a fine kettle of Fish.
Fan reaction had been mixed to Sherman’s march of positivity. Some were excited to hear the team likely would be keeping a beloved figure like Alcántara, whose $21 million team option for 2027 isn’t expensive in Major League Baseball terms, but it is pretty pricey for the Marlins.
Other fans expressed little enthusiasm about the club being buyers at the deadline because the Marlins don’t have a long record of buying anything. It’s been a minute since the Giancarlo Stanton extension, or bringing in José Reyes and Mark Buehrle in free agency.
A few fans looked at the box scores amid Sherman’s boasts and noticed how the Fish were a-slip-slidin’ away in the standings.
While winning the division seems remote as ever, they’re still just 1 1/2 games back in the NL Wild Card race. The problem there is, they’re tied with the Washington Nationals, and also would have to climb over the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks to make the postseason field.
Further, if you read between the lines of what Sherman said, and what Ken Rosenthal wrote in The Athletic, it’s not like the Marlins were going to cash in their mediocre farm system to maximize their chances in the playoffs. Bendix wants a sustainable contender for years to come, and the Marlins have almost no history of being one of those. They’re more famous for their meteoric World Series titles in 1997 and 2003, followed by a relatively quick and dirty teardown.
Do they seem on the verge of another championship? They’re middle of the road in hitting, and a little better than that with pitching, but their depth is being tested right now. Right-hander Max Meyer was finally having a breakout season, but recently went on the injured list because of a neck strain. Eury Pérez has bounced back from an injury in May, but like Meyer, has a short history of pitching a lot of innings.
Unless this losing streak reaches 13 or 14 (or longer, like a reverse Red Sox), the Fish should keep looking on the market for another starter and a third baseman, and try to compete. Hey, the last thing we heard from Sherman was that they’re buyers. Bendix should just act like nothing has changed.
And, if Meyer returns before the end of the season with Pérez and Alcántara, you could do a lot worse for a rotation in a postseason series. And it’s only July. Plenty of time to put back the fish tank. Maybe see what the ex-Clevelander Girls are up to. The Home Run machine, that’s probably a no-go.
But Sandy’s staying no matter what, right?
