The Marlins are in a tight spot in loaded NL East

This baseball offseason has been quite busy so far, with a good deal of the action involving the National League East. The Braves, who have won the last five division titles, landed Sean Murphy in a three-team, nine-player blockbuster. The Mets, who won 101 games this past year, reloaded by re-signing Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Díaz as well as signing Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, José Quintana, Omar Narváez and David Robertson. The Phillies, who just rode a wild-card berth to the World Series, signed Trea Turner, Taijuan Walker and Matt Strahm.

The Marlins, meanwhile, have done very little. Their most significant move so far this offseason was the acquisition of JT Chargois for their bullpen. Chargois is a fine bullpen piece, but he alone won’t move the needle much in the grand scheme of things. The Marlins were already facing an uphill battle in catching their three aforementioned divisional opponents, as they finished 69-93 this year, 18 games behind the Phillies for third place. Given the contrast in their respective levels of activity, it would appear the gap has only grown.

The largest obstacle that the club is facing is financial. The Marlins have never consistently been a huge payroll team, with their franchise record coming in at $115M in 2017. As that season was winding down, the club was sold to a group headed by Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter, with the payrolls pared back even further since then. Shortly after the ownership change, the Fish traded away Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich. One year later, it was J.T. Realmuto’s turn. The club payroll dropped to $100M for 2018, $72M in 2019 and just $57M in 2021. It jumped a bit to $79M in 2022, but that was still less than half of what Atlanta, Philadelphia or the Mets spent.

It would appear as though the grand plan was to trade those expensive players for prospects to form the next competitive core and then start spending again down the line. However, the vast majority of players acquired in those deals have not worked out. The four aforementioned trades netted the Marlins the following players in return: Starlin Castro, Jorge Guzmán, José Devers, Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison, Isan Díaz, Jordan Yamamoto, Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen, Daniel Castano, Jorge Alfaro, Sixto Sanchez and Will Stewart. Of that group, Alcantara is the obvious highlight, emerging as an ace to the extent that he captured the 2022 National League Cy Young Award. Gallen has also become an excellent major league starter but after being traded to the Diamondbacks. The Marlins at least got Jazz Chisholm Jr. back in that deal, but most of those other players have already been discarded after failed attempts to stick in the majors.

Compounding the poor success rate in those trade is the fact that the spending didn’t really elevate the way it was seemingly planned to. Jeter stepped down as the club’s CEO in February 2022, with some reports suggesting that changes to the club’s spending plans were what motivated his departure. The club did make some modest moves prior to the most recent season, signing Avisaíl García and Jorge Soler in an attempt to bolster a tepid offense. Unfortunately, they both had disappointing campaigns, with Garcia hitting .224/.266/.317 and Soler .207/.295/.400.

Coming into this offseason, reporting provided little optimism about any kind of great spending increase. Despite the lack of activity so far this winter, payroll is up from last year. Roster Resource currently pegs the club at $95M, a jump of $16M from last year’s Opening Day figure. However, most of that is due to increased salaries for players already on the roster. The club might have a bit more to work with, as the Fish were connected to some free agents in rumors, including Justin Turner, Josh Bell, Cody Bellinger, Willson Contreras and José Abreu. However, they came up in short in each of those instances, with all of those players now off the board. Even if there is a bit of cash to work with, there aren’t many players left who can provide the impact the club needs. Most of the top free agents are now signed, with Michael Conforto, Jurickson Profar and Brandon Drury some of the best bats still unsigned. Those are fine players, but they’re a tier below some of the improvements that other NL East teams have made.

A team doesn’t necessarily need to spend in order to succeed, as teams like the Rays and Guardians have illustrated, but it doesn’t seem likely that a tremendous amount of help is coming from within the organization either. Public evaluations of the farm system are middling at best, with MLB Pipeline recently ranking the Marlins 16th in the league, FanGraphs 15th and Baseball America 20th.

The club does have a surplus of MLB-caliber starting pitchers it could deal from but has yet to line up on a significant trade. Alcantara is followed by Pablo López, Jesús Luzardo, Edward Cabrera, Trevor Rogers and Braxton Garrett, with prospect Eury Pérez charging hard from the minors. Alcantara and Perez are reportedly untouchable, but any of the other pitchers are apparently on the table. Trading one of them could certainly provide the club with an upgrade elsewhere on the roster, but it would also subtract from an area of greatest strength — and the return likely wouldn’t provide as much impact as the free agents signed by the Marlins' division rivals.

Overall, it’s a really tight spot for the Marlins, who made the postseason in the shortened 2020 campaign but haven’t qualified in a full season since 2003. They were already a distant fourth in their division at the start of the offseason, and the three teams above them have all pulled further away. They don’t seem to have the financial resources to make an impact move to make up ground. The farm system isn’t in a great spot to provide much help. They are surely better than the Nationals, who were the worst team in baseball in 2022, but the Nats were ranked ahead of the Marlins on all three of the aforementioned farm system rankings and should be less bad as time goes on. For the Marlins, they will need to think about their next moves after missing out on so many free agents this winter, though it’s difficult to see anything but rough waters ahead.