Fish Food: Realmuto’s agent chimes in, the state of the rotation, 25th anniversary celebration

Realmuto still wants out to the surprise of nobody

J.T. Realmuto’s agent, observing the seeming effectiveness of Christian Yelich’s agent pulling a similar stunt, put it out there that the Marlins’ catcher would like to be traded before Spring Training begins. Can’t really blame him for trying.

Given that he’s inexpensive, under team control for three seasons, mans a position difficult to fill with an offensive force AND is a top five player at said position, one would expect that the Marlins might receive a significant haul for Realmuto.

The only problem is that the market has failed up to this point to match that expectation, as many teams are set and seemingly satisfied with their starting catcher heading into 2018. The Washington Nationals are the only team who’ve really been keenly interested in acquiring Realmuto by himself, and they’ve balked at the one on one proposed by the Marlins for prized outfield prospect Victor Robles, and furthermore seem unwilling to part with another top outfield prospect in Juan Soto.

Now it’s been said that the Nationals have floated a larger package of lesser, but still quality, prospects. From Jon Heyman’s recent FanRagSports article:

“In any case, the Nats have some other young players and prospects who could form a deal for Realmuto, and six they are believed willing to consider are young outfielder Michael Taylor, shortstop Carter Kieboom, pitchers Erick Fedde and Seth Romero, and catchers Pedro Severino and Raudy Read.”

I think, at this point, that it would behoove the Marlins to sit tight and wait for the right deal to manifest itself. Realmuto is not going to lose significant value if he plays half or all of 2018 in Miami, and he should remain the top desirable target for many clubs despite a large influx of catchers into the free agency market post-2018 (all of whom will be over 30 years old).

Then again, the Marlins could get a jump-start on forming that important pitching staff-catcher bond by handing the reigns over to someone else. Who could that possibly be? We’ll investigate that tomorrow.

Who should start the year in the rotation?

There is a non-zero chance that the rotation that ended 2017 will be the rotation that begins 2018, a mistake in my estimation.

That would be (in case you’ve forgotten, and I wouldn’t blame you): Dan Straily, Jose Urena, Adam Conley, Dillon Peters and Odrisamer Despaigne. Other potential candidates also on the 40-man: Wei-Yin Chen, Sandy Alcantara, Jarlin Garcia, Brett Graves, Elieser Hernandez, Justin Nicolino, Chris O’Grady, Caleb Smith, Merandy Gonzalez.

Not to mention guys like Jorge Guzman, Trevor Richards, Zac Gallen and Trevor Rogers waiting in the wings. Oh yeah, and Braxton Garrett and Tyler Kolek.

Say what you will about the rebuild thus far, but the organization has done a good job of acquiring starting pitching depth. As such, it seems unlikely that they’ll be spending any money on remaining free agent starters (unless the price drops so low as to be an unquestionable bargain).

Straily and Ureña are the locks. It seems like it would be in the organization’s best interest to give Conley another shot, as he certainly has the talent to put up better numbers than he’s done thus far in his Marlins career. Beyond that, I’d like to see Peters start the year in the minors; now that he’s had a taste of the majors, he knows what to expect and can fine-tune his approach. Despaigne pitched well in his return to the rotation late last year but shouldn’t be relied upon to reproduce those results.

Ideally, the final two spots would be taken up by a healthy Wei-Yin Chen (who the Marlins desperately need to rebuild his value) and a “too good to leave out” Sandy Alcantara, who nabs the final spot off of the strength of a strong Spring Training.

Whatever the final iteration of the rotation might be to start the season, the rotation that ends the season will probably look a lot different. What we look for in a transitional year like 2018, in lieu of victory, is growth; let’s hope we see a lot of it from a pitching standpoint.

Marlins’ brass acknowledges that there was life before Jeter

We all know the perceived missteps that have taken place by this regime up to this point, so I wont re-hash them all here, but they all seemed to add up to an ownership group that seemingly didn’t care to maintain ties with the Marlins’ past.

So, it is refreshing to see that the Marlins indeed have plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this franchise coming into existence.

An interesting tidbit from the brief statement issued to the press was that the Marlins would be introducing the 25th anniversary logo alongside a “new look.” What that entails, exactly, remains a mystery. It could be anything from a commemorative patch to an unveiling of an entirely new color scheme, logo re-branding and jersey overhaul (although one thinks that they’d want to announce something on that scale with a little more grandiosity).

Most people I talk to who aren’t Marlins fans think that the current logo/color scheme is ugly. I’ve grown fond of it, personally, but by the same token wouldn’t be against a refresh. Teal and black has an important place in Marlins’ lore, so I’d be most in favor of keeping/reincorporating those colors strongly in any new attire.

What do you think?