Marlins links, 9/7/18: Welcome to Wichita, Dan Straily opens up, not as “unnecessarily big” as you thought

Triple-A affiliate on the move

Goodbye, Baby Cakes. The Marlins’ top minor league affiliate will relocate to Wichita, Kansas upon the completion of a new state-of-the-art ballpark, the city’s mayor announced on Thursday.

‘Cakes baseball is staying in New Orleans for the 2019 season while construction begins.

This will represent a big improvement in facilities and atmosphere for Miami’s Triple-A players. Plus, it saves a lot of travel mileage during the Pacific Coast League season.

On the other hand, the process of recalling/optioning to and from the Marlins active roster won’t be as efficient. That bucks a trend of MLB franchises shortening the distance between their major league and Triple-A teams (the Mets are just the latest example, settling in Syracuse after years in Las Vegas).

I’m skeptical of how this partnership will last long term.

Bigger isn’t always better

Mitch’s topic of the week is Marlins Park.

With the departure of Giancarlo Stanton and a slightly improved pitching staff, home games in 2018 have been extremely low scoring. But this is about more than the personnel—the outfield size ranks among the largest in the majors (and for no particular reason).

Do fans enjoy this style of play? How much did it impact Stanton’s home run totals? Does it play to the strengths of the Marlins organization moving forward? What should the field’s ideal dimensions look like?

The data leads to some surprising answers.

Aren’t we over this already?

More than three weeks after José Ureña intentionally hit Braves rookie Ronald Acuña Jr. with a first-pitch fastball, former Atlanta outfielder Dale Murphy weighs on the absurdity of the unwritten retaliation rules:

In the end, these types of plunkings have no place in our game. They’re rooted in bluster and bombast from a bygone era and serve no purpose. Incidents like these don’t happen that often, but they happen often enough.

You remember this controversy. It dominated the baseball news cycle for several days. Ureña was (understandably) critiqued for his actions, both here on Fish Stripes and elsewhere.

Murphy comes at it from a different perspective, knowing exactly what it feels like to be brushed off the plate by a hard thrower.

Veteran Straily tells it like it is

In advance of his start against the Pirates on Friday, Dan Straily speaks to Craig Mish on the new episode of the Swings and Mishes podcast.

If you’ve paid attention to Straily’s career, he’s been candid about his personal and professional life, and this was no exception. The 29-year-old explains his philanthropic work, his uneven 2018 season and feeling like a “fish out of water” when initially acquired by the Marlins last year.

His future in South Florida is uncertain as he approaches the winter looking like a viable trade chip, but Straily says that eventually succeeding down here would be that much more gratifying after enduring the rebuild.