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As the dust settles
The following players are expected to be active for the Marlins when their season resumes in Baltimore this week (CAPITALIZED names are new to the organization): Jesús Aguilar, Brian Anderson, Eddy Alvarez, Jon Berti, RICHARD BLEIER, Lewis Brinson, Corey Dickerson, LOGAN FORSYTHE, Monte Harrison, JAMES HOYT, Matt Joyce, Brandon Kintzler, BRIAN MORAN, MIKE MORIN, JUSTIN SHAFER, JOSH D. SMITH, Jonathan Villar and Jordan Yamamoto. That’s more than half a roster. Progress!
As of Monday morning, the Marlins have only placed six of their 18 recently infected players on the injured list. The patchwork roster will not be fully known until the afternoon of the Orioles series opener, so I advise you to stop wasting your energy on speculation.
Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic have learned that the club’s COVID-19 outbreak was far less scandalous than originally rumored, according to MLB’s own investigation. The flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia prior to Opening Day likely had a “super spreader” aboard—that helps explain why other Marlins players and staff who flew from Atlanta to South Florida following those exhibition games all tested negative last week at the alternate training site in Jupiter.
Freed Monte
Harrison was ready for the big leagues last season if not for a wrist injury and he was ready for it this past Opening Day if not for service time manipulation.
The wait is finally over: the highly regarded outfielder projects to be the Marlins’ main option in center for the rest of 2020 (Craig Mish reports).
Our own Spencer Morris details Harrison’s winding path through professional baseball to reach this point. His 2019 interview on Earning Their Stripes is also embedded in this piece.
Walk-off links
- Harrison and the other Jupiter-based players are flying in to the rescue on Monday, according to Andy Slater.
- Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports tells us how infielder Eddy Alvarez shared his call-up news with his family.
- Recorded just before Opening Day, I’m only now discovering this conversation between Lewis Brinson and former Marlins outfielder Xavier Scruggs. Brinson is honest about how he lost confidence in himself after struggling in the big leagues the past two years and the need to make changes in his personal life to “shut out certain people” who were causing distractions.
- Giancarlo Stanton has arguably the best power tool in Major League Baseball over the last 30-plus years, based on an analysis that Baseball America’s Matt Eddy did of annual MLB managerial polling.
- BYU right-hander Justin Sterner became the fourth undrafted free agent to join the Fish this summer.