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The Offishial Show Episode 185: Why Marlins Payroll Must Go Up

Ely explains why the Marlins cannot solve all their problems through the trade market—it’ll take a greater financial commitment from ownership, too.

By Ely Sussman
/ new
General manager Kim Ng, manager Skip Schumaker, and owner Bruce Sherman of the Miami Marlins speak to the media during a press conference at loanDepot park on November 03, 2022 in Miami, Florida. Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images

Several MLB teams have found consistent success recently while operating on tiny budgets, but the Marlins aren’t one of them. Owner Bruce Sherman has run out of excuses for keeping Miami’s payroll as low as it is. Ely Sussman says Sherman needs to give his front office more financial resources if they aspire to assemble a well-rounded team in the near future.

Enjoy Episode 185!

The Marlins are currently projected to spend about $92 million on their 2023 team payroll. That’s more than the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati reds, Tampa Bay Rays, Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians. However, those other teams have either demonstrated that they can be successful under those conditions, or they have a deep, promising core of young players in the pipeline, or they do not expect to be competitive right away. Miami doesn’t fall into any of those buckets.

The Marlins have suffered 90-plus losses in every full season of Bruce Sherman’s ownership tenure. During that period, despite record-setting revenues across Major League Baseball as well as new opportunities to juice profits locally and inflation to the U.S. dollar, Sherman has reduced payroll.

Considering the pedestrian quality of the Marlins’ prospect pipeline and their severe issues producing runs, there is no route to substantial year-to-year improvement that doesn’t involve spending more money. Is Sherman motivated enough to actually do it?

Follow Ely (@RealEly) and Fish Stripes (@fishstripes). Check out our full coverage here at FishStripes.com.

Fish Stripes is ranked by Feedspot as the world’s No. 2 Miami Marlins podcast (trailing only the pod that’s produced by the franchise itself). Our programs include The Offishial Show, Fish Stripes Unfiltered, What a Relief and Fishology. All new episodes are posted to FishStripes.com/podcasts. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, Megaphone or wherever you normally get your pods from.

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