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By Steve Adams | at
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willi
The Fish need Paps
Solomon Crowe
no they dont.
Ray Ray
I don’t understand why you think teams such as the Braves and Reds don’t need their closers because of their unlikelihood of making the playoffs, but a team lower in the standings like the Marlins do.
Solomon Crowe
To be fair, Marlins got talent and if it wasn’t for cishek struggles they could’ve a better record.
Ray Ray
If the Reds and Braves had a better bullpen, they could have a better record too. They both have talent as well. That’s why other teams fans want them to sell.
Steve Adams
The Marlins just took a hard look at adding a closer, so clearly they’re interested in making some form of addition.
The Reds have lost Homer Bailey for the year and may well end up losing their second- or third-best position player in Devin Mesoraco, and their entire bullpen is more or less a disaster outside of Chapman. They certainly don’t look the part of contenders.
Everything the Braves have done over the past eight months has suggested rebuild, and they’re off to a 15-19 start. John Hart has already traded Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Evan Gattis and Craig Kimbrel. I just can’t envision him deciding that he can’t part with Grilli or Johnson.
Lefty_Orioles_Fan
Maybe, the O’s could trade Tommy Hunter to the Marlins…
In all seriousness though Reed from the D’Backs?
I don’t know man. He looked a little rough tonight against the Nats.
He was getting squeezed a bit, but he didn’t look all that confident before the Grand Slam.
GoFish
Ramos. Case closed. Solid numbers so far, just finished closing out his first opportunity in perfect order. Will he always be perfect? No. But, there’s no point in trading a decent prospect for a position we may already have.
Bill 21
Marlins seem to have neither a deep enough farm, nor deep enough pockets to go get a closer. While Papelbon, K-Rod, and Broxton may be readily available, the additional salary and loss of prospects would put Miami in a serious bind.
They are plus $15M in 2015 in cash from other clubs, but 2016 drop to minus $5M without further deals. They must build a team around Stanton during his affordable years and hope the revenues start to pour in. Dee Gordon could get $10M+ in arbitration, and they could need to rebuild the rotation. They could have a 2016 $100M+ payroll just to have a similar team without adding a big money closer.
Vandals Took The Handles
If they couldn’t pay Soriano – which brought this all up – why would they pay one of the players mentioned above and throw in a prospect or two as well?
flyerzfan12
I think that was Bill’s point. That despite being readily available, none of those guys are realistic targets for those very reasons.
Bill 21
Exactly.
Steve Adams
Joe Frisaro has said that the decision to pass on Soriano was more one of talent than a financial call, though that of course came out after I published this post.
Nonetheless, the Marlins made a $10MM offer to K-Rod late in the offseason. Maybe it was backloaded, maybe there was deferred money, but the fact remains that they tried to spend a pretty significant chunk of cash and wound up instead pocketing that money.
If they were willing to spend that money then, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that they can’t afford to take on a reliever with a decently sized contract — especially if the selling team kicks in a couple million dollars.
Getting a decent closer and $2MM or so in exchange for some high-upside arms in the lower Minor League ranks — which the team does have — certainly seems plausible in my mind.
Also, for what it’s worth, Dee Gordon won’t be quadrupling his $2.5MM salary in arbitration. I know he’s off to a blistering start, but the average will come back down (.480 BABIP), and there’s no power to speak of. He could end up at $5-6MM, sure, but $10MM isn’t realistic — at least not in the coming offseason.
Bill 21
As a Phillies fan, I’d love to ship them Papelbon and say $5M in cash in exchange for those high-upside arms. And I’d root for them to torture the Nats for the next 2 years, while the Phillies regroup.
Spending money/prospects on a closer now, may be related to proximity to playoff contention, and getting fans in the seats to cover the expense, balanced against upgrading the team for 2016. So, while plausible, I’d still be surprised to see it.
As for Gordon, he certainly will come down to earth. If he hits at just the .289 overall clip he did in 2014 the rest of the way, he will finish at .320 with 195 hits. A batting title is not out of the question. Perhaps $10M+ is a tad high, but $8M+ might be conceivable. Fish may consider an extension, but that would also tend to put more focus on contending in those years.
Steve Adams
I just don’t see Gordon getting that type of raise. There’s little, if any historical precedent for a player tripling his arb salary. Chris Davis barely managed to triple his coming off a 53-homer season.
If you look at Ben Revere — similarly powerless and contact-oriented — he led the NL in hits last season and went from $1.95MM to $4.1MM. He received a 110% raise… a similar raise would afford Gordon $5.25MM in 2016. He may hit .320 (he’ll certainly finish above .300 at this point), and he’ll have more steals, so he may have a stronger case. Even then, it’s tough to see him eclipsing $6MM in my view. My expectation, at this stage, is somewhere around $5.5MM.
Bill 21
For historical precedent for big increases, in 2013, Buster
Posey got a 13-fold increase to 8.5M coming off his MVP season. Ryan Howard got an 11-fold increase to $10M in 2008, 1 year removed from his MVP season (after Phils gave him the controversial $900K 2007 salary).
Clearly, these guys were power hitters, and MVP winners and Dee Gordon is not that. What he does the rest of the season will be huge, so I can easily concede this one, as it’s far more likely for him to tail off, than have a historically amazing season.
But Dee Gordon in particular wasn’t the central theme of my
post. Even if he gets $5.5M, the Marlins have to be looking at cost factors for 2016 when they need to pay/replace Haren and Latos, financially get their hands around numerous free agents and arbitration cases, put together a competitive pitching staff, and keep enough talent in the pipeline to fill in key spots on an up-and-coming ballclub.
MadmanTX 2
Feliz for Stanton and money.
MattHollidaysForearms
Don’t forget Yelich and Kolek too.
NL_East_Rivalry
Rangers would need to throw in another piece or two. I think Hamilton or Choo might be available.
bjtheduck
As a Brewers fan, I say please take Broxton.