March 25th: The Marlins announced today that Mazur has been placed on the 60-day injured list. In a separate announcement, the club made the Slater deal official. He’ll join Heriberto Hernandez as a righty outfielder off the bench behind Marsee, Caissie, and Conine.
March 24th: The Marlins are in agreement with outfielder Austin Slater on a major league deal, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid. He just opted out of a minor league deal with the Tigers a few days ago. He’ll make $1MM plus bonuses, per Kevin Barral of Fish on First. The Marlins will need to open a 40-man roster spot but that should be as easy as transferring right-hander Adam Mazur to the 60-day injured list. Mazur underwent Tommy John surgery a few weeks ago and will miss the entire season.
Slater, 33, just had a strong camp with the Tigers. He stepped to the plate 36 times in 15 games and slashed .267/.389/.467. Detroit’s roster is fairly crowded, however. They are going to carry prospect Kevin McGonigle on the Opening Day roster and have bumped outfielder Wenceel Pérez to the minors.
The Marlins will take advantage of that roster crunch by scooping up Slater. In his career, he has generally combined solid defense in all three outfield slots with strong offense against left-handed pitching. His overall batting line is .248/.336/.384. That’s almost exactly league average, translating to a 101 wRC+. That includes a .267/.357/.430 line and 119 wRC+ against southpaws, compared to a .227/.311/.329 slash and 80 wRC+ otherwise.
That profile should fit well in the Miami outfield. The Marlins are slated to begin the season with Kyle Stowers on the injured list, which will leave Jakob Marsee, Owen Caissie and Griffin Conine in the outfield. All four of those guys are lefties, so Slater should have plenty of chances to slot in against southpaw opponents.
Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images
Not a bad depth/bench pickup. Or it could be spending to avoid a grievance…
What a troubled franchise…
Oh stop it. Geez
They’ve got rings. I would love to celebrate just 1 lol
Short term (hopefully) stowers replacement?
More so the Esteury Ruiz replacement. Stowers injury will likely be short term
Im happy they signed Slater, he is a good ball player and makes it more likely that the Marlins will option Ruiz.
Ruiz didn’t earn a spot this spring. Hope he gets optioned to AAA and gets run everyday. Id rather see him playing everyday than sitting on the Marlins bench.
Im pulling for Ruiz, another year of improving his defense. He is going to hit AAA pitching. Id like to see him get 500 ABs this season. Exciting player.
I’m thinking Ruiz was only getting a roster spot because he was a RH hitter that can play CF. Since Slater is a RH hitter that can play CF perhaps Ruiz heads to AAA after he’s activated
Solid signing. He will complement the OF lefties well
He can surely hit lefties, but I wouldn’t call .267 a strong spring
.856 ops is certainly strong
Have you seen how today’s players have forgotten (or never learned) how to hit? The NL almost didn’t have a .300 hitter last year. .267 is a hitting coach’s dream today.
Ohhhh no! We almost didn’t have a .300 hitter in the NL!!! Let’s go back to the times when players would have empty .300 averages because I’m old and change scares me! I want more Arraez and Madrigal type players.
Well you’re obviously young and pray at the alter of launch angle, exit veto etc…..news flash kid…..267 ain’t getting you into the HOF while .300 might depending on what else goes along with it….and .300 isn’t empty….without guys like Arraez and Madrigal hitting in front of the rest of the lineup, you don’t score nearly as many runs because everybody else is going 1-4…..this guy hits .267 in Spring training and we’re talking about him like his Mickey Mantel…an average major league BA for players today of .242 is abysmal by any standard…pitchers have’t invented some kind of new pitching weapon…its just that hitters don’t value BA any longer and swing from their heels because a 1-4 with 1-2 strikeouts is normal today.
Home runs win games, not high batting averages.
Nobody cares about batting average except the old-school fans who still think it’s important. The people running the teams know better. That’s why there wasn’t much interest in Arraez as a free agent.
Mr. know it all Hank….Old School fans our butt….if you think a 1-4 with a HR that only avoids a shut out is more important than keeping the line moving on the bases, you’re green around the gills and again as I said earlier worship at the alter of launch angle, exit veto and the almighty HR….most of these guys with the .235 averages but 20 HR’s couldn’t clean the shoes of the greats and won’t ever be remembered by anyone but novices like yourself….1-4 over 500 at bats is 100 hits…if you think that is great than our conversations are moot. Good luck fan boy….
When I was your age everything cost a nickel. Hey, get off of my lawn!
You’re missing the point rock. No one’s touting .235 and 20. The point was that batting average is a poor indicator of overall quality of at bats. Doesn’t include walks, doesn’t account for XBH. Don’t have a stroke on top of your keyboard (which you are undoubtedly using)
Data
I wouldn’t cite a stat that ignores walks and counts a single and home run as equal as a mesure of a player’s offensive performance
Any body think about exactly what pitchers he hit that mountainous .267 off of in this large body of work called his spring training?
When he wrote the words “strong spring” he was referring more to Slater’s .389 OBP and. 467 SLG. Those are well-above average, albeit in a tiny sample size.
They sure are and against who….guys who will be in AAA or AA for the season…..
Let’s all do The Sprain!
Sure, you could’ve had Bader but don’t be a hater, sooner or later you’re gonna love Slater. 🤣
Nicely done sir, nicely done.
I was wondering what happened to him. He just disappeared from Detroit.
To difficult to get on to the Tigers roster. It is full of fine players with lots of younger guys that need to be added too. Very smart move by the Marlins they got a lot of player for that money.
He did a nice job,.the short time he spent with the Chicago White Sox.
Followed Slater with the Tigers this Spring. Glad he found a ML deal. When I catch a glimpse of the Marlins I’ll keep an eye out.
As much as I’d the Giants to keep Matos, I think an org such as the Marlins could give him an extended look, what low A arm is available for the Marlins to send to the Giants?
It’s almost 4 hours since the report. Has he been released yet? Or are they waiting until after this weekend?