The woes of the Marlins have possibly already hit rock bottom with their 20-1 drumming by the Phillies on Saturday. Nevertheless, they are a roster full of promise for the future and leftovers from the last semi-competitive team. While that means many of their once statistically interesting players are now roaming the outfields of franchises trying to win baseball games this season (and many of the promising players for the future have not seen much MLB time), Miami does have some notes worth mentioning.
JT’s absence: One of the leftovers from last year’s team is on rehab assignment for a back contusion, and his absence has left a void behind the plate. Realmuto was tenth in the majors in Fielding Runs Above Average in 2017 with 19.0, and was good for 5.7 WARP. The trio of Bryan Holaday, Tomás Telis and Chad Wallach, have combined for a negative FRAA and -0.3 WARP. Kevin Plawecki and Travis d’Arnaud have also posted negative FRAAs, but a combined 0.3 WARP early on.
Ureña’s fastball: Ureña is slated to start the opening game of the series against the Mets, and he will bring a fastball that moves more horizontally than vertically. Last season, his four-seamer had the eighth most horizontal movement (-8.58 inches) among starters and the ninth least vertical movement (7.03 inches). The Mets did not have a pitcher to fit this profile exactly last year, but the guy with the closest 2017 four-seam movement to Ureña was Matt Harvey at -6.81 inches horizontally and 9.26 inches vertically.
Quick Hits
The Good: Brian Anderson has been a bright spot thus far for Miami, posting a True Average of .309 with a 15.4% walk rate.
The Bad: Junichi Tazawa had just a 12.3% whiffs per swing rate on his fastball, ninth worst among relievers.
The Ugly: Starlin Castro has grounded into almost 2 double plays above average in just 33 plate appearances thus far (according to NETDP).
Mets’ Probably (Definitely) Still Too Early Check-In
If you had Adrián González as an early season hero… Who am I kidding, of course he would have enough early success to stick around just long enough to drive Mets fans crazy. His True Average was .291 entering Sunday, just below his career average of .303, and that was before his grand slam against the Nats.
Photo credit: Jasen Vinlove – USA Today Sports