2017 Miami Marlins. Were the big trades the right way to go?

[lucho2107]

The Miami Marlins were the big surprise of the 2020 season. They appeared on the postseason for the first time since 2003 winning the second spot of the NL East, eliminating great teams like the Phillies and the Nats. The 2020 roster of the Marlins is a great mixture of young players, lots who were acquired on big trades over the past few years, and some veterans looking to bounce back. In spite of this, before this surprising postseason appearance, some of the trades made over the last three years (Stanton, Yelich, Gordon, Ozuna, Realmuto), since Derek Jeter took over as the CEO, have been highly controversial.

The objective of this save is to reevaluate if those big trades and the rebuilding strategy were the best way to go for the Florida team or if they could have made it to the playoffs earlier with another front office direction. I will take over as the GM on March 2017. The big trades for the Marlins real life happened in December of 2017 so I will have a full season to decide if that´s the way to go.

Season Context
The 2016 season was not bad one for the Miami Marlins. They finished with a record of 79-82 improving by 8 wins in comparison to last year. That wasn´t enough to make the postseason as of 2017 they have failed for 15 straight years to make it to october baseball. In the 2016 season, the team lost their ace, Jose Fernandez, due to a horrible accident. The big outfield trio; Stanton, Yelich and Ozuna had mediocre seasons. For 2017, I´m hoping for a big bounce back from this position players.

Manager Settings:
I will be the General Manager and find a new manager as the position is vacant. (While doing a historical simulation the coaching staff is not accurate. In real life Don Mattingly enter 2017 as his second season as the manager of the Miami Marlins). The manager will handle the in-game strategy. The rest of the major league staff will also have the chance to prove themselves. Minor league managers will handle the in-game strategy and I will handle the lineups, pitching staff and the depth charts (The minor league staff will handle this for the minor league teams)

Sliders:
The injury level will be high to resemble modern-day baseball.
Batter aging speed: 1.00
Pitcher aging speed: 1.05
Batter development speed: 0.95
Pitcher development speed: 1.00
The trading difficulty will be hard and favor prospects.
Player evaluation settings are: 45/35/15/5
Optimize player ratings according to a career play style and player development is according talent ratings and OOTP development engine.

Owner goals:
2017. Achieve a winning record
2018. Upgrade at second base
2019. Keep building the team to reach the playoffs

Front Office status

We have 13M for free agents and 7.3M for extensions
The market size is below average (obviously) and the fan interest is at 48. The ticket prices for last season were $25, so I will raise them very little so hopefully attendance will rise.
I´ve increased the development budget from 2M in 2016 to 3M in 2017
The current budget is the 19th in the league and the current payroll is the 20th
We are projected to make a season profit of 26M.
The big problem with the finances is that for 2018 the player expenses will rise 20M according to the projected salaries.

[lucho2107]

The game start date is 24/02/2017 which allows a little room to evaluate the roster and try to improve it before the start of the season. First, I´ll do a roster evaluation, providing the strengths and weaknesses of the team in each position, including a fast review of the farm. Then, I will summarize every offseason move of the team up until opening day.*

Big League Roster evaluation:*
*The active roster was automatically set when starting the game and the 40 man roster has currently 27 players.*
SP: The big problem with this team is without*a doubt the pitching staff. The best-rated pitcher is Dan Straily who pitched last season with the Reds and had a 3.61 ERA. The 2,3,4 starters*are; Chen, Volquez, and Ureña who are all mediocre and irregular pitchers. Ureña is still young, 25, so I do have a little bit of hope for him and he is manageable*as he has 2 option years left. Fortunately, Chen does not have that big contract attached to him. The fifth starter is Jeff Locke who pitched for the Pirates in 2016. In the minors, one of our top prospects is the starter, Trevor Richards, but I don´t think he is ready to make the opening day roster. I will be looking to add a reliable arm for the rotation via free agency or trade before the start of the season.*

RP: The bullpen has more talent than the rotation. The long reliever will be Adam Conley, who was a starter last year. He can easily be moved back to the rotation. A.J Ramos and closer David Phelps are the top arms. Wrigtten and Steckenrider are exciting young arms with the latter one throwing 100 miles per hour. I´ll be in the lookout for a cheap reliever in the market.

C: Realmuto is one of the best in the business. He is only 25 and he posted last season a batting average over .300. Hopefully, he finds more power in his bat this season. His backup is 25 years old Tomas Telis who has played only 51 games in the majors so far. Minor leaguers Cam Maron and Austin Nola might also have a shot to fight for that backup position.*

IF: First baseman Justin Bour, is very well rated, but he is*coming off a pretty mediocre season. He batted for .264 with 11 homers. He still is a big offensive threat. Speedy Dee Gordon is the second baseman and in spite of his contact rating and his base-stealing, I am not a big fan. He has a big and long contract that he has to justify and he is a potential trade candidate. Hechavarria and Riddle will fight for the starting job in short and Miguel Rojas and Martin Prado will do the same in third. Rojas might have the upper hand over Prado in rating, but Prado posted a great 2016 season in which he was one of the best players of the team.*

OF: The outfield is full of stars. Ozuna, Yelich, and Stanton are top corner outfielders. Nevertheless, only Yelich (not very good) can play center field creating a problem for the lineup. The best defender in center is veteran Ichiro Suzuki, who at 42 years of age posted a good last season. Power hitter, Dietrich, is the fifth outfielder. The lack of depth at center as well in the minors leaves us the task of finding a reliable player in the market.*

Offseason moves
Bob Melvin (ex-manager of the Oakland A´s) was hired as the manager with a contract of 3 years and $762,000 per season.
We´ve signed RHP Nathan Eovaldi to a one year deal worth 1.2M. He will help a lot with the problems we had in the rotation.
We´ve signed CF Dariel Alvarez to a minor league deal.
We´ve signed LHP Drew Smyly to a one year deal worth 1.3M. He will also be part of the starting rotation.
We´ve signed RHP reliever Tyler Thornburg to a minor league deal.

League News
Marcus Semien of the Oakland A´s was injured and will miss the first 4 months of the season.
Reliever Brandon Morrow of the Dodgers suffered a torn labrum and will miss 5 months.
The Twins have traded SP Ervin Santana to the Mets in exchange for Curtis Granderson and minor leaguer Jeff McNeil.
The Diamondbacks shipped LF Christian Walker to LAD with minor leaguer Paxton de la Gaza and received 2B Logan Forsythe.
Ian Desmond was traded from the Colorado Rockies to the Texas Rangers in exchange for C Jonathan Lucroy and 3B Charles Leblanc.
Huge blow for the Orioles as they lost P Austin Means for the season due to a torn ulnar collateral ligament.

The new top 100 prospect list was announced and the top 5 prospects of the leagu are:
Fernando Tatis Jr (SD)
Yordan Alvarez (HOU)
Ty Fance (TB)
Cody Bellinger (LAD)
Shane Bieber (CLE)


The offseason is over and this will be the opening day roster for the 2017 Miami Marlins!

SP: Edinson Volquez* / Wei-Yen Chen / Nathan Eovaldi / Drew Smyly / Jeff Locke

RP: Dan Straily/ Mike Kickham / Nick Wittgreen / Drew Stecknrider / Dustin McGowan/ AJ Ramos / David Phelps

C: J.T Realmuto*/ Tomas Telis

IF: Justin Bour* / Dee Gordon* / Miguel Rojas / Martin Prado* / JT Riddle*/ Adeny Hechavarria

OF: Marcel Ozuna*/ Derek Dietrich / Christian Yelich */ Ichiro Suzuki / Giancarlo Stanton*

*Opening day starters

[lucho2107]

W, (6-5) @Nationals Park
The first game of the season was a complete nailbiter. We went up quickly in the second thanks to a sac-fly by JT Riddle but the Nats responded fast and scored two in the bottom of the second via a 2-run scoring single by Max Scherzer. In the fourth the Nats double their lead with a 2-run home-run by center fielder Michael A Taylor. After giving up another run in the fifth innings the game was over for our starter Edison Volquez who finished with a slashline of 4.1 IP and 5 ER. Our big inning was the seventh. It started with Miguel Rojas gettin on base thanks to a fielding error by opponent first baseman Ryan Zimmerman. After that, Scherzer recorded two quick outs but Gordon singled and Yelich drove both players in with a double. Bour jumped out on the pitch and went deep to tie the game. Our relievers did a great job to keep the Nats offense at check. In the top of the ninth Yelich went deep to left field off AJ Cole and gave us a one-run lead that David Phelps mantained recording his first save of the year.

League News
Zack Greinke and the Arizona DiamondBacks agreed to a 5 year extension worth 177.5M. He wil have an average salary of 35M.

L, (2-9) @Nationals Park
Drew Smyly struggled a lot in his first start as a Marlin. He gave up 6 earned runs in just 2.2 innings of work. Mike Kichkham took over in long relief but he couldn´t manage to keep the offense of the Nats at check. Strasburg was great for our rivals as he threw 8 innings of 2 run ball. Ozuna and Realmuto had a good day at the plate with 2 and 3 hits respectivly but the clutch hit never came along.

W, (6-4) @Nationals Park
An incredible comeback in the last innings helped us take the third game and our first series win of the season. The game started badly for us as newbie Nathan Eovaldi gave up 2 runs in the first thanks to a leadoff homer to Trea Turner and a rally from the top of the Nats order. Eovaldi gave up two more in the fifth and the bullpen took over from there allowing just one base runner in 3.2 innings of work. In the ninth Ozuna went deep with the bases loaded and one out to put us on top. Bour gave us a 2-run lead following the grand slam with a solo shot. Phelps closed the game and got his second save of the year.

League News
Cole Hamels from the Texas Rangers suffered torn rotator cuff and went to the IL. He will be out of action for at list 7 months.

L, (1-2) @Citi Field
This game was supposed to be played a day earlier but was postponed due to bad weather so we played as the first one of a doubleheader. A good performance by Chen, who went 6 innings and gave up 1 earned run and 1 unearned run (caused by a throwing error from Dee Gordon), was insufficent to beat the Mets who rallied behind an epic game by Lugo. Lugo threw 8 shutout innings allowing just 5 hits and one base on balls. Miguel Rojas with a run-scoring double got us closer but it wasn´t enough.

W, (7-2) @Citi Field
The night game of the doubleheader was a comfortable win for us. Our fifth starter threw like an ace and was one out away from a complete game. Locke gave up a run in the first and from there he was lights out. After he allowed a single in the ninth he was replaced with Straily who closed the game. Rojas was the star offensivly going 2 for 3 with 3 RBI´s.

L, (0-5) @ Citi Field
Jacob DeGrom was to much for our team and we were shut out for the first time this season. We also lost a series for the first team. Volquez imrpoved in relation from his first game but it wasn´t a good enough start. He gave up 5 runs (1 unearned) in 6 innings. Straily and Steckeinder had 3 innings of perfect relief without allowing a single base runner. Our only 2 hits of the game came thanks to Yelich and Rojas, who has started the season red hot. Dee Gordon had another error, his defense has been very sloppy so far.

[jasg224]

Good luck! Surely you'll make the playoffs sooner than 2020