The trade deadline is past us and it is officially time to crown my biggest winner, the Miami Marlins. The Marlins who are characteristically sellers at the deadline, took a different approach this year and bought pieces that they believe will give them the best chance to compete and play games in October.
In the Marlins brief history, since they became a team in the early 1990s, they have only made the playoffs three times and most of their other seasons have been viewed as the laughing stock of the league. Well this season is much different than that, and although the Marlins are currently not sitting in a playoff spot, this team is special.
The Marlins needed a change after yet another down year last season, so they went out and hired Skip Schumaker to run the ball club and made arguably one of the biggest trades in franchise history when they acquired Luis Arraez from the Twins. Arraez has been the heart and soul of this team ever since Opening Day and the fish have never looked back since.
The Marlins made 4 big moves at this year's deadline that are going to help this team a ton down the stretch. Their first 2 moves were acquiring major bullpen help when they went out and acquired David Robertson and Jorge Lopez. Robertson has been in the league for a long time and has a ton of playoff experience and is still thriving at an older age.
Lopez has struggled a bit this season, but is only one year removed from being an all-star last season and now has one of the best pitching coaches in the league in his hip pocket. The bullpen has been a weak spot for the fish this season, so Kim Ng went out and addressed the issue and may have fixed the problem with these acquisitions.
Another weak spot that the Marlins addressed was the lack of power on offense. So they went out and got a guy whose hit 25 homers this season in Jake Burger, and veteran Josh Bell who is known to be a power hitter as well. They needed more bats that can easily drive in Luis Arraez when he leads off an inning with a single. Arraez has been their MVP, but he can't do it all. Burger and Bell are going to help him out a lot.
No one had any high expectations or any good expectations at all for this Marlins team, but they are putting it together well this season. Although it is a congested competition for the NL wild card, I expect and would like to see this young Marlins team back in the playoffs for the first time since 2020.
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