'Baseball tells you when you're ready': How Marlins made startling rise to contention
Across the major leagues, best-laid plans, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in gaudy investments, are blowing up.
In San Diego, the Padres stick their nose into every significant transaction and often prevail, be it a blockbuster trade for Juan Soto or a $280 million investment in shortstop Xander Bogaerts.
They are 44-50, and eight games out of a playoff berth.
In New York, the Mets will invest nearly $500 million (including luxury tax) in a boutique roster that’s sinking out of any playoff contention. The Yankees, star-centric and forever vexed by the fringes of their roster, are tied for last place in the American League East.
Who knew trading for a singles hitter and a few bullpen pieces was the answer?
OK, so the Miami Marlins aren’t making it that simple. Yet as general manager Kim Ng entered her third season, she and her staff diagnosed both the patient – a Marlins team that struck out too much, that lost close games late, that simply couldn’t hit – and the cure.
"Acquire pure hitters," Ng says.
So they acquired the purest.
Luis Arraez has hovered around the .400 mark in batting average all season and has almost twice as many multi-hit games (36) as he does strikeouts (20).
STAY UP-TO-DATE: Subscribe to our Sports newsletter now!
The bullpen conundrum? Largely solved by shipping off a poor-contact outfield prospect (JJ Bleday) for closer A.J. Puk and acquiring J.T. Chargois from the Tampa Bay Rays, at least adding order to the late innings.
The result is a club that has cured what ailed them, that, with a $96 million payroll, has outperformed the aforementioned teams with payrolls of at least a quarter billion dollars – and that enters Monday 53-42 and in a virtual tie for the top wild-card spot.
With two weeks to the trade deadline and 67 games left in the season, the Marlins are no longer moribund, an operation that’s fully connected from the machinations in the front office to the players executing the plan.
"I feel like as a whole, we all clicked at the same time," says starting pitcher Jesús Luzardo, who has trimmed his ERA from 6.61 in 2021, when he was traded to Miami, to 3.29 this season.
"We all said, 'All right, we’re ready to go. We’re going to go.' "
Turning Ls into Ws
Finding gold within a 69-93 club, as the Marlins were in 2022, seemed foolish. Yet Ng saw a team that wasn’t too far away, not when 64 of their games were decided by one run.
Their record in those games: 24-40.
Bullpen reconstruction was a natural place to start. So, too, was the manager’s office, where Don Mattingly wasn’t retained after seven seasons. In seeking his replacement, Ng could not ignore her longtime admiration of the St. Louis Cardinals’ complete teams earlier this century.
Devil magic, naysayers might call their 2006 and 2011 World Series titles. Either way, she found it embodied in 11-year utility player Skip Schumaker, a grinder’s grinder, if you will.
"I love that mindset," says Ng. "That aggressiveness, that attention to detail – when you combine all those little things, can add up to converting some of those one-run losses."
Schumaker acknowledges that the biggest learning curve has come with delegating and trusting his staff, a common refrain for first-year managers. But Ng has seen Schumaker evolve in handling the dozens of personalities in the clubhouse, in "learning to pull the strings."
More often than not, they’re the right ones: The Marlins are 21-8 in one-run games, and have outscored opponents 145-123 in innings seven through nine.
"The belief started happening when you start winning really close games early on," says Schumaker. "Come-from-behind wins. Then they start believing in themselves and trusting each other that yeah, we can really do this.
"I think there’s some young guys that are starting to become real big leaguers now. They weren’t really sure they were big leaguers, themselves.
"I think baseball tells you when you’re ready."
For Luzardo, it has been a process. He pitched on a pair of playoff teams in Oakland but regressed in 2020 before the bottom fell out in 2021; the Marlins landed him for Starling Marte.
While a change of scenery can help, Luzardo, a South Florida native, found answers in his own neighborhood.
Longtime Minnesota Twins reliever Juan Rincón, one of dozens of Venezuelan ballplayers who have settled near Miami, knew Luzardo since working out at his high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas. In the 2021 off-season, Luzardo got a message from Rincon: Call me.
They talked for an hour, played catch, chatted mechanics but most of all, discussed mindset.
"That conversation went a long way for me," says Luzardo. "I feel like, in my head, I don’t put as much pressure on myself. It’s not life or death every start. I feel like before, if I gave up a run or two, I felt like it was the end of the world and the world was crashing down on me. Now I just understand, the sun is going to rise the next morning and I understand if I have a bad game, it’s all right.
"In five days, I’ll go out there and do it again. I’ve maybe taken some pressure off myself and going out there and having fun."
Luzardo has struck out 129 in 109⅓ innings this year, and his 2022 turnaround indirectly helped the Marlins balance their roster. In short: How to revitalize a sagging offense to accompany a solid pitching staff?
'I still believe in batting average'
That was a question Ng batted around for more than a year, as Luzardo stepped forward and Sandy Alcantara won the Cy Young Award and Eury Pérez lurked in the high minors. Arraez wasn’t exactly an obsession, but Ng knew the Minnesota Twins infielder could cure much of what ailed the Marlins.
It was a stiff cost: Beloved starting pitcher Pablo López and prospects Byron Chourio and Jose Salas. It was also a "good baseball trade" – big leaguer for big leaguer, each becoming an All-Star next season.
Yet Arraez has in many ways transcended the game, his .380 average more than 130 points better than the league average.
"I could not tell you we foresaw him flirting with .400," says Ng. "That was the icing on the cake. But when you look at the way Luis has been utilized by Skip – whether it’s leading off and getting on base for those behind him, or he’s used him in the cleanup spot and Skip has used him as an RBI guy. It speaks to his versatility and the trust Skip has in him to do what it takes to win a game."
Schumaker believes there’s a trickledown effect. The Marlins were 25th in baseball in strikeout percentage last season, at 24.4%. Arraez’s arrival helped them cut that to 21.4%, eighth-best in the majors, while boosting their OPS from 25th to 17th.
Which is kind of amazing, since Arraez adds little slugging to the equation.
"I think a lot of the young guys were trying to go for slug, and striking out, and we believe there’s value in putting the ball in play," says Schumaker. "I still believe in batting average. I know that’s crazy. A lot of guys feed off (Arraez) and watch him work.
"If he hits .400, .350 or .380, whatever it’s going to be, I just think there’s so much value he’s brought inside that clubhouse, more than just chasing .400."
His acquisition was timely, in that the Marlins were due for a reboot.
'Every day is different'
CEO Derek Jeter resigned in February 2022, with published reports indicating he was at odds with owner Bruce Sherman over the financial commitment to the roster. Four months later, Jeter confidante and vice president of scouting and player development Gary Denbo was fired.
Baseball operations has a largely different look now, from front office to dugout, but Ng remains its steadying hand. Three years after breaking a barrier by becoming Major League Baseball’s first woman general manager, she can reflect on lessons learned and the difference sitting in the big chair can make.
"I’m not sure you’re ever as prepared as you think you are," says Ng, an assistant GM for two decades, serving under four first-time GMs, "because every day is different. You learn something new every day – whether it’s about people, whether it’s about processes, whether it’s about human nature and motivating people to perform at their peak.
"Every day, I’m just so grateful for the opportunity I’ve gotten, to be a part of the Marlins organization, to be in the situation I am. I think a lot about my former bosses – I watched them go through a lot of bumps and bruises.
"I learned a ton from them and I’ve often caught myself saying, 'Wow, OK, that’s what he meant and that’s how he was feeling,' when something like this happened."
In Miami, the unforeseen has been a most pleasant surprise.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Miami Marlins became MLB's biggest surprise contender
