Jeter on a good move he has made as Marlins CEO. And updates on four big parts of future

A six-pack of Miami Marlins notes on a Monday, less than 48 hours before their best-of-three series playoff opener at the Chicago Cubs at 2 p.m. Wednesday on ABC:

▪ As a Hall of Fame player and one of the most iconic figures in sports in the past quarter century, Derek Jeter now has tangible evidence -- a playoff berth in his third year as Marlins’ co-owner -- that he can be successful as a team’s top day-to-day executive.

So as someone who has probably been good at everything in his former life, does he now believe he’s good at this CEO thing or did he already suspect he would be?

“I have not been good at everything,” he responded good naturedly. “I understand taking over this job and taking over this organization is not an easy task. We had a lot of things we needed to change and a lot of things we needed to do better as an organization I understood that took time. I said from day one, we are going to have to be patient. And I’m not the most patient person.

“But you have to look at the little wins along the way. We’ve had a lot of things we’ve had to fix. There’s still things we need to continue to fix. But I’ve been very good at adding a great team, whether it’s business operations or baseball operations. We’ve added a lot of quality individuals. Everybody understood it would take a little bit of time. By no stretch of the imagination are we where we want to be. We still have a lot of work to do.”

The biggest challenge in the job?

“I think from a business side, it takes a lot of relationship building,” he said. “I didn’t expect people to trust me just because I say trust me. They don’t know me. They don’t know us as an ownership group. We’re new down here in the community, and we have to develop that trust. We have to build that trust. And I think we’ve gone a long way.

“I think we’ve done quite a bit in the community and that’s the right thing to do. [The Marlins, as an example, are distributing 800,000 meals to those in need since the pandemic began.] We’re not doing it just for a pat on the back, but it’s the right thing to do because we want this to be the community’s team. So from a relationship building standpoint, I think we’ve made a lot of progress. That way, when you talk about partnerships as well, you don’t just walk into someone’s office and then expect them to become a partner of yours.

“Our front office on the business side has done a great job... developing those partnerships and developing relationships. We’ve got a long way to go, but I think we’re making some steady progress.”

Jeter, incidentally, spoke Monday about how “exciting” this playoff run has been to him. “I don’t think there’s a team in baseball that deserves it more. There are teams as deserving. Our guys have been through quite a bit. I really couldn’t be happier for them.”

▪ As Peter Gammons noted, Jeter called a bunch of Marlins officials after the team clinched a playoff berth Friday night to thank them.

Among those who got a call: manager Don Mattingly. (Colleague Jordan McPherson has details here about what Jeter told Mattingly in that call.)

“I’ve known Derek obviously for a long time growing up through the Yankees organization,” Mattingly said.

“Just the consistency in direction [has helped]. Really good organizations start from the top. You have to have good ownership and someone that has to put that plan in place and is willing to pay the price you have to pay to get that plan where you want it to go.

“Obviously, we’ve been paying a price. I’m sure Derek took a lot of criticism for what we were doing and how we were doing it --- everyone telling him what we should be doing. You have to give those guys credit for leading us in the right direction and sticking to what they said they weren’t going to do.”

Mattingly became very emotional during his postgame interview with Fox on Friday night.

Marlins president/baseball operations Michael Hill - the highest-ranking front office official retained from the prior ownership regime - told me he also cried after the team clinched.

“It’s nice to be back and playing in October, winning after what we’ve gone through and everything we’ve had to endure over my 18 years” here, Hill said.

▪ Jeter, incidentally, praised his front office for finding competent players while the team was battling COVID-19, with relievers James Hoyt and Richard Bleier among the best in-season pickups.

“I like to get the opinions of everyone before making decisions,” Jeter said. “But you look at some of the guys like [director of pro scouting] Hadi [Raad] and [special assistant to baseball operations and scouting] Adrian [Lorenzo] who before we acquire anyone, they do a lot of the legwork before they even bring options to us.

“There’s never been a team that has to replace 18 people at once. And they did one hell of a job bringing options for us to fill our roster, not just to throw people out there but people that are going to come in and help us compete and help us win games, which is exactly what they did. Our group works collaboratively. And there’s a lot of conversations. I think we’ve had conversations it seems like every night, and that’s a big group. It’s a lot of people with opinions. I like to have as many opinions as possible before I make a final decision.”

▪ What made this such an enjoyable season - heading into the playoffs - is the fact the Marlins were able to contend while breaking in many of their top prospects.

And this experience in a playoff race “is going to be really good for our guys,” Mattingly said. “Jazz Chisholm, Jesus Sanchez, Monte Harrison, Lewin Diaz have gotten exposure, even some of our young pitchers getting exposure. It hasn’t necessarily been where guys are knocking your eyes out on the field yet but that experience is really important.”

We saw all of the Marlins’ top 10 prospects in major-league games this season except three big ones: outfielder JJ Bleday (second) and pitchers Max Meyer (three) and Edward Cabrera (six).

Why not those three?

The Marlins believe Bleday is going to be an excellent hitter but didn’t want to rush him after just one half season (38 games) in Single A (.257 in Jupiter) after an epic career at Vanderbilt.

With Meyer - the hard-throwing right-hander drafted third overall in June, “I don’t think there was ever any talk of bringing him to the big leagues this year that I heard,” Mattingly said.

And Cabrera missed some time in Jupiter with arm soreness that he overcame but might be used in postseason out of the bullpen.

“Physically this year we didn’t get to the point where he was built up and ready to make a start or he would have made one, trust me,” Mattingly said. “His stuff is good enough where you would want to get him in there. Just had little stuff going on where we never got there. Doesn’t change anything about him other than we never got to that point this year.”

MLB.com ranks Bleday 25th among all prospects, Meyer 34th and Cabrera 84th.

▪ While Zac Gallen has been very good for Arizona (3-2, 2.75 ERA in 12 starts), the top prospect the Marlins acquired for him - shortstop/second baseman Jazz Chisholm - was just 6 for 48 (.125) with 19 strikeouts entering the weekend.

But his defense has been elite, and he was 2 for 4 against the Yankees on Sunday (including a home run) to close at .161 (9 for 56). The Chisholm/Isan Diaz battle at second base should be fascinating next spring, and Chisholm’s impressive tool set is evident.

Mattingly points out that “I think Jazz’s at-bats have been good. One thing I notice about Jazz is he sees the ball early. He’s not a guy that’s just swinging at all kinds of stuff. He sees the ball; he knows the strike zone pretty well. We think there are things he needs to clean up with his swing, shorten it a little bit.

“What you see and how he takes pitches, knowing he sees the ball early tells you that down the line he has a chance to be able to control the strike zone. And as he shortens his swing a little bit, be a guy that has a chance to really hit.”

▪ The Marlins, as fangraphs.com has noted, have shown a preference for higher-risk but higher-upside prospects with lots of tools.

Asked about the organization’s pattern of pursuing high-ceiling prospects, Mattingly said: “Mike Hill calls it guys that tilt the field. You got guys like Monte, Jazz, they tilt the field because they can do so many things.

“If Jazz turns into what we think he can -- hits, hits for power, steals bags, dynamic in the field defensively. Same with Monte. If those guys click for you, you’ve got two upper echelon talent guys that tilt the field.”

Here’s my Monday piece with what Brian Flores had to say about the Marlins and a bunch of Dolphins things.

Here’s my Monday Miami Hurricanes 10-pack.

Here’s my Monday Heat piece with notes on Tyler Herro and other things.

Here’s my Monday Heat piece with what Frank Vogel had to say about the Heat and other things.