The Nerd who’s Saving the Marlins

The Nerd who’s Saving the Marlins

The Miami Marlins are the worst MLB franchise of the last 20 years. They’re best known for last place attendance, horrible ownership, and giving away their best players. Since making the playoffs in 2023, the Marlins have torn down their roster and began rebuilding from the ground up, which is nothing new to Miami’s tortured faithful, but this time they’re doing it right. It’s only been a year and a half, but the Marlins are well on their way to becoming the next Rays, and it’s all thanks to one man who hasn’t played a day of organized baseball since middle school. Peter Bendix grew up in Cleveland as an Indians fan. Like many of us, he concluded very early on that if he wanted a career in the sport he loved, it wouldn’t be on the playing field. So he went to Tufts University, founded the university’s baseball analysis club, then interned for the Rays in 2009. In just over a decade, he worked his way up the ladder to become general manager of the Rays under president of baseball operations Eric Neander, the youngest GM in MLB, presiding over perhaps the best front office in MLB. A dream job, right? The problem was that this wasn’t his team. The Rays were built on the foundation laid by Andrew Freriedman, who first hired Bendix all those years ago. And now Neander, also in his late30s, possessed the highest ranking baseball ops job for as long as he wanted it. So when the Marlins called in October of 2023, offering Bendix a chance to mold an entire organization in his image, how could he say no? The 2023 Marlins were strange. According to baseball reference, seven of their top 12 position players in terms of plate appearances produced a negative war. Julie Guriel, Joey Wendell, and Jean Seagura made up three quarters of their infield. That’s three negative players surrounding their one genuinely good position player, batting champ Lua Arise. They also had a black hole at catcher and mediocre outfield production. They won 84 games and had an expected win loss total of 75 and 87 based on their run differential. The roster scratched and clawed its way to a playoff birth on the back of an elite bullpen and strong frontline starters plus a few trade deadline bats. In the wildcard round, they scored just two runs in two games against the Phillies, never once threatening the defending NL champs. This was the best these Marlins could be in this state. It wasn’t close to good enough. Miami offered Bendix the Pobo job a few weeks after the series, and general manager Kim Ing declined her 2024 contract option, realizing that she would no longer be in charge of this team’s direction. Ing did a decent job in her tenure building a semi-competitive team on a shoestring budget. So, it surprised a lot of fans to see her go, myself included. To her credit, she was excellent at evaluating pitcher talent. trading for Jesus Lazardo, extending Alcantara before he won Sai Young, signing Anthony Bender out of Indie Ball despite his five erra, seeing something in Steven Ourt. All of that is impressive. The 2023 pitching staff was borderline top five in the majors. The team went 33 and4 in one-run games, which is a testament to their elite bullpen, but that number wasn’t sustainable, and it was clear that this core just wasn’t good enough. Ing’s tenure is most wellknown for her signings of Avisal Garcia and Jorge Cair who combined to produce almost nothing and cost the team’s entire free agent budget. Not to mention trading Pablo Lopez for the one tool wonder which ended up a bit lopsided even with Aras being the team’s best player in 2023. This is why the Marlins job is totally unfair. Owner Bruce Sherman is just as unable or unwilling to spend as Jeffrey Lauria before him, only allowing his GM two mid-level free agent signings in three seasons on the job, is asking for failure on that front. So, why am I making this video praising Bendix, who lost more games in year one of his tenure than Ing did in all three of her seasons? Well, Bendix has already succeeded where Ing ultimately failed. For the first time in two decades, this franchise has cohesive direction. 2024 may have felt like another fire sale after a fun season. Arise was traded in early May for four prospects that weren’t even near MLB ready. The Marlins were 9 and 26. The season was already over and that was just the beginning. Jazz Chisum, AJ Puck, Tanner Scott, Brazobban, Josh Bell, Trevor Rogers, and more were all traded within one week of the deadline. Bendix didn’t just trade a few pending free agents. He tore the team down and stripped it of his copper wire, and he was right to do so. There is nothing worse in sports than being stuck in the middle. Since these Marlins weren’t good enough, selling off the talented players and consolidating talent for the future was the right way to go. Marlins fans have the right to be skeptical. This is far from the first fire sale they’ve experienced. After winning their first title in 1997, the team traded away almost every good player and proceeded to win 54 games the following season. They traded away their core piece by piece in the four years following winning it all in 03. After moving into their new stadium in 2012, they sold off most of their hot flashy free agents within the calendar year. And just before ing Derek Jeter began his Marlin’s tenure by trading away John Carlos Stanton, Christian Yelich, JT Ralmuto, and Marcelo Zuna. To put things into perspective, Stanton is the greatest Marlin of all time. and they traded him for Starland Castro. The only other team that turns over their roster like this is the other team in the state. But the Rays do so while consistently contending, and that’s what the Marlins ownership wants out of Bendix. They want to be the next Rays. So far, it’s working. The Marlins got back 19 players from trades during last season, starting with the Arise trade and finishing at the deadline. Going through each one of these deals, most of the players they’ve gotten back haven’t shown too much. The JT Shagua, Wesco Brazzob, Josh Bell, and Brian Dela Cruz trades returned zero quality players in my estimation. Those guys weren’t that valuable, so that makes sense. Let’s get to the good trades. Tanner Scott and Brian Hoing returned a couple of decent pieces from San Diego. Adam Mer and Grand Paulie are intriguing, but both are works in progress. The big piece in that deal is Robbie Snelling, who’s a top 100 prospect in Triple A at just 21 years old. Even without a super high ceiling, he could be in the rotation as soon as next year. The Arise trade returned Dylan Head and Jacob Marcy, who both have upside, but are definitely not sure things. Marcy is having a great season in Triple A, but I’m not sure if his tools will translate in the bigs. I’m most invested in this trade because if Marcy works out, it would be a continuation of a trade tree that started all the way back with Trevor Hoffman in 1993. The Marlins traded Hoffman to the Padres’s. They got Gary Sheffield, who they flipped for Mike Piaza. He was traded for Ed Yarnold, who was then sent to the Yankees for Mike LOL, who was traded to Boston for Hanley Ramirez. Hanley Ramirez netted Nathan Evaldi from the Dodgers, and he was traded for David Phelps, who was moved to Seattle for Pablo Lopez. And as you know, Lopez was traded for Arise and Arise was traded for Marcy. And that’s baseball. Getting back on track, the AJ Puck trade got Miami, Andrew Pinar, and Davis Do Santos. Neither of them are performing especially well right now, but both are tools position players, and Deos Santos is still very young. The Fish got Augustine Ramirez back from the Yankees in the Chisum trade, and Ramirez is already proving that he can hit MLB pitching. The question is whether he can stay behind the plate, which I don’t think is realistic as of now. Even if he’s a DH or first baseman, he’ll be a productive hitter over the next 6 years with this club. They also got back two other prospects in that deal. Bendix prefers returns of large packages filled with high ceiling players. Throwing the dice that many times on prospects with outlier tools is how teams end up with young stars. And I haven’t even mentioned the best player they got back at last year’s deadline. Tied at four in the bottom of the ninth inning. Woke up winner on opening day. Kyle Sters. Remember him unconscious. Sters with the winner. A few hours before last deadline, the Orioles shipped off two post prospects to Miami in exchange for Trevor Rogers. The O’s saw him as a potentially fixable arm. In return, they sent the Marlins Connor Norby and Kyle Sters, a couple of former position player prospects who’d been boxed out of playing time in Baltimore’s loaded lineup. Norby seems like a decent infield depth option, though not an everyday player, but Sters is easily the best player on the Marlins right now. Through July of 2025, he’s on pace to have the best position player season on this team since Stanton’s MVP 2017. He’s hitting over 50% above league average with the metrics to back it up. His power is undeniable. The big change Star St has made this year to translate his raw power into elite game power is pulling the ball in the air. He’s hitting under 40% of his batted balls on the ground and pulling nearly 25% in the air. It’s a big change from 2024 when he hit the ball on the ground nearly 50% of the time and pulled the ball in the air just 10% of the time. He also cut his strikeouts to a still high but more reasonable rate. Star Wars is 27 years old, had never been a top 100 prospect, and had three partial seasons with Baltimore where he never showed anything to earn extended playing time. As easy as it is to kill Baltimore for making that deal, and trust me, I have. Nobody thought Sters would ever be this type of player. This evolution wouldn’t have been possible without Bendix’s investment in player development. Before Entering 2025, owner Bruce Sherman had a message for his players. We are here to make you better. I’ve already covered how difficult this job is under Sherman’s payroll constraints, but Sherman is seemingly all the way bought in to Bendix’s scouting and development program. Back in 2022, Sherman invested $15 million into a completely revamped Dominican Academy, a facility twice the size as the old one. Dominican players in the system like Sandy Alcantra have praised this as one of the nicest facilities in the country. Now Sherman’s following suit with the Marlins home facilities, spring training complex, and minor league technology. Bennix’s first role with the Rays after being promoted from intern was working in baseball development. This type of thing is his specialty. Marlin’s beat reporters took notice this spring when pitchers spent time fielding grounders at shortstop as part of their PFP. Ryan Weathers noted the energy it brought to camp, saying, “It’s fun because they tell you just go be an athlete. We don’t get to be athletes very often because we’re just throwing constantly.” It may be unorthodox, but the Marlins want their pitchers to be as athletic as possible, which makes tweaking their mechanics easier in the future. Pitchers also threw their very first sessions of camp with batters in the box taking live at bats instead of the typical side sessions. They get velocity, spin, and location data after every single pitch they throw. Players are constantly trying new things and encouraged to learn about themselves. This isn’t the spring training of 30 years ago where guys are getting into shape for 6 weeks. Players are here to get better from day one. So much time and effort is poured into how the Marlins train. Staying at the cutting edge of training is the only way this team can compete with the league’s top spenders. And it doesn’t end after spring training. Bendix has built the second biggest wait room in the show, which reinforces his idea that development never stops. Not even once a player makes the majors. That’s the message. And the players are buying in. The team lays out a developmental plan. The player works to get better. The team gets better. And the player gets paid. It’s so crazy that it’s actually working. Miami’s made great progress with plenty of players outside of Star Wars. Tampa shipped Xavier Edwards to Miami as part of a 40man roster crunch before the 2022 rule five draft. Edwards was no longer the hyped prospect that he was as a team. And with zero power and iffy shortstop defense, his future as a big leager was uncertain. But last year, thanks to elite base running, great discipline, and a high average, Edwards finally broke out. This year, the Marlins moved him off shortstop where he was struggling over to the Keystone where he’s grading out very well so far. They’re getting the most out of a guy with a very particular and somewhat limited tool set. On the pitching side, Edward Cabrera has finally put things together, cutting his walks down while maintaining good strikeout and weak contact rates. Cabrera has dropped his arm angle 8° since 2023, as well as largely cutting out his force usage in favor of more sinkers and sliders. Last year, his four seamer and change up were his top two mostused pitches against righties. They’ve been his least used pitches so far this year. The public perception of analytically based franchises is that they operate in a very cold and rigid way. They like one certain type of player. They love homers. They don’t care about strikeouts. love measurable tools, don’t care about fundamentals, but the true distinguishing factor of a great analytical team is one that gets the best out of every type of player. Exaggerating the quality tools while minimizing the weak ones is the name of the game that Bendix has mastered. Cabrera, Edwards, and Sters all have some type of pedigree or outlier tools. It’s impressive, but not that unexpected that these guys would develop. In addition to trading for and developing these type of players, the Marlins have lapped this league in the margins. Bendix loves the rule five draft. Bendix also loves minor league free agents. But you want to know what Peter Bendix really loves? Waivers. Nine of the Marlins active 26 players were acquired by one of those three methods. which means that over a third of this roster was either claimed, rule five, drafted, or signed as a minor leager. No other team operates with this level of vigilance when it comes to the day-to-day transactions. And it’s not like these guys they’re adding are just warm bodies. They’ve got a bullpen full of rejects. Ronnie Henriquez was picked up on waiverss in February and he’s been closing games. Jansen Junk has been a very good swingman, leading the team’s pitchers in Fwar, and he signed as a minor league free agent that same month. Lake Backer had never played in the bigs at age 29 when the Marlins claimed him from the Padres’s last year. And what do you know, he’s been effective so far, getting more and more leverage spots as the season goes on. The current starting lineup also has three such rejects. Liam Hicks was a rule five selection from Detroit. He’d never played above double A and he’s never shown power at any level of the miners, but the Marlins took the flyer and he’s producing very well with his bat while defending adequately behind the dish and at first base. Miami signed Herberto Hernandez as a minor league free agent after he failed to break through with the Raids. He spent a couple of months at AAA and since the Marlins have recalled him, he’s hit very well. With his high whiff rate, he will strike out more as the sample size increases, but when he hits the ball, it goes a long way. Just like Sters, he pulls a ton of balls in the air, and it’s leading to success. Most of these guys are solid role players. But let me introduce you to the crown jewel of this style of roster building. The Marlin’s next best player after Star Wars is Otto Lopez. [Music] Bendix claimed Lopez off waiverss from the Giants in early April of last year. Lopez is probably the most underrated player in all of baseball right now. He plays good shortstop defense and he hits the ball well. He also swipes bags at a decent clip, limits his strikeouts, and takes his walks. If he can pull more of his fly balls, he’ll be a serious power threat. Even if that doesn’t happen, Lopez is a three to four win shortstop who will be a big piece of this Marlins team as they begin to contend later this decade. In Triple A in 2023, this guy was terrible. He got cut by the Blue Jays and Giants in early 2024. And for whatever reason, Bendix saw something he liked and gave him a shot. The Marlins top two position players by FWR were pretty much available to the entire league at some point in the last 2 years. Same goes for their closer and their most valuable pitcher. Bendix has assembled the ultimate baseball island of misfit toys and they’re playing near 500 baseball. Pakakota had the Marlins winning 62 games preseason as of late July. projection systems have them up around 73 or 75 wins. That’s already a potential 10- win improvement from what was expected. Win trades, develop players, win within the margins. It’s only been a year and a half, but the Marlins are killing it on all three of those fronts. Imagine saying preeason that the Marlins would have a better record than the Orioles and Braves by late July. Now, imagine me telling you that the Marlins will be serious contenders as soon as 2027. It may not sound right today, but at the rate this organization has progressed from top to bottom, I wouldn’t count Peter Bendix out. All of that being said, the job is nowhere close to finished yet. This front office has a ton of decisions to make soon about potential trade pieces. Guys like Cabrera, Aantra, and Jesus Sanchez could bring back nice returns and further bolster the farm. or they can hang on to these guys who are all under team control through at least 2027. On the farm front, outside of the guys I’ve mentioned from trades, the most intriguing prospects are Thomas White, Joe Mack, and Kevin DeFrank. White is a big lefty who’s pitching very well in double A at age 20. He has some reliever risk, but if he keeps his walks under control, his stuff will absolutely play as a starter. Mac is very close to MLB ready. He’s a 22-year-old catcher with some pop and a big arm. Between Ramirez, Hixon himself, I see Mack as the catcher of the future with Hicks backing up and Ramirez at first. These two prospects, plus the guys I’ve already mentioned and a few others like Noble Meer and Dax Fulton, will be making a major league impact in the next few years. But in my eyes, the most intriguing prospect in the system is the Frank. He chose to sign with the Marlins by spurning an initial verbal agreement with the Yankees. He’s still only 16 years old and he touches a 100 on the radar gun already. He pairs it with a solid sweeper in a plus change up. This is against other high school kids in the Dominican, so it’s not the end all be all. And even if he pans out, it might not be until the 2030s. But even if everything continues going right from a scouting and development standpoint, this club still has a massive elephant in the room. Bendix has given out just two major league contracts in his first two off seasons. in Miami. Tim Anderson got one year $5 million and was cut midway through his only season. Calantril got one year $3.5 million and it’ll probably be traded by the time this video is out. Building a solid core with prospects and trades is definitely possible, but it’s very hard to round out a good team into a great one without making at least a few moves in free agency. Signing free agents with specific skill sets that the team needs is mainly a matter of money. To make a trade, the Marlins need a trade partner to offer exactly what they need. And they also need quality prospects to give back. And in terms of developing prospects, talent is talent, and raw talent can’t always be molded to fill every hole on the roster. I’m fully confident in Bendix’s ability to build a stable, sustainable contender through the avenues that he’s already excelling at. Whether or not Sherman allows him to take this team to another level by spending more money is another question entirely. In two years as GM of the Rays, the only free agent Bendix signed to a multi-year deal was Zack Effl, and that contract ended up incredibly team friendly. The Marlins are running out a $70 million payroll roster this year. That’s lower than Tampa, lower than Pittsburgh, lower than Sacramento. That’s the lowest in baseball. Sherman has spent a lot of money on long-term developmental investment. That’s unquestionably valuable, and it’s a great thing for this franchise, but it’s yet to be seen how far he’s willing to push the payroll in the future. I really like 2027 as a target date to seriously contend. If Bendix finally gets some payroll flexibility by then, I’m confident that he’ll maximize it just as he’s done with what he’s been given so far. And if that happens, believe me or not, this team will be making serious playoff runs in the next few years. Shout out to my channel members who got to watch the video early. Misty, Zack G, Ethan, Alex, Mammoth, Zack E, Bickram, Elquo, Richard Hamilton, JJ, John, Jackson, Ryan, Flyatory, Basti, Sophie, Center, Not Named, Vify, Okay Then But why, Lorenzo, Filet, Verdauer, and GF. And of course, thanks so much for watching.

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The Marlins have been a joke in MLB for the last 20 years. And with another fire sale last season, Miami’s fans all but checked out. But so far in 2025, the Marlins are shocking the world. Additions like Kyle Stowers have led this team into wild card contention when nobody thought it was possible. And it’s all thanks to Peter Bendix.

Chapters:
0:00 Who is Peter Bendix
1:39 The 2023 Marlins and Kim Ng
4:29 2024 Fire Sale
10:44 Arena Club
11:48 Investing in Development
15:57 Winning in the Margins
19:54 Closer than You Think

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