{"id":66818,"date":"2025-05-30T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T18:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/66818\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T18:27:09","slug":"marlins-to-designate-matt-mervis-ronny-simon-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/66818\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlins To Designate Matt Mervis, Ronny Sim\u00f3n For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marlins are planning to make several roster moves, per Craig Mish of the Miami Herald<\/a>. It was already reported<\/a> earlier today that they would be selecting the contract of outfielder Heriberto Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a>. Kevin Barral of Fish on First<\/a> reports that infielder Jack Winkler<\/a> will also be selected to the roster. Per Mish, the club is planning to designate infielders Matt Mervis<\/a> and Ronny Sim\u00f3n<\/a> for assignment. That would open two 40-man spots for Hern\u00e1ndez and Winkler.<\/p>\n

Mervis, 27, was acquired from the Cubs in December with the Fish sending Vidal Bruj\u00e1n<\/a> to Chicago. Mervis got out to a hot start but with some red flags. Through April 23rd, he already had seven home runs but had also struck out in 36.2% of his plate appearances. The feast-or-famine approach has since pushed hard to the famine side. He hasn\u2019t hit a homer since then while still striking out at a 38.5% clip.<\/p>\n

Combining this year\u2019s struggles with his time with the Cubs, Mervis now has a .165\/.238\/.322 line and 34.5% strikeout rate in 261 major league plate appearances. He had tremendous minor league production in 2022 and 2023, slashing .297\/.388\/.576, but the strikeouts became a big issue last year. He spent most of 2024 in Triple-A and was punched out at a 30% rate at that level.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s clearly some pop in the bat but the Marlins ran out of patience. Mervis is only really capable of playing first base, so he needs to hit in order to have any value. Eric Wagaman<\/a> isn\u2019t doing much better, with a .227\/.277\/.382 line this year, but it seems he\u2019ll be the regular first baseman now.<\/p>\n

The Marlins will now have a week of DFA limbo to figure out what\u2019s next. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so that gives the club five days to see if there\u2019s any trade interest. He does still have an option, so it\u2019s possible some club out there grabs him and sends him to the minors to try to catch lightning in a bottle.<\/p>\n

Sim\u00f3n, 25, was was just added to the 40-man roster last month. He had signed a minor league deal with the Marlins in the offseason. He has since received 56 plate appearances and hit .234\/.327\/.277.<\/p>\n

He got an unfortunate moment in the baseball spotlight this week, as recapped by Jason Foster and Christina De Nicola of MLB.com<\/a>. Sim\u00f3n made several errors and other defensive miscues as the Marlins blew a 6-0 lead to the Padres on Tuesday, eventually losing 8-6. Sim\u00f3n was seen wiping tears from his face amid the ordeal. But later, he received plenty of encouragement from his teammates and even text messages from players on the opposing team such as Manny Machado<\/a>, Luis Arr\u00e1ez<\/a> and Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019ll now have to endure another challenge, as he\u2019s heading to DFA limbo. He was putting up good numbers in the minors earlier this year, which is why he got up to the big leagues in the first place. He had hit .354\/.441\/.521 in 15 Triple-A games. That was bolstered by an unsustainable .410 batting average on balls in play but he was drawing walks at a 15% clip while only striking out 16.7% of the time.<\/p>\n

As recently as July, FanGraphs<\/a> considered him to be one of the top 20 prospects in the Rays\u2019 system. But he didn\u2019t get called up last year and hit free agency, which led to his deal with the Marlins. He\u2019s a switch-hitter and capable of bouncing around the diamond while stealing 20-35 bases a year. He still has a full slate of options.<\/p>\n

Winkler, 26, gets the call to the big leagues for the first time. He\u2019s never really been a top prospect but the Fish nabbed him from the Athletics in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft in November. He has gone on to hit .275\/.331\/.423 at the Triple-A level this year. That\u2019s propped up by a .351 BABIP but Winkler already has 15 steals. He has played all four infield positions in his career as well as the outfield corners.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Mady Mertens, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marlins are planning to make several roster moves, per Craig Mish of the Miami Herald. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[5,17929,1816,9060,778,58,4171,4,10097],"class_list":{"0":"post-66818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-jack-winkler","10":"tag-marlins","11":"tag-matt-mervis","12":"tag-miami","13":"tag-miami-marlins","14":"tag-miamimarlins","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-ronny-simon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114598198967589640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}