Let’s give Kim Ng credit for the Miami Marlins
We’re almost at the halfway mark of the 2023 MLB season and to no one’s surprise, the Astros, Yankees and Dodgers have all played reasonably well. Despite some struggles from key players, and an active IL for all three teams, with their organizational depth and with some financial flexibility thrown in, they’re all still on schedule for a win total in the high 80s. In fact, they’ve almost been able to keep the same pace as…The Miami Marlins.
Yes, as I’m writing, the Marlins have a better record than the Astros, Dodgers and Yankees. Although that may be impressive, far more importantly for the Marlins is that both the Phillies and Mets need to look up to see them in the NL East standings.
The Marlins’ success thus far is interesting in the sense that they’re doing it in what’s become an untraditional manner. I’m not referring to the team’s proclivity for making contact and avoiding strikeouts even if it means hitting with less power – I’m talking about Kim Ng, their GM. Ng, as you may know, is the only woman to ever be the head shot caller of an MLB team’s roster decisions and is still only one of four people of color with that level of authority.
As always, to understand how the Marlins got here, let’s back up a little bit.
At the end of the 2020 season, the Marlins had finished over .500, won a playoff series, and had five starting pitchers under the age of 25 with better than league average ERA+. At a cursory glance, even in the darkness of Loan Depot ballpark, things were looking bright in south Florida.
The problem is that the brief success was a mirage. The batters ranked 24th in OPS+ and 21st in runs per game over the shortened season, while fielders ranked 23rd in turning batted balls into outs. (The pitching situation was a little more complex as well see in a minute, as even with the good young arms they ranked 22nd in runs allowed per game.) As a reminder, this was 2020, when more than half of the league made the playoffs, and that series victory was actually just two wins over the equally flawed Cubs – the Marlins moved on to get swept by Atlanta in the next round.
Someone high up in the Marlins’ organization (Derek Jeter, who knew Ng from her days as New York’s assistant GM during the last Yankees’ dynasty, perhaps?) wasn’t going to be blinded by the feel-good story and decided a change in upper management was in order.
Ng was hired to call the rosters shots.
Given that most MLB GMs are essentially working 24/7, we can’t comprehensively cover every transaction Ng oversaw, but you’ll see she had a clear strategy.
The current Marlins’ roster is littered with some very good hitters, which certainly couldn’t be said about the roster Ng inherited. Luis Arraez (159 OPS+), Jesús Sánchez (132 OPS+) and Bryan De La Cruz (108 OPS+) were all acquired in trades with Miami using their pitching depth to sending pitchers the other way. Jorge Soler (149 OPS+) was signed as a free agent for $27 million over two years, which is turning out to be one of the better under-the-radar signings in MLB over the last two years.
Meanwhile, despite using Pablo López, Nick Anderson, and Yimi García in the trades above, and also losing 2021 Rookie of the Year runner up Trevor Rogers to the 60-day IL, the Marlins pitching staff remains young, deep and effective – even more so than in 2020. Sandy Alcantara, Braxton Garrett, Eury Pérez, Andrew Nardi, and Bryan Hoeing, remain (read: were not traded when there certainly was a league wide market for them) while Jesús Luzardo, Tanner Scott, and A.J. Puk were acquired in trades.
All told that’s eight pitchers on the current staff who have FIPs under 4.00 and are also under 30 years old. That’s not counting Dylan Floro and Steven Okert who also have sub 4.00 FIPs and are 32 and 31 years old respectively.
Ng, rather obviously* saw she had many holes to fill and used an area of organizational depth (several good young pitchers) to fill those holes, strengthening the team overall. But not only did she do it while getting serious value in return with those trades, it was done without weakening the area of strength by holding on to the right chips – particularly Garrett and Pérez – and replenishing through more trades.
(*Although it may seem obvious, many GMs either fail to recognize talent deficits when they are right in front of them or lack the aptitude to elevate out of the hole.)
Let it also be noted that we’re wrapping up today’s chat and have yet to mention that they’ve played almost half of their games in 2023 with Jazz Chisolm Jr., arguably their best player coming into the year, on the IL.
To be fair, questions about whether or not the Marlins’ success is sustainable are valid. We are still less than half of a season into this Marlins core and they still have room to improve before they start truly scaring teams.
Small sample size is not the point here. We know that Kim Ng has done a great job: the Marlins are clearly a better team than they were prior to her hiring. And they are a heck of a lot of fun to watch. If Kim Ng were either a 30 something Harvard graduate, or a crotchety “old school, back when men were men” GM, she’d be getting regular national coverage and recognition. Let’s give her the credit she deserves anyway.
