Marlins Playing Time Battles: Hitters

We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

We’re now three-quarters of the way through our playing time battles series. The remaining assignments in the series come in one of two flavors – nightmare or virtually battle free. The Marlins fall into the latter category.

The outfield will once again feature Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna with Ichiro Suzuki chasing hit records in the background. Derek Dietrich may be the fifth outfielder, or they might round up somebody who isn’t also a primary backup infielder. Whoever it is, they’ll only play when somebody suffers an injury.

Second base is Dee Gordon land. Dietrich is on backup duty here too. Gordon will team up with Adeiny Hechavarria for double plays. Scouts love Hechavarria’s defense (UZR finally liked it too last year), and he hits just enough to play regularly. That leaves us with three positions that are pseudo-unsettled. Even that’s a stretch.

Third Base

Unless something goes terribly wrong in the outfield this spring, Martin Prado will be the starting third baseman. If something does happen to one of the starting outfielders, Prado is an option to fill in on a full time basis. The club’s preferences would decide how this shakes out.

Prado, Dietrich, and Ichiro would absorb the additional playing time with Dietrich-Ichiro probably forming a platoon. Although they’re both lefty hitters, Ichiro’s the better bet to perform against fellow southpaws. In this scenario, the Marlins can choose whether Prado splits his time between two positions or if the platoon only touches the outfield. Defensively, Dietrich was a nightmare in limited outfield exposure last season. He was bad at third base too.

Prado used to be a useful fantasy asset. His heyday came and went in 2012. Now he’s a guy who will hit for average with maybe 10 home runs and lousy run production. He’s like a poor man’s Placido Polanco.

Dietrich can swing a bat. As mentioned, the utility man doesn’t have a defensive home. He can fake it anywhere but shortstop, catcher, and center field, but the results aren’t pretty. If he were to somehow find regular playing time, he has 20 home run upside. It’s his only standout category, making him a solid stream pick for those in need of power. He had a 134 wRC+ versus righties and a 50 wRC+ against lefties.

First Base

This is the position where I could see a real battle taking shape. I’m not sold on Justin Bour, but his competition isn’t on the roster yet. I understand not signing Pedro Alvarez to play in the field, but a minor league invite to Justin Morneau just makes too much sense for this club. Bour has options so it’s not like the club would lose an asset if Morneau won the competition.

Bour is coming off a breakout 2015 campaign in which he swatted 23 home runs in 446 plate appearances. He also drove in runs at a 100 RBI pace (actual total of 73). The overall profile kind of reminds me of Clint Robinson. Put him in the middle of a lineup, and you’ll get decent fantasy numbers. Yet it still feels like he belongs on the Quadruple-A roster.

It’s telling that his breakout season came with just 0.3 WAR. Base running and defense really sapped his value. Were he neutral in both categories, he would have produced 1.5 WAR. However, it’s fair to expect more terribad base running and below average fielding. He’s a replacement level player with more fantasy than real world utility. On contending rosters, replacement level players often get replaced.

Chris Johnson, the other first baseman on the roster, is set up to platoon with Bour. Maybe he can rebound from his worst offensive season, but I’m not holding my breath. He did manage a 108 wRC+ versus lefties last season. On the one hand, that’s a solid performance. On the other hand, it’s kind of bad from a first baseman. He’s had even larger splits in the past so maybe the platoon idea can work.

Catcher

I remember when Rob Brantly had a good 113 plate appearance trial in 2012. He looked like a promising part of the Marlins future. Then the wheels immediately fell off the bus. J.T. Realmuto isn’t Brantly. For one, it’s harder to smoke-and-mirrors your way through 467 plate appearances. He genuinely appeared to improve as the season progressed too. From a fantasy perspective, he’s a 10 home run, 10 stolen base threat at a position where nobody runs.

Statcorner’s framing report hated Realmuto last season. He’s not a lost cause behind the plate – he graded positively in other facets of catcher defense. There is some cause for concern though. Jeff Mathis is a pure backup, but Tomas Telis could merit increasingly regular reps later in the season. Telis is an aggressive, contact oriented hitter with little hope for fantasy utility. He won’t play regularly unless his defense improves to well above average.

In all likelihood, Realmuto enters the season with the job no matter how he’s performing. If things are going sideways, you’ll have plenty of time to arrange plan B. And honestly, if Realmuto is your Plan A at the position, you were asking for disaster.