Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Team Preview: Miami Marlins
Baseball is almost here! With an eventful offseason in the books and spring training underway, it’s time to preview all 30 teams in Major League Baseball. With the help of RotoGrinders PlateIQ Premium, DFS ownership trends from Chris Gimino, and our resident Premium MLB guru Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood), we take a look at some information that is definitely interesting and possibly helpful for the upcoming 2019 MLB season.
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Miami Marlins Preseason Overview
— Vegas Win Total O/U: 63.5
— World Series Odds: 2000/1
— Key Additions: Neil Walker, Curtis Granderson, Jorge Alfaro
Other Noteworthy Players for DFS: Austin Dean, Martin Prado, Miguel Rojas, Chad Wallach, Caleb Smith
— Outlook: When Brian Anderson (below average 50.18 overall PlateIQ rating in 2018) represents your best fantasy asset, the lineup is in trouble. The Marlins brought in veterans Curtis Granderson and Neil Walker to at least try to help themselves, but this team is quite a distance away from being competitive. They will finish last in the National League East without question.
The top two HR hitters from 2018 are gone in J.T. Realmuto and Derek Dietrich, leaving 28-year-old strikeout machine Peter O’Brien as their most powerful hitter. Lewis Brinson can hit it hard, but his low average launch angle and .248 wOBA have him at risk of hitting closer to the bottom of the order if he doesn’t improve his launch trajectory. This is a bad offense, and the only saving grace is that the Orioles might out-tank them to the worst record in baseball.
Speaking of Baltimore, only the Orioles had a wider negative run differential than the Marlins last season. Rolling out five starters over a 4.28 SIERA in front of the leagues second worst bullpen (per Fangraphs WAR) will tend to help you get there. For DFS, they feature four of five starters with under a 20% strikeout rate and three of five under a 37% ground ball rate. That means lots of aerial contact is incoming. If you squint really hard, you might find something to like about Trevor Richards. That’s about the nicest thing you can say about this rotation, and it’s going to be another dreadful season in Miami all around.
— DFS Ownership Trends: The Marlins were the 29th-most owned team in baseball, with popularity barely exceeding that of the San Diego Padres. With Machado in town this season, the Marlins are clearly about to take the crown as least popular team in America. On the pitching staff, fly-baller Wei-Yin Chen was the 49th-most popular pitcher to target against, but many of the names ahead of him were not regular starters. At least somebody on this team is popular, and stacking against Chen on the road will likely be a thing again in 2019.
Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes
— Trevor Richards does one thing really well (which, as it happens, is exactly one more thing than most Marlins pitchers do well): he throws a nasty changeup. The .214 xwOBA on the pitch was fourth-best of any changeup in MLB, trailing only the offerings of Jacob deGrom (.194), Max Scherzer (.199), and Luis Castillo (.208).
— Curtis Granderson’s sweet spot percentage – a new Statcast metric that measures how often a player produces a batted-ball with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees – was 45.2% last season, third-highest in MLB. The fact that he’s surrounded by quality hitters, with Joey Votto, Nick Castellanos, Justin Turner, and Freddie Freeman, suggests that maybe, just maybe, Granderson has a bit left in the tank. (Okay, this one’s stretching the definition of “interesting” and “helpful,” but it’s the Marlins. Gimme a break).