REPORTS: Marlins Paying Arraez’s Contract for 2024 Season
The Miami Marlins can’t seem to get this right.
We’ve already broken down how the deal sending Luis Arraez to San Diego for four prospects doesn’t really seem to do much to mitigate the team’s historic weaknesses in their roster, namely, power production and defense.
It turns out the trade might also not be saving Miami any money either.
Per a report from ESPN’s Alden González, Miami is paying down the balance of Luis Arraez’s contract for the 2024 season so that the San Diego Padres are responsible only for the league minimum salary this season, prorated to $592,796. With an arbitration-awarded salary of $10.6M for 2024, Miami’s paying the remaining portion, coming out to $8,491,398 (what they've already paid him for the season's first month plus sending $7,898,602 to San Diego).
That does a few things in the calculus of the trade for Miami.
The first is that it means Arraez is still the third most expensive player this season despite not being on the roster. 1B Josh Bell is making $16.5M after picking up his player option, and outfielder Avisaíl García is making $12M on the third year of his four-year, $53M deal signed in November of 2021. Miami actually increased their salary obligations for 2024 with this deal, as reliever Woo-Suk Go is making $1.392M (prorated) while in AA after signing a two-year, $4.5M deal with San Diego last offseason.
But the second issue here is that it draws into even stronger contrast how little Miami got in return for Arraez, a two-time batting champ that they gave us Cy Young candidate Pablo Lopez to get just over a year ago.
Last season, at the trade deadline, the New York Mets did their own fire sale, paying down salaries of expensive veteran players to get better prospect returns. Of the players that came into the organization, their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-ranked prospects (by MLB Pipeline) were all included in the deals for Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and others because New York included money in the trade.
(The caveat here is that the dollar amounts that were included by New York were for two seasons and are larger than what Miami gave for one.)
By contrast, Miami’s new minor leaguers were given MLB Pipeline ranks of 5th (Dillon Head), 10th (Jakob Marsee), and 11th (Nathan Martorella). Some of that is down to the perceived lack of talent in the Marlins farm system; Miami’s minor-league talent is ranked 29th out of 30 MLB teams, ahead of only the Los Angeles Angels.
It’s hard to reconcile Miami increasing their payroll obligations for 2024 while also not getting any players that profile to be anything more than role-players or league-average regulars at best.
Miami needs to buck recent historical player development trends and get these players to their optimal outcomes, or else this rebuild will take a lot longer than Peter Bendix may have employment as General Manager.
Managing Editor for Blackerby Media, covering the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins Also: Senior Baseball Writer for Auburn Daily, member of both the National College Baseball Writers Association and Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (where he won the 2023 Prospects, Minors, & College Writer of the Year award)