00:00:12
Speaker 1: The show goes on. This is the official show on the fish on First podcast channel with me Eli Sussman, the managing editor of Fish Strips, where we cover your Miami Marlins every day in our own way. As you can imagine, this is a ton of fun to do when the team is in playoff position this deep into the season, ahead of teams that were more heavily favored, more heavily invested in twenty twenty three, and instead it's the Marlins who are slightly above five hundred entering Thursday. This episode is going to transverse the aging curve in baseball. We're going to have later in the show. Be sure to stick around to the end. I have an exclusive interview with Marlin's right hander Carson mill Brands. If that name doesn't ring a bell. They just drafted this guy in last year's draft, third round pick, nineteen years old, just now in his first full professional season. And for the YouTube audience, we appreciate people that tune in that way. I've chopped that up into a separate video, so be sure to watch this one first, then go over to that interview. For the podcast folks, it's all in one right here for you. Be sure you're subscribing to Fishtripes wherever you get your podcasts to get the official show, as well as all of our other audio offerings including Fishtripes Unfiltered, Coming Up with Tommy Hutton, and Stay to the Fish coming up every week, occasional episodes of What a Relief Phisiology, and yes, more of this program that I do on my own. First, before we get to Carson, I'm checking in on veteran players who could be on their way out of Miami before mil Frands even makes it to this show. Maybe guys that are on their way out of baseball entirely later this year, the potential pending free agents on the Miami Marlins, because there are quite a bit of them for this team as we head into the twenty twenty three season. So I know you're thinking that it's a little premature to already be looking ahead to the offseason, and that's because there are a bunch of guys in this situation, so many so that the Marlins are going to have to make some decisions even during the year as it's going on. So one way of looking at it is things are driving so well, will the Marlins spend what it takes to keep this group together even when they have so many players that are coming up on the ability to reach the open market, or because they have some players in that situation that are actually underperforming. Will this team be kind of antsy to make changes, be willing to cut bait with some of these players that are almost done with their deals anyway, in order to bring up more promising young players to supplant those pending free agents as is season goes on. That's an interesting question talked about a lot.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: One way or another. This is a very unfamiliar position for the Marlins. They usually don't have many players that are still with the organization deep into their thirties in heading into contract years. Usually these players are frequently traded by the team even before this year even starts. But because this team is in a unique position, as we've covered, entering the year with a lot of urgency to field a more competitive team, we're in this situation where, yeah, there's I think any will you slice it, there's going to be quite a bit of roster turnover between now and twenty twenty four, and it's not too soon to look at the way that these guys are performing relative to expectations and start playing, you know, in the mind of a GM as to whether or not they have a chance to actually stick around through the rest of twenty twenty three and beyond. Stick with me here on the official show other side of the break, as will be having into seven different names of potential pending Marlins free agents and uh yeah, just sizing up exactly what we've seen from them so far, how they could fit in or not fit in with this Marlins organization moving forward. Stick with me. Two distinct groups we have here. We have the unrestricted free agents, the ones that very clear cut have enough major League service time so that after the season, in their last years of their deals, once those deals expire, they simply hit the open market as things are currently drawn up in their contract, tending any sort of extension or potentially getting cut before the offseason begins. Yeah, these are players there that are simply headed in that direction. The later on in just a few minutes, we'll cover the guys that have contract options for twenty twenty four, the ones that are still it's unclear whether or not the be on the market or not heading into this upcoming winter. On the unrestricted free agent side. Let's start with Garrett Cooper. So Cooper a very familiar name to Marlins fans. This is already his sixth season in the organization, even though he hasn't been on the field a whole lot. He's been in the major leagues or on the Major League injured list for much of the last six years, and that's why by the end of this year he'll have this efficient service time to become a free agent. These stats are drawn from entering Wednesday, so not including this most recent game, and with Cooper, all things considered, is relatively close to the player that he's been throughout his Marlins tenure, not on the same all star trajectory that he was last year, though if you remember last year, he really wasn't doing anything remarkable until the calendar flipped to June. Still, some hope that the same thing could happen this year, that the old numbers will look quite a bit prettier by the middle of the season or even by the end of the season. With him entering ones that he was hitting two eighty with a weighted runs created plus of one oh five. Reminder that one hundred is league average, and I guess what sticks out is the elevated strikeout rate and the pretty meager walk rate, which is well below his career norms. The main difference between his twenty twenty three performance and his overall major league numbers is, Yeah, he's just not getting on base quite as much as we're used to. The one defining trait of Cooper's major league career to this point that was probably gonna home to the radar, is this really impeccable ability to get hits on balls and play. His babbb is one of the highest and major league history. I'm gonna say that again, one of the highest babbeb's in major league history among a player with as much playing time as he has.
00:06:51
Speaker 3: From home play and Garrett Cooper right center gets down and gonna get to the wall. Two runs are in, the Marlins take the lead in the night. Wonderful comeback here in the ninth inning by the Marlins. Garrett Cooper two RBI double has given the Marlins a five to four lead.
00:07:12
Speaker 1: He has that really awesome, somewhat hard to put your finger on gift just hit line drives to all parts of the field. He's a high floor player where health permitting that's a huge, if a huge caveat. When he is mostly healthy and he's in the lineup, he's going to get his hits and he's going to get a fair amount of doubles as well to go along with just as singles. But the over the fence power is kind of limited and defensively at this stage of his career his first base only even at first base, it's yeah, it's not exactly an impactful glove over there. So with him, he has been, no doubt a good value to the Marlins overall. Considering that to this point in his career, I think his earning are not even ten million dollars. He's been receiving kind of modest raises in arbitration year after year after year. Nothing yeah, nothing too overwhelming for the team's perspective. And yet he's been every single year since twenty nineteen, he's been a well above average bat and that alone has quite a bit of value. As I mentioned, he was an All Star in twenty twenty two and that brought a lot of positive attention to the organization. He's been. It's been a nice tenure for him. He's been a nice role player, and the question is exactly what his market is going to look like. So there's been a pretty interesting range of guest miates as to what Cooper will potentially be commanding on the market. I think players like him that when you see that he is going to be entering his age thirty three season, and with his pretty significant limitations as a base runner and a defender, and the questions about over the fence power, I think he's the kind of player, probably as much as anybody on this list, that I could see getting to free agency and actually drawing quite a bit of interest from multiple teams, and yet still being in the price range that the Marlins can afford to bring him back. They don't necessarily have a successor at first base that is knocking down the door in the minor leagues, so it's not like they'll be eager to give the steering wheel to somebody else at that position. That's one where I think, yeah, this could wait until after the year to say exactly where things are going, and I wouldn't be surprised either way if he comes back. It's just so frustrating for him, more so than anybody else. The injury history, including this year and inner ear infection keeping him out for almost two weeks right here already this season, So you just hope that it's a tough decision for everybody involved. You hope that he just stays healthy the rest of this year and puts up the kind of numbers that are as good, if not better than what he's done at any other point in his career, because he's extremely talented, and this will be probably his first and potentially his only opportunity to really cash in as a free agent in his career. Sharing a position with him this year, Yuli Gurriel nearing his thirty ninth birthday in just a few weeks this season, his numbers have come back down to earth. I do maybe kind of under the radar. He is back down to being essentially the player that he was last year with Houston. Entering Wednesday, he was hitting two forty seven with a two ninety nine on base percentage three eighty two slugging WRC plus of eighty eight. Overall performance right around replacement level for Yuli Gurriel. He was brought in as a minor league signing of the Marlins. I think what I'm gonna do is, you know, coming up in a little bit, I'll show you the more particular contract details when we get to the guys with options. With Guriel, he's in the same boat as Cooper. He's an unrestricted free agent after this year, and the question is whether or not he makes it through the entire year. I think I had voiced this take in multiple places entering the season that I simply didn't seekly lasting all of twenty twenty three on the Marlins active roster. The signs the production that he had in twenty twenty two with the Astros, I thought was reflective of who he is at this stage of his career. He's had a magnificent playing career if you include all of his time in Cuba, and certainly as recently as twenty twenty one. It was impressive when he won a batting title with the Astros and was still a very strong defensive first baseman. That's a one edge he has over Cooper and one reason why they compliment each other nicely. On this roster, Curiel has had i'd say more good than bad defensively for the Marlins this year. He's been useful as a late game replacement on days where Cooper starts, and he's been useful spelling cooper at times, he still hits for so much concept, So that was the main appeal. That was the puzzle that the Marlins were putting together this offseason, bringing in a whole lot of high contact hitters to hopefully raise the floor of this team. He was one of them. Whereas Jean Segura still has another guaranteed year on his deal, Luisa Raise still has two more years under team control beyond twenty twenty three. Guriel is the one in this position where it's year to year with him, and frankly, it's going to be month to month. So I'll just leave it at that. With him that as great as he's been at times throughout most of his Houston tenure, I still see the same player that was struggling with Houston in twenty twenty two, the same one that couldn't secure a guaranteed deal from any other team entering this year. Ultimately sounds with the Marlins a base salary of one point two five million, I believe it is for this year. Yeah, still go a little bit at a time with him. They're not going to rush him out the door unless there is another hitter at Triple A that really shows that they belong in a role on the big league roster instead of Guriel. He's been fine so far. I think the Marlins he kind of is what they signed up to get, and for a player with his skill level and history, you don't want to put past them to turn back the clock and figure something out. I'm just saying that the realistic expectation for at this point is that Guriel's role gradually gets diminished over the course of this season, and I don't think you worry all that. You don't lose much sleep about him playing for somebody else or potentially calling a career altogether. Another unrestricted free agent, Joey Wendall, who is now the Marlins primary shortstop, a bit of a questionable choice entering this year in Wendell, he simply, I think by any standard, it's been a very disappointing start to his walk year. He wasn't hit, and spring training he wasn't hitting on his minor league rehab assignment coming back from an intercostal strain, and so far, on the other side of that il stince, there have been a couple of really nice moments. There was that go ahead hit in extra endings at Wrigley. There was the game winning hit that put them ahead in Arizona, and aside from that, it's been few and far between offensively. He entered Wednesday with a ten WRC plus ten ten ten, ten double digits, barely in the double digits, I should say, and he wasn't starting Wednesday's game either, for somebody that they viewed as their primary shorts uff entering the year. I think until he starts hitting, it's going to be more of a blatoon situation where he probably doesn't start against any left handed pitchers for the near term future, and they need to hope that he hits against righty's before really expanding the rollback to what it was entering the season. At the strikeout rate, the swing and miss has been oddly prevalent. Wendell cut from the same cloth as Guriel. That was the appeal why they acquired him the previous offseason, for his contact hitting, for his great situational hitting, his ability to use all fields. And this year, even though he's had those couple of key extra base hits that I mentioned, the absence of simply putting his bat on the ball has been odd. That's been uncharacteristic of Wendell at the very least, it's something that you feel is a solid piece of his skill set. Let's see if I could find his swinging strike rate so far this season. According to fangrafs to this point in the year, it is yeah twelve percent, so that'd be far and away the worst of his career. It had never been higher than ten point seven in a major league season. It's still better than the league average. It's just not enough for a player like him when you know that the power isn't really significant as a ACEH runner, He's not going to really steal very many bases for you. It's really marginal value that he adds in terms of getting getting extra bases taken on balls and play and making smart reads. But otherwise they need him to be better played and simple for this team to sustain where it is in the standings. Considering that they don't have Yeah at this moment, you know, they have a lot of internal options that could play shortstop, but really no good solutions that you'd think would be better than a prime Joey Wendell. If he shows he's still in the prime of his career, he's earning he's earning more money than Cooper and Guriel this year via arbitration tick over six million. I think the Marls actually agreed to a deal beforehand to avoid arbitration. If he stays, you know, if it's more of what we saw over the last calendar year where he struggled hitting offensively late last year too, it's not going to be a super large market for his services in the off season. Yeah, he's somebody that is I think under significant pressure to turn it around over these next few months. For everybody's sake. They're relying quite a bit on Wendell moving forward, and I think I'll just leave it at that one other player who is also an unrestricted free agent. So these are the guys that, barring and extension, will hit the open market after the twenty twenty three campaign. We covered Cooper, covered Guriel, Wendell, and finally Dylan Floro. Dylan Floro, who of that group is certainly the one that has been the best to this point in twenty twenty three. He has been true to his history, is pretty substantial track record now where if he's healthy, he's getting a ton of ground balls, and even when balls are in the air, they're staying in the park. He is attacking the strike zone, and he is doing it in high leverage situations. He entered Wednesday at two nine five ERA, three point five to eight fielder independent pitching, twenty five percent strikeout rate, only five point five percent walk rate in eighteen and a third innings. There were a few saves in there, including one that he picked up again on Wednesday against the Nationals. He is the Marlins primary closer, it seems, during the brief absence of aj Puck, who's on the il, he's been. This is those third season with the Marlins, and really the only major blip we had is when he was coming back from a shoulder injury early last season. Overalls, for much of those three seasons, he's been terrific. He's been a really good reliever for this Marlins team. This is a front office has been They've shown through their actions that they're not going to pay big money for any reliever under any circumstances. So they're not they're not really sweating about the fact that Flora is going to be a free agent. At the same time, because of that philosophy and because it finally it does seem that there is a decent wave of relievers coming up through the organization on the minor league side, maybe they do make an extent an exception with somebody like Flora, and he is somebody that they might consider paying a market rate to keep around for multiple years. Of this group, he is the one that I think is most clearly going to get a multi year deal if he does reach the open market. We've seen it just this past offseason, players with lesser track records, some of them have nastier pure stuff. But Flora is a unique reliever with the boy that he has a deep pitch mix, a four pitch mix, and he's able to command those pitches. It leads to a lot of soft contact, a lot of ground balls. He's just really reliable in such a way that I would expect him to get a two year deal this upcoming offseason, somewhere north of ten million dollars over the course of those couple of years. Yeah, with the Marlins go that far to keep him, I would lean towards Probably not, but he's a guy that I'd seem, probably more so than anybody else, as a mid season extension candidate. The Marlins have given him more responsibility to pitching those high leverage situations than he's gotten from other teams, and so far really great here in twenty twenty three. I would think that there's some mutual interest in keeping him around. That has turned out pretty well. That trade to get him from the Dodgers in exchange for Alex Vessia and Kyle Hurt. It was a little bit of a rollercoaster in the beginning, considering that the Dodgers are liking their end of that deal as well for the most part. With Floro, Yeah, this is somebody that I think they would miss as much as you could miss a single reliever with somebody that gives you sixty innings a year. He's a standout guy. He is going to be I would say, widely covered did by a lot of teams if he does in fact hit the open market this upcoming offseason. That covers the unrestricted free agents. Now quickly to go through the guys that have options for twenty twenty four contract options, I'll pull them up one by one. I'll remind you that this whole premise is kind of predicated on Jorge Soilaire. We haven't covered Solair yet because he is in this bucket a player that when he signed with the Marlins originally a three year, thirty six million dollar deal, but with opt outs in between each year of that deal. After the twenty twenty two season, considering that he spent the entire second half of that year on the IL with a back end your issionary, and that he didn't hit to his normal standard twent he was even on the field, a fairly easy decision for Solaire to stick around in twenty twenty three, and so far in twenty twenty three, this is somebody that we circled as a prime bounce back candidate, a beneficiary of infield shifting being restricted. It has played out almost exactly the way that you would have wanted to for Solaer to this point in the season. He was entering this Wednesday's game hitting to thirty eight with a three seventeen OBP five h three slogging that's a one twenty one WRC plus twenty one percent better than the league average. Those numbers got a little bit better because for the second straight day he hit a bomb, and it wasn't a walk off this time on Wednesday, but it was another important situation that put them ahead to stay for the rest of that game.
00:22:39
Speaker 3: And since this one into left center field toward all the Nation alley, another home run for four pay solaire.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: For somebody that I think even last year, even when he had some hot stretches, it would seem that a lot of his production came in low leverage situations. That he was somebody you didn't necessarily love to have up against high quality pitching. This year, you need to give him some credit. You need to give him a lot of credit for being the player that the Marlins envisioned when they signed him to that deal coming off his World Series MVP. These are the contract details from Cotts contracts. On baseball perspectives, he's the highest paid Marlins player here in twenty twenty three, a fifteen million dollars salary. He once again has the opportunity to opt out after twenty twenty three. It's a player option next year base salary nine million dollars for sol Layer, but it does have these pretty substantial performance bonuses for plate appearances where he could get up to four million dollars additional on that salary just by getting played appearances next year, maxing out at five hundred and fifty plate appearances and starting at three fifty, so basically half a season gets him the first half million dollar bonus, and then it tax on from there with every fifty subsequent plate appearances. It's not as simple as saying can he beat nine million on the open market. It's taking into account that he's with a team that is playing him basically every single day that to this point in the year, with only a few exceptions, has been willing to hand over the DH spot to him and allow him to sit there, even though it does restrict what they can do with the rest of the roster. Shows you how much they believe in his bat to be worthy of that the high standard that comes with being a DH most of the time. So if he feels he is going to get that playing time here and he's playing in one of the few teams in states with no income tax, that helps you know that would that's a factor when he's comparing the offers that he might potentially get on the open market from other teams. He has his off season home in Miami as well. That was a factor bring him in in the first place, and that will need to considered moving forward. I think so when Craig Mish brought this up on Twitter, kind of under the assumption that Solare will be opting out of his deal because he has gone back to who he used to be. My initial gut feel was that it's possible. I'd give it slightly better than a coin flip chance that he opts out. I put it at fifty five percent. This was last week, and since then he's continued to be very productive, basically swinging this Nationals Marlin series single handedly. Like it's not an overstatement to say that he has won them. He won Tuesday's game basically all by himself, and at a huge end in Wednesdays as well. That he's not really showing any signs of cooling off. His batted ball quality is extraordinary, how frequently he's barreling the ball. That's the stuff that does generally paying free agency, even if you are going to be in your age thirty two season, even if you are going to be pretty heavily ud I think Skip Schumacher even specify that they don't they're not comfortable using him more than one day in a row on defense. So that just shows you, even more so than Garrett Cooper, you could say he's limited as to what he adds in that aspect of the game, just because of all the steps are taking to make sure that his back issues are not flaring up because of the way that he's used. So what's the Laire. This is going to take a while to play out. As we move along, I get slightly I see it as a likely possibility that he does test the open market, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Needs to stay healthy, needs to continue to be available as a defender on occasion when his team needs that spot opened up to give somebody else a half day off. In the mean sign the Marlins are thrilled with the production that Solaire is giving them. Is I think will be partially affected by how these other corner outfielders performed the rest of this year when Hayesus Sanchez is healthy, how much Sayes Brian Delacruz stay on his hot streaks, and whether Piyden Burdick proves that he is a viable major leaguer as well. They feel good enough about those younger pre arbitration players and feel that they can sort of emulate his production or come somewhere close to it, that it's easier to let sold their walk, But that's going to be a fascinating storyline to follow the rest of the season. Sickon with two others that have options as well. That was a player option for so Layer with a club option. There's Matt Barnes, acquired in that trade from the Boston Red Sox in a deal where they made a cash neutral. His salary was higher for twenty twenty three than Richard Blier was. The Red Sox threw in money to even it up. Yeah, the Red Sox paying the majority of the money that was left on his contract at the time of the d and the club option for next year eight million, with a two point twenty five million dollar buyout on Barns so with him. His performance this year has been fine. I noticed that the fastball velocity was down early in the year. That has gone back up to an appropriate level for somebody of his pitching style. Still, I don't see the strikeouts coming back to what they used to be. Is somebody that is going to have to rely on pitching the contact more than he's accustomed to. Head this year, his strikeout rate is twenty one point three percent, slightly lower than the major league average and well below the major League average for relievers a three seven eight ERA four point three eight FIP. He is, you know, at this point, a run of the mill middle reliever for a team right now, run of the mill middle reliever's not going to be somebody that you pay eight million dollars to in twenty twenty four. I think that's highly probable that they end up declining that club option. But so far fitting in pretty well with this Marlins clubhouse. We saw that firsthand when he appeared on What a Relief on the Same Fish on First podcast channel. You can listen back to see that conversation with him. Yeah, he's an asset to the organization, just not one that is commeserate with the terms of his contract and his club option for twenty twenty four. I think there's a pretty good chance that Barnes is a one and done with this Marlins organization and finally the same well, it's also a club option. The player here that has fallen the farthest short of what the Marlins expected of him this year has to be Johnny Quato. Signed to a one year, eight point five million dollar in the off season, six million of that paid out this season, and then two point five, his club option for next year. I had forgotten about all these performance bonuses that if he was mostly healthy, whether as a starter or as a reliever, the Marlins weren't going to chip on some extra money in here. Fifty thousand for twenty five starts and seventy five thousand if you get reached his twenty eight starts. Even that lowest threshold is completely out of reach now due to subsequent injuries, back to back injuries, or should say kind of concurrent injuries. First the biceps issue, then the ankle issue. When he was rehabbing the biceps issue at Triple A. With him, he's been one game for the Marlins, one injury shortened game. He can't even guarantee that there's going to be a second game at this point because he's still far away from getting back from the ankle issue. It's just, you know, the the reading between the lines the team is just disappoint pointed in Quato in how he just didn't seem that he prepared for this season with the same type of work ethic that he had in his previous seasons. At thirty seven years old, maybe he was just not as motivated to get ready as he was earlier in his career, before he had really established himself, and for a team that even now and certainly at this point, has very little margin for error with their starting pitching situation because of the number of guys that went down due to injuries, they thought Cuato coming off the year that he had in Chicago would be a reliable workhorse for them, not a star pitcher by any means, just somebody that would be available for them, somebody that would be able to share some best practices with the younger pitchers in this organization, and that has just not panned out whatsoever for him. So this one trending towards being a bust at this point. Yet the wonder, at least in the near term, the simple solution is going to be moving him to the sixty day injured list to keep him off a forty man roster, and are sure he's going to make his way back onto the forty man before the end of the year, or are they going to reach a point where they just don't believe in his ability to contribute to the team and maybe they just cut their losses before we even get to the end of twenty twenty three. It's been the unfortunate turn of events for him because there was a lot of enthusiasm for Quato and for everything that he brings, for the track record he brings, and for the swag that he brings, and uh yeah, it just has been a bust for him with this Marlins team in twenty twenty three. So as we've covered, all these guys, aside from so Laier and Solo, Letter and Floro have been the ones that have been stars and critical pieces of this team so far in twenty twenty three, and everybody else somewhere on that spectrum from being useless to being just a run of the mill role player. I think it's safe to assume that several of these players won't be back in twenty twenty three. And really the bigger question is exactly whether they make it through the year, and yeah, how will the Marlins go about transitioning players of more long term control into these prominent roles as the season goes on in case these guys get hurt or in case they struggle, and potentially whether this is a team even if they're in contention midway through the year, they and certainly if they fall out of contention, you have to look at some of these players as trade candidates in order to salvage something. As positive as things are going in the win column for the Marlins in twenty twenty three, well, I mean they're still looking down to the farm system. This is still not a really deep organization. This is one that still needs to do things to ensure that they have a sustainable future, that they have waves of talent coming up through the organizations. A thin organization, even as there are some star players on the major league roster that you're really excited about. And that's why some of these decisions probably can't wait until the offseason. They need to be really open and potentially aggressive in terms of initiating extension talks of players that they think are important to the team's future. Yeah. I personally, if they could get Dylan Floro at a reasonable deal, a slightly below market deal somehow, if it's like two years with a club option for twenty twenty six and the guarantee is in the ten million range or maybe slightly above that, I think that's something that the team should consider and get out in front of. And so layer that's going to be a tricky one in terms of what exactly he's looking for. It does make me worry about committing to somebody that is mostly a DH and who potentially will always be a DH moving forward. That just really limits what you could do with the rest of your roster, and it puts so much pressure on him to perform exactly the way he is right now in terms of both overall production and high leverage production with him. So that's one where I can imagine it's probably gonna wait until after the season and with the Marlins getting an inside track in order to resign him for twenty twenty four and beyond. So I hope you appreciated this overview here on the official show. Yeah, I'm gonna have a separate video with my interview with Carson Millbrands. Really good conversation with him, and because of some of the audio recording of it, not all of it was publishable in video and audio form for you guys. Instead, I'm gonna be sure to write up the complete transcripts that between him and I and you'll get to listen to most of this here on the pod. So that's right here on the other side of this break or in the adjacent video, depending on where you're watching here speaking to nineteen year old right hander Carson mill Brandt here on the Official Show. Yeah. One of the top pitching prospects in this Marlins organization and one who I'm really excited to follow his journey moving forward. So thanks for listening to what we do here on Fish Trips. I'm Elis Susman. Go Phish, enjoy the interview. A special guest joins me here on the official Show. In the third rounds of the twenty twenty two MLB Draft, the Miami Marlins selected right handed pitcher Carson mill Brandt out of Liberty High School in Liberty, Missouri. Mil brand is working his way up through the Marlins minor league system. He's a member right now of the Jupiter Hammerheads starting rotation projectable nineteen year olds. He's trying to become the latest impact Major leaguer to come up through this great Marlins pitching development pipeline. Thanks for taking the time to talk, Carson.
00:37:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:37:24
Speaker 1: I was talking right here on an off day before getting into you specifically, I wanted to get your reaction to a news just a few days ago the Marlins called up Uri Perez all the way from Double A straight to the majors. He's only a year older than you are. I'm wondering what it is. What do you think when you see somebody that's almost your age already pitching important endings in the major leagues?
00:37:44
Speaker 4: You know, it's crazy. First of all, he's an awesome guy.
00:37:48
Speaker 2: We reported January fifteenth for early camp and he was there and you know, like he obviously doesn't speak a lot of English, but it's like you can you have conversations with them, but like it's so cool to just watch him like throw his bullpens. Are just honestly watching him go about his business like he handles it very professionally, and you know, you watching him throw pens and you're like, that guy's he's a major league pitcher, Like he has all the tools. It's just it's awesome to see. It's really cool.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: Yerie top prospecting this organization and made pretty impresive in his debut so far. So yeah, by the time this episode comes out, I'll probably making his second start with the big league team too. Now, i' mean going back to you, there's lots of cover here on you. Just going back to the beginning, do you remember how old you were when you became a pitcher and what it is that made you want to focus on that.
00:38:37
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So like I honestly, well, growing up, basketball was my main sport. I was all in basketball. But then obviously, like reality hit and I was like a five six point guard on the B team, so I was like, you know, basketball is probably not the way to go.
00:38:51
Speaker 4: But uh, my freshman year, I got a.
00:38:53
Speaker 2: Few innings on varsity and I was like, you know, I really started to enjoy it. You know, I had a really good team, really good coaches my fresh and you're at school. So ever since like freshman years, that's neever, I started to like, you know, I kind of realized I was better at pitching and just kind of worked on it then and I really enjoyed it.
00:39:10
Speaker 1: So it really wasn't that long ago relative some of the other guys that were just coming out of the draft this past year. Is there any particular MLB pitchers that back then or even now that you try to pattern your game after that you think you have a lot in common with.
00:39:24
Speaker 4: Uh, growing It was actually kind of funny.
00:39:28
Speaker 2: So like when I was in sixth grade with the Royals from Kansas City obviously, So I watched a lot of Royals games. Johnny Quato he was really that was kind of like I loved watching him throw. I'd go to a lot of his starts whenever. I think it was like sixth or seventh grade. But they won the World Series and so, like I saw the parade, saw him. But it's actually really funny because it was with the Marlins now, so I saw that spring training and all that, and it was just it was so cool to see that.
00:39:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might see him around super sometimes soon because he's in the middle of rehabbing an injury right now. Yeah, that is That is a funny coincidence with him. So a few years later, you made pretty rapid progress from that freshman year in order to become a really legit draft candidate right out of high school. But you were committed to go to Vanderbilt. We've talked to there's been a bunch of guys in the exact same position that you're in that have gone on to have careers in the Marlins organization. Like half of them go to Vanderbilt. The other half they get the offer they like and they turn pro right away. It's kind of fifty to fifty even guys in this organization that I've talked to, could you just lead us through that whole decision process, you know, leading up to the draft and then yeah, making the call to turn pro a couple weeks later.
00:40:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:40:38
Speaker 2: So my mom and my family is like very important to me, and they're they're always you know, usually ask for their opinion, but like this time, there's like, you know, pray to God, like whatever feels best for you.
00:40:50
Speaker 4: You go with that, Like you go with that, that that route.
00:40:53
Speaker 2: But uh, I was actually at Vanderbilt for a week and a few days taking a summer class and before I flew home for the draft, So I got that taste to college, you know, moved into my dorm, really liked it. Vanderbilt was awesome. But uh, and the end decision, you know, I got drafted. I really liked the number and pulled the trigger on it, and I'm really happy I did well.
00:41:16
Speaker 1: The thing that you mentioned there about already going to Vandy and taking the summer class is this has kind of been some of a controversy the last few years where they moved the draft date. It's a little later than it used to be, so it creates that awkward situation whereas you said, you're already like proceeding as if you might go to college and you don't know yet, the draft hasn't come yet, and now you get the reverse course and you're allowed to do that. I'm sure from your perspective and other guys you may have talked to, do you think it is you think it'd make more sense the drafts kind of moved back earlier the way that it used to be in June instead of pretty deep into July.
00:41:47
Speaker 4: You think, because like it is, it was.
00:41:49
Speaker 2: It was super weird because I had to I moved in and then a week later I moved out of my dorm. But like while I was there with like Sal Stewart, Brandon, Barry Era and other people that did the same thing that I did.
00:41:59
Speaker 4: So it's it's definitely, it's definitely weird, for sure.
00:42:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be easier selfishly from my perspective. They moved it to line it up with the All Star events now on the calendar, and it's like everything is happening at once, and sometimes the draft gets buried underneath all the major league stuff just because they did that. I'm not a fan of it.
00:42:17
Speaker 4: I'm a fan of ye.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Now getting more to the technical part of it, your pitch mix. You have a pretty deep pitch mix for a guy that is relatively new to pitching and new to pro ball. Could you lead us through, you know, each of the different pitches that you have in your arsenal, in the situations that you like to use them, how they kind of play off each other.
00:42:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I got a fastball, curveball, change up, and then sometimes my curveball moves like a slider, so people think it's a slider, but the whole time it's a curveball. But yeah, so like and the mix kind of you know, it's it's kind of new to me, and it's it's kind of something new because you can't just go you know, it's not high school you can just blow fastballs by people, Like, so it's I'm kind of learning how to use my pitches. But uh, obviously, like you have to fastball up, curveball down, or if like it's kind of reading swings, so you'll like, I.
00:43:06
Speaker 4: Gotta follow a fastball back.
00:43:07
Speaker 2: You're like, all that guy's on it, Like I probably should throw it again, so like slow down his bat with the change up or his bath to change up.
00:43:13
Speaker 4: So it's like and our our pitching coach name is dish He does.
00:43:17
Speaker 2: A really good job of helping me with that, so it's like it's kind of new to me, but I'm slowly figuring it out right.
00:43:23
Speaker 1: That's pitching coach Glenn Dishman out with Jupiter for people that aren't familiar with him. From what I'm seeing, that fastball has been your primary pitch, using it maybe almost two thirds of the time in the games that we've had tracked in in Jupiter and in Low eight so far. I mean, which of the individual pitches do you think would you call your favorite at this point and is there any particular one that this season you're focused most on developing, improving, getting more consistent with.
00:43:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, so obviously my favorite, it's gotta be the fastball. I really love my fastball. I like to I can place it pretty much anywhere I want like it. But uh, we worked on my change up a lot this spring training in early camp, and that's slowly becoming one of my favorite pitches.
00:44:09
Speaker 4: It's just because it's kind of new, and whenever I throw like a good one, it's it's a really good feeling because it's kind of like relief or like, oh, I've been working on that for so long. I sure a good one, you know, so I just feels so good.
00:44:20
Speaker 1: That's a specialty of the Marlins Org. I'm sure you're aware that, of guys developing them pretty quickly and becoming somebody like Santi al Contra all of a sudden it became his very best pitch last year when he broke out and won the Sie Young as a pitch they didn't even have when he was your age. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of examples of that of guys like getting They usually tell me that it's just a certain number of reps. Right after a while, you just throw it as much as possible, maybe play catch with it more often than you used to, and then eventually it just clicks. Is that what you're kind of figuring out?
00:44:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like it's like, I've never really threw a change up in high school. There's no reason to throw a change up, but here it's it's like the first week they had me here, had me pick out a grip.
00:45:00
Speaker 4: He's like, what feels comfortable to you?
00:45:02
Speaker 2: So just had my grip and then Yeah, just throwing it a ton That's like the best.
00:45:07
Speaker 4: Way to develop.
00:45:08
Speaker 2: It's just throw It's like it's I threw it like all the time in spring training, and like they even tell you that, like I don't care if it's over the guy's head. I don't care if he hits it at five hundred feet. You know, you can't develop it if you don't throw it.
00:45:19
Speaker 4: So gotcha.
00:45:22
Speaker 1: We're here with carsonvill Brant here on the Official Show, getting back to your fastball sitting about ninety four so far from what I've seen in games this season, and more so than the velo. It's about the movement that you get on this pitch, both the late life that you have both horizontally to the arm side and then the way that it dips sorts the ends. It's pretty terrific. Like just it just measures out pretty similar to a lot of major league caliber fastballs that we've seen out there. Even as young as you are, do you have any like theories as to why it is you get that great late life on it that all of a sudden, that that great, great movement that you get that is ready serving you pretty good right now, But even moving forward, it gives you so much potential with that pitch.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I honestly have no idea. I just kind of throw. It's like a normal fastball. But I do have huge hands, so some of like all my coaches, I've always said, like, you're like, the ball looks really small in my hands, so they could be the big hands.
00:46:21
Speaker 4: I honestly have no idea. Interesting.
00:46:25
Speaker 1: Interesting, Yeah, the hand size, that's something that comes up more and talking about football quarterbacks and the way that they forbid in that way. Yeah, they in baseball. Yeah, it gives up. There are certain guys I know with all speed pitches where if you have really long fingers, maybe that will help you. But you think it's just your overall hand size.
00:46:42
Speaker 2: I have no idea. If I fixed anything, i'd say it's hand size. It's just a normal for team. But obviously, like I've heard, it spends really good and it's got a good movement.
00:46:53
Speaker 1: Got it. Now, talking about pitching at the low A level, the way that you're doing right now, I'm just curious about what it's like preparing for those starts and what it is that you're trying to achieve in those starts, because the goal is different than obviously at the higher higher levels of baseball, it's prioritizing developments, whether more so than actually sometimes even more so than actually winning or losing the games. Is there, and you're also pitching it at a level where it's it's hooked up to a lot of the same stat tracking that we get in the majors. So if you really want to, like you can get all these details about the way that you're throwing the ball and the analytics behind that, and the same thing with all the opponents that you're facing. Yeah, how much do you dive into those numbers when you're either preparing for a start or when you're like evaluating what you did after the fact.
00:47:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, so before the start.
00:47:44
Speaker 2: I throw on Fridays, So we first game of the series is twoues today, So I watched three games and I book the game before I throw, So it's kind of like I don't really dig dig into like the numbers that they're hitting, but it's you can kind of see it. But after it's actually really cool because like it is, there is a lot of like data and stuff on my pitches throughout like the game, So that's really cool to see and you can kind of see where it plays, like maybe why the guy hit this pitch, or maybe I shouldn't have thrown that pitch at this time.
00:48:15
Speaker 4: So that's kind of cool to see.
00:48:16
Speaker 1: That stuff in Aside from that, I noticed that you made your Jupiter debut it was less September and you were throwing to Cameron Barstead in that game, and for most of your starts this year you were thrown to Barstead as well. He recently got moved up to high A. I'm wondering from a pitcher's perspective, when you have a guy that you're familiar with, that you work with a lot, and all of a sudden working with a different catcher because of reasons kind of outside your control. Yeah, how does that affect things? That having a different How does that How what is the value of that relationship went right now? And like how does it change when you have a different catcher all of a sudden responsible for you the next time out?
00:48:54
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:48:54
Speaker 2: I see Barsad's awesome. He's he knows how to call a game. He's very good at what he does. He's really good behind the play. We were like we'd go out to launch our breakfast, you know, we'd hang out a lot I had Sam Prydor. Yeah, but it's you know, it's kind of the same thing. It's like kind of a different bill behind the play. But they're both very good at what they do, and I like them a lot.
00:49:15
Speaker 1: In terms of other things, such as your total pitch count, how many innings you're going to go, you're in an interesting spot where the team obviously once you develop as much as possible, but they understand that you're not used to throwing a certain number of innings. So for a season that started in April, and as you mentioned, you've been early camp started in January, Like, there's a certain limit I guess where by the end of the year. They want to make sure that you don't go too far. So is that stuff communicated to you in advance too, like how many how far you're allowed to go in this particular game, or do you just go as far as you can until they say it's enough.
00:49:48
Speaker 2: It's like five innings, they want you to go five innings or seventy five pitches, But I've thrown more than seventy five pitches, so you can you can kind of bend the line.
00:49:58
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, So that's Carson mill Brandt He's going to be featured right in the middle of our upcoming Fish Stripes Top thirty list of top prospects in this organization. Somebuddy that like the numbers and the IT tests are like really trending in your way right now from what I've been able to see when you pitching in Jupiter. And Yeah, I'm actually gonna have some of my staff out there in Jupiter to cover some of the games. I don't I think they're gonna miss you. I think they're going to go on Jacob Miller Day on Saturday, just because of the way that the schedule lined up now. But this is really insightful, Carson. I appreciate you coming on with me. They were keeping tracking super closely the rest of this year. Only nineteen years old and it's it's really exciting to have you in the Marlins organization. Thanks a lot for taking the time for this.
00:50:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was awesome.
00:50:43
Speaker 1: So I've been eli Susman here on the official show on the fish on First podcast channel. Subscribe to us wherever you get your pods and check out Carson if you're in the Jupiter area. Most of we were in the South Florida area, just make the drive up. Plenty of available seats to see him pitch on most Fridays, Yeah, throughout this entire season. So that's gonna do it for us. Go fish m
Speaker 1: The show goes on. This is the official show on the fish on First podcast channel with me Eli Sussman, the managing editor of Fish Strips, where we cover your Miami Marlins every day in our own way. As you can imagine, this is a ton of fun to do when the team is in playoff position this deep into the season, ahead of teams that were more heavily favored, more heavily invested in twenty twenty three, and instead it's the Marlins who are slightly above five hundred entering Thursday. This episode is going to transverse the aging curve in baseball. We're going to have later in the show. Be sure to stick around to the end. I have an exclusive interview with Marlin's right hander Carson mill Brands. If that name doesn't ring a bell. They just drafted this guy in last year's draft, third round pick, nineteen years old, just now in his first full professional season. And for the YouTube audience, we appreciate people that tune in that way. I've chopped that up into a separate video, so be sure to watch this one first, then go over to that interview. For the podcast folks, it's all in one right here for you. Be sure you're subscribing to Fishtripes wherever you get your podcasts to get the official show, as well as all of our other audio offerings including Fishtripes Unfiltered, Coming Up with Tommy Hutton, and Stay to the Fish coming up every week, occasional episodes of What a Relief Phisiology, and yes, more of this program that I do on my own. First, before we get to Carson, I'm checking in on veteran players who could be on their way out of Miami before mil Frands even makes it to this show. Maybe guys that are on their way out of baseball entirely later this year, the potential pending free agents on the Miami Marlins, because there are quite a bit of them for this team as we head into the twenty twenty three season. So I know you're thinking that it's a little premature to already be looking ahead to the offseason, and that's because there are a bunch of guys in this situation, so many so that the Marlins are going to have to make some decisions even during the year as it's going on. So one way of looking at it is things are driving so well, will the Marlins spend what it takes to keep this group together even when they have so many players that are coming up on the ability to reach the open market, or because they have some players in that situation that are actually underperforming. Will this team be kind of antsy to make changes, be willing to cut bait with some of these players that are almost done with their deals anyway, in order to bring up more promising young players to supplant those pending free agents as is season goes on. That's an interesting question talked about a lot.
00:03:04
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: One way or another. This is a very unfamiliar position for the Marlins. They usually don't have many players that are still with the organization deep into their thirties in heading into contract years. Usually these players are frequently traded by the team even before this year even starts. But because this team is in a unique position, as we've covered, entering the year with a lot of urgency to field a more competitive team, we're in this situation where, yeah, there's I think any will you slice it, there's going to be quite a bit of roster turnover between now and twenty twenty four, and it's not too soon to look at the way that these guys are performing relative to expectations and start playing, you know, in the mind of a GM as to whether or not they have a chance to actually stick around through the rest of twenty twenty three and beyond. Stick with me here on the official show other side of the break, as will be having into seven different names of potential pending Marlins free agents and uh yeah, just sizing up exactly what we've seen from them so far, how they could fit in or not fit in with this Marlins organization moving forward. Stick with me. Two distinct groups we have here. We have the unrestricted free agents, the ones that very clear cut have enough major League service time so that after the season, in their last years of their deals, once those deals expire, they simply hit the open market as things are currently drawn up in their contract, tending any sort of extension or potentially getting cut before the offseason begins. Yeah, these are players there that are simply headed in that direction. The later on in just a few minutes, we'll cover the guys that have contract options for twenty twenty four, the ones that are still it's unclear whether or not the be on the market or not heading into this upcoming winter. On the unrestricted free agent side. Let's start with Garrett Cooper. So Cooper a very familiar name to Marlins fans. This is already his sixth season in the organization, even though he hasn't been on the field a whole lot. He's been in the major leagues or on the Major League injured list for much of the last six years, and that's why by the end of this year he'll have this efficient service time to become a free agent. These stats are drawn from entering Wednesday, so not including this most recent game, and with Cooper, all things considered, is relatively close to the player that he's been throughout his Marlins tenure, not on the same all star trajectory that he was last year, though if you remember last year, he really wasn't doing anything remarkable until the calendar flipped to June. Still, some hope that the same thing could happen this year, that the old numbers will look quite a bit prettier by the middle of the season or even by the end of the season. With him entering ones that he was hitting two eighty with a weighted runs created plus of one oh five. Reminder that one hundred is league average, and I guess what sticks out is the elevated strikeout rate and the pretty meager walk rate, which is well below his career norms. The main difference between his twenty twenty three performance and his overall major league numbers is, Yeah, he's just not getting on base quite as much as we're used to. The one defining trait of Cooper's major league career to this point that was probably gonna home to the radar, is this really impeccable ability to get hits on balls and play. His babbb is one of the highest and major league history. I'm gonna say that again, one of the highest babbeb's in major league history among a player with as much playing time as he has.
00:06:51
Speaker 3: From home play and Garrett Cooper right center gets down and gonna get to the wall. Two runs are in, the Marlins take the lead in the night. Wonderful comeback here in the ninth inning by the Marlins. Garrett Cooper two RBI double has given the Marlins a five to four lead.
00:07:12
Speaker 1: He has that really awesome, somewhat hard to put your finger on gift just hit line drives to all parts of the field. He's a high floor player where health permitting that's a huge, if a huge caveat. When he is mostly healthy and he's in the lineup, he's going to get his hits and he's going to get a fair amount of doubles as well to go along with just as singles. But the over the fence power is kind of limited and defensively at this stage of his career his first base only even at first base, it's yeah, it's not exactly an impactful glove over there. So with him, he has been, no doubt a good value to the Marlins overall. Considering that to this point in his career, I think his earning are not even ten million dollars. He's been receiving kind of modest raises in arbitration year after year after year. Nothing yeah, nothing too overwhelming for the team's perspective. And yet he's been every single year since twenty nineteen, he's been a well above average bat and that alone has quite a bit of value. As I mentioned, he was an All Star in twenty twenty two and that brought a lot of positive attention to the organization. He's been. It's been a nice tenure for him. He's been a nice role player, and the question is exactly what his market is going to look like. So there's been a pretty interesting range of guest miates as to what Cooper will potentially be commanding on the market. I think players like him that when you see that he is going to be entering his age thirty three season, and with his pretty significant limitations as a base runner and a defender, and the questions about over the fence power, I think he's the kind of player, probably as much as anybody on this list, that I could see getting to free agency and actually drawing quite a bit of interest from multiple teams, and yet still being in the price range that the Marlins can afford to bring him back. They don't necessarily have a successor at first base that is knocking down the door in the minor leagues, so it's not like they'll be eager to give the steering wheel to somebody else at that position. That's one where I think, yeah, this could wait until after the year to say exactly where things are going, and I wouldn't be surprised either way if he comes back. It's just so frustrating for him, more so than anybody else. The injury history, including this year and inner ear infection keeping him out for almost two weeks right here already this season, So you just hope that it's a tough decision for everybody involved. You hope that he just stays healthy the rest of this year and puts up the kind of numbers that are as good, if not better than what he's done at any other point in his career, because he's extremely talented, and this will be probably his first and potentially his only opportunity to really cash in as a free agent in his career. Sharing a position with him this year, Yuli Gurriel nearing his thirty ninth birthday in just a few weeks this season, his numbers have come back down to earth. I do maybe kind of under the radar. He is back down to being essentially the player that he was last year with Houston. Entering Wednesday, he was hitting two forty seven with a two ninety nine on base percentage three eighty two slugging WRC plus of eighty eight. Overall performance right around replacement level for Yuli Gurriel. He was brought in as a minor league signing of the Marlins. I think what I'm gonna do is, you know, coming up in a little bit, I'll show you the more particular contract details when we get to the guys with options. With Guriel, he's in the same boat as Cooper. He's an unrestricted free agent after this year, and the question is whether or not he makes it through the entire year. I think I had voiced this take in multiple places entering the season that I simply didn't seekly lasting all of twenty twenty three on the Marlins active roster. The signs the production that he had in twenty twenty two with the Astros, I thought was reflective of who he is at this stage of his career. He's had a magnificent playing career if you include all of his time in Cuba, and certainly as recently as twenty twenty one. It was impressive when he won a batting title with the Astros and was still a very strong defensive first baseman. That's a one edge he has over Cooper and one reason why they compliment each other nicely. On this roster, Curiel has had i'd say more good than bad defensively for the Marlins this year. He's been useful as a late game replacement on days where Cooper starts, and he's been useful spelling cooper at times, he still hits for so much concept, So that was the main appeal. That was the puzzle that the Marlins were putting together this offseason, bringing in a whole lot of high contact hitters to hopefully raise the floor of this team. He was one of them. Whereas Jean Segura still has another guaranteed year on his deal, Luisa Raise still has two more years under team control beyond twenty twenty three. Guriel is the one in this position where it's year to year with him, and frankly, it's going to be month to month. So I'll just leave it at that. With him that as great as he's been at times throughout most of his Houston tenure, I still see the same player that was struggling with Houston in twenty twenty two, the same one that couldn't secure a guaranteed deal from any other team entering this year. Ultimately sounds with the Marlins a base salary of one point two five million, I believe it is for this year. Yeah, still go a little bit at a time with him. They're not going to rush him out the door unless there is another hitter at Triple A that really shows that they belong in a role on the big league roster instead of Guriel. He's been fine so far. I think the Marlins he kind of is what they signed up to get, and for a player with his skill level and history, you don't want to put past them to turn back the clock and figure something out. I'm just saying that the realistic expectation for at this point is that Guriel's role gradually gets diminished over the course of this season, and I don't think you worry all that. You don't lose much sleep about him playing for somebody else or potentially calling a career altogether. Another unrestricted free agent, Joey Wendall, who is now the Marlins primary shortstop, a bit of a questionable choice entering this year in Wendell, he simply, I think by any standard, it's been a very disappointing start to his walk year. He wasn't hit, and spring training he wasn't hitting on his minor league rehab assignment coming back from an intercostal strain, and so far, on the other side of that il stince, there have been a couple of really nice moments. There was that go ahead hit in extra endings at Wrigley. There was the game winning hit that put them ahead in Arizona, and aside from that, it's been few and far between offensively. He entered Wednesday with a ten WRC plus ten ten ten, ten double digits, barely in the double digits, I should say, and he wasn't starting Wednesday's game either, for somebody that they viewed as their primary shorts uff entering the year. I think until he starts hitting, it's going to be more of a blatoon situation where he probably doesn't start against any left handed pitchers for the near term future, and they need to hope that he hits against righty's before really expanding the rollback to what it was entering the season. At the strikeout rate, the swing and miss has been oddly prevalent. Wendell cut from the same cloth as Guriel. That was the appeal why they acquired him the previous offseason, for his contact hitting, for his great situational hitting, his ability to use all fields. And this year, even though he's had those couple of key extra base hits that I mentioned, the absence of simply putting his bat on the ball has been odd. That's been uncharacteristic of Wendell at the very least, it's something that you feel is a solid piece of his skill set. Let's see if I could find his swinging strike rate so far this season. According to fangrafs to this point in the year, it is yeah twelve percent, so that'd be far and away the worst of his career. It had never been higher than ten point seven in a major league season. It's still better than the league average. It's just not enough for a player like him when you know that the power isn't really significant as a ACEH runner, He's not going to really steal very many bases for you. It's really marginal value that he adds in terms of getting getting extra bases taken on balls and play and making smart reads. But otherwise they need him to be better played and simple for this team to sustain where it is in the standings. Considering that they don't have Yeah at this moment, you know, they have a lot of internal options that could play shortstop, but really no good solutions that you'd think would be better than a prime Joey Wendell. If he shows he's still in the prime of his career, he's earning he's earning more money than Cooper and Guriel this year via arbitration tick over six million. I think the Marls actually agreed to a deal beforehand to avoid arbitration. If he stays, you know, if it's more of what we saw over the last calendar year where he struggled hitting offensively late last year too, it's not going to be a super large market for his services in the off season. Yeah, he's somebody that is I think under significant pressure to turn it around over these next few months. For everybody's sake. They're relying quite a bit on Wendell moving forward, and I think I'll just leave it at that one other player who is also an unrestricted free agent. So these are the guys that, barring and extension, will hit the open market after the twenty twenty three campaign. We covered Cooper, covered Guriel, Wendell, and finally Dylan Floro. Dylan Floro, who of that group is certainly the one that has been the best to this point in twenty twenty three. He has been true to his history, is pretty substantial track record now where if he's healthy, he's getting a ton of ground balls, and even when balls are in the air, they're staying in the park. He is attacking the strike zone, and he is doing it in high leverage situations. He entered Wednesday at two nine five ERA, three point five to eight fielder independent pitching, twenty five percent strikeout rate, only five point five percent walk rate in eighteen and a third innings. There were a few saves in there, including one that he picked up again on Wednesday against the Nationals. He is the Marlins primary closer, it seems, during the brief absence of aj Puck, who's on the il, he's been. This is those third season with the Marlins, and really the only major blip we had is when he was coming back from a shoulder injury early last season. Overalls, for much of those three seasons, he's been terrific. He's been a really good reliever for this Marlins team. This is a front office has been They've shown through their actions that they're not going to pay big money for any reliever under any circumstances. So they're not they're not really sweating about the fact that Flora is going to be a free agent. At the same time, because of that philosophy and because it finally it does seem that there is a decent wave of relievers coming up through the organization on the minor league side, maybe they do make an extent an exception with somebody like Flora, and he is somebody that they might consider paying a market rate to keep around for multiple years. Of this group, he is the one that I think is most clearly going to get a multi year deal if he does reach the open market. We've seen it just this past offseason, players with lesser track records, some of them have nastier pure stuff. But Flora is a unique reliever with the boy that he has a deep pitch mix, a four pitch mix, and he's able to command those pitches. It leads to a lot of soft contact, a lot of ground balls. He's just really reliable in such a way that I would expect him to get a two year deal this upcoming offseason, somewhere north of ten million dollars over the course of those couple of years. Yeah, with the Marlins go that far to keep him, I would lean towards Probably not, but he's a guy that I'd seem, probably more so than anybody else, as a mid season extension candidate. The Marlins have given him more responsibility to pitching those high leverage situations than he's gotten from other teams, and so far really great here in twenty twenty three. I would think that there's some mutual interest in keeping him around. That has turned out pretty well. That trade to get him from the Dodgers in exchange for Alex Vessia and Kyle Hurt. It was a little bit of a rollercoaster in the beginning, considering that the Dodgers are liking their end of that deal as well for the most part. With Floro, Yeah, this is somebody that I think they would miss as much as you could miss a single reliever with somebody that gives you sixty innings a year. He's a standout guy. He is going to be I would say, widely covered did by a lot of teams if he does in fact hit the open market this upcoming offseason. That covers the unrestricted free agents. Now quickly to go through the guys that have options for twenty twenty four contract options, I'll pull them up one by one. I'll remind you that this whole premise is kind of predicated on Jorge Soilaire. We haven't covered Solair yet because he is in this bucket a player that when he signed with the Marlins originally a three year, thirty six million dollar deal, but with opt outs in between each year of that deal. After the twenty twenty two season, considering that he spent the entire second half of that year on the IL with a back end your issionary, and that he didn't hit to his normal standard twent he was even on the field, a fairly easy decision for Solaire to stick around in twenty twenty three, and so far in twenty twenty three, this is somebody that we circled as a prime bounce back candidate, a beneficiary of infield shifting being restricted. It has played out almost exactly the way that you would have wanted to for Solaer to this point in the season. He was entering this Wednesday's game hitting to thirty eight with a three seventeen OBP five h three slogging that's a one twenty one WRC plus twenty one percent better than the league average. Those numbers got a little bit better because for the second straight day he hit a bomb, and it wasn't a walk off this time on Wednesday, but it was another important situation that put them ahead to stay for the rest of that game.
00:22:39
Speaker 3: And since this one into left center field toward all the Nation alley, another home run for four pay solaire.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: For somebody that I think even last year, even when he had some hot stretches, it would seem that a lot of his production came in low leverage situations. That he was somebody you didn't necessarily love to have up against high quality pitching. This year, you need to give him some credit. You need to give him a lot of credit for being the player that the Marlins envisioned when they signed him to that deal coming off his World Series MVP. These are the contract details from Cotts contracts. On baseball perspectives, he's the highest paid Marlins player here in twenty twenty three, a fifteen million dollars salary. He once again has the opportunity to opt out after twenty twenty three. It's a player option next year base salary nine million dollars for sol Layer, but it does have these pretty substantial performance bonuses for plate appearances where he could get up to four million dollars additional on that salary just by getting played appearances next year, maxing out at five hundred and fifty plate appearances and starting at three fifty, so basically half a season gets him the first half million dollar bonus, and then it tax on from there with every fifty subsequent plate appearances. It's not as simple as saying can he beat nine million on the open market. It's taking into account that he's with a team that is playing him basically every single day that to this point in the year, with only a few exceptions, has been willing to hand over the DH spot to him and allow him to sit there, even though it does restrict what they can do with the rest of the roster. Shows you how much they believe in his bat to be worthy of that the high standard that comes with being a DH most of the time. So if he feels he is going to get that playing time here and he's playing in one of the few teams in states with no income tax, that helps you know that would that's a factor when he's comparing the offers that he might potentially get on the open market from other teams. He has his off season home in Miami as well. That was a factor bring him in in the first place, and that will need to considered moving forward. I think so when Craig Mish brought this up on Twitter, kind of under the assumption that Solare will be opting out of his deal because he has gone back to who he used to be. My initial gut feel was that it's possible. I'd give it slightly better than a coin flip chance that he opts out. I put it at fifty five percent. This was last week, and since then he's continued to be very productive, basically swinging this Nationals Marlin series single handedly. Like it's not an overstatement to say that he has won them. He won Tuesday's game basically all by himself, and at a huge end in Wednesdays as well. That he's not really showing any signs of cooling off. His batted ball quality is extraordinary, how frequently he's barreling the ball. That's the stuff that does generally paying free agency, even if you are going to be in your age thirty two season, even if you are going to be pretty heavily ud I think Skip Schumacher even specify that they don't they're not comfortable using him more than one day in a row on defense. So that just shows you, even more so than Garrett Cooper, you could say he's limited as to what he adds in that aspect of the game, just because of all the steps are taking to make sure that his back issues are not flaring up because of the way that he's used. So what's the Laire. This is going to take a while to play out. As we move along, I get slightly I see it as a likely possibility that he does test the open market, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Needs to stay healthy, needs to continue to be available as a defender on occasion when his team needs that spot opened up to give somebody else a half day off. In the mean sign the Marlins are thrilled with the production that Solaire is giving them. Is I think will be partially affected by how these other corner outfielders performed the rest of this year when Hayesus Sanchez is healthy, how much Sayes Brian Delacruz stay on his hot streaks, and whether Piyden Burdick proves that he is a viable major leaguer as well. They feel good enough about those younger pre arbitration players and feel that they can sort of emulate his production or come somewhere close to it, that it's easier to let sold their walk, But that's going to be a fascinating storyline to follow the rest of the season. Sickon with two others that have options as well. That was a player option for so Layer with a club option. There's Matt Barnes, acquired in that trade from the Boston Red Sox in a deal where they made a cash neutral. His salary was higher for twenty twenty three than Richard Blier was. The Red Sox threw in money to even it up. Yeah, the Red Sox paying the majority of the money that was left on his contract at the time of the d and the club option for next year eight million, with a two point twenty five million dollar buyout on Barns so with him. His performance this year has been fine. I noticed that the fastball velocity was down early in the year. That has gone back up to an appropriate level for somebody of his pitching style. Still, I don't see the strikeouts coming back to what they used to be. Is somebody that is going to have to rely on pitching the contact more than he's accustomed to. Head this year, his strikeout rate is twenty one point three percent, slightly lower than the major league average and well below the major League average for relievers a three seven eight ERA four point three eight FIP. He is, you know, at this point, a run of the mill middle reliever for a team right now, run of the mill middle reliever's not going to be somebody that you pay eight million dollars to in twenty twenty four. I think that's highly probable that they end up declining that club option. But so far fitting in pretty well with this Marlins clubhouse. We saw that firsthand when he appeared on What a Relief on the Same Fish on First podcast channel. You can listen back to see that conversation with him. Yeah, he's an asset to the organization, just not one that is commeserate with the terms of his contract and his club option for twenty twenty four. I think there's a pretty good chance that Barnes is a one and done with this Marlins organization and finally the same well, it's also a club option. The player here that has fallen the farthest short of what the Marlins expected of him this year has to be Johnny Quato. Signed to a one year, eight point five million dollar in the off season, six million of that paid out this season, and then two point five, his club option for next year. I had forgotten about all these performance bonuses that if he was mostly healthy, whether as a starter or as a reliever, the Marlins weren't going to chip on some extra money in here. Fifty thousand for twenty five starts and seventy five thousand if you get reached his twenty eight starts. Even that lowest threshold is completely out of reach now due to subsequent injuries, back to back injuries, or should say kind of concurrent injuries. First the biceps issue, then the ankle issue. When he was rehabbing the biceps issue at Triple A. With him, he's been one game for the Marlins, one injury shortened game. He can't even guarantee that there's going to be a second game at this point because he's still far away from getting back from the ankle issue. It's just, you know, the the reading between the lines the team is just disappoint pointed in Quato in how he just didn't seem that he prepared for this season with the same type of work ethic that he had in his previous seasons. At thirty seven years old, maybe he was just not as motivated to get ready as he was earlier in his career, before he had really established himself, and for a team that even now and certainly at this point, has very little margin for error with their starting pitching situation because of the number of guys that went down due to injuries, they thought Cuato coming off the year that he had in Chicago would be a reliable workhorse for them, not a star pitcher by any means, just somebody that would be available for them, somebody that would be able to share some best practices with the younger pitchers in this organization, and that has just not panned out whatsoever for him. So this one trending towards being a bust at this point. Yet the wonder, at least in the near term, the simple solution is going to be moving him to the sixty day injured list to keep him off a forty man roster, and are sure he's going to make his way back onto the forty man before the end of the year, or are they going to reach a point where they just don't believe in his ability to contribute to the team and maybe they just cut their losses before we even get to the end of twenty twenty three. It's been the unfortunate turn of events for him because there was a lot of enthusiasm for Quato and for everything that he brings, for the track record he brings, and for the swag that he brings, and uh yeah, it just has been a bust for him with this Marlins team in twenty twenty three. So as we've covered, all these guys, aside from so Laier and Solo, Letter and Floro have been the ones that have been stars and critical pieces of this team so far in twenty twenty three, and everybody else somewhere on that spectrum from being useless to being just a run of the mill role player. I think it's safe to assume that several of these players won't be back in twenty twenty three. And really the bigger question is exactly whether they make it through the year, and yeah, how will the Marlins go about transitioning players of more long term control into these prominent roles as the season goes on in case these guys get hurt or in case they struggle, and potentially whether this is a team even if they're in contention midway through the year, they and certainly if they fall out of contention, you have to look at some of these players as trade candidates in order to salvage something. As positive as things are going in the win column for the Marlins in twenty twenty three, well, I mean they're still looking down to the farm system. This is still not a really deep organization. This is one that still needs to do things to ensure that they have a sustainable future, that they have waves of talent coming up through the organizations. A thin organization, even as there are some star players on the major league roster that you're really excited about. And that's why some of these decisions probably can't wait until the offseason. They need to be really open and potentially aggressive in terms of initiating extension talks of players that they think are important to the team's future. Yeah. I personally, if they could get Dylan Floro at a reasonable deal, a slightly below market deal somehow, if it's like two years with a club option for twenty twenty six and the guarantee is in the ten million range or maybe slightly above that, I think that's something that the team should consider and get out in front of. And so layer that's going to be a tricky one in terms of what exactly he's looking for. It does make me worry about committing to somebody that is mostly a DH and who potentially will always be a DH moving forward. That just really limits what you could do with the rest of your roster, and it puts so much pressure on him to perform exactly the way he is right now in terms of both overall production and high leverage production with him. So that's one where I can imagine it's probably gonna wait until after the season and with the Marlins getting an inside track in order to resign him for twenty twenty four and beyond. So I hope you appreciated this overview here on the official show. Yeah, I'm gonna have a separate video with my interview with Carson Millbrands. Really good conversation with him, and because of some of the audio recording of it, not all of it was publishable in video and audio form for you guys. Instead, I'm gonna be sure to write up the complete transcripts that between him and I and you'll get to listen to most of this here on the pod. So that's right here on the other side of this break or in the adjacent video, depending on where you're watching here speaking to nineteen year old right hander Carson mill Brandt here on the Official Show. Yeah. One of the top pitching prospects in this Marlins organization and one who I'm really excited to follow his journey moving forward. So thanks for listening to what we do here on Fish Trips. I'm Elis Susman. Go Phish, enjoy the interview. A special guest joins me here on the official Show. In the third rounds of the twenty twenty two MLB Draft, the Miami Marlins selected right handed pitcher Carson mill Brandt out of Liberty High School in Liberty, Missouri. Mil brand is working his way up through the Marlins minor league system. He's a member right now of the Jupiter Hammerheads starting rotation projectable nineteen year olds. He's trying to become the latest impact Major leaguer to come up through this great Marlins pitching development pipeline. Thanks for taking the time to talk, Carson.
00:37:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:37:24
Speaker 1: I was talking right here on an off day before getting into you specifically, I wanted to get your reaction to a news just a few days ago the Marlins called up Uri Perez all the way from Double A straight to the majors. He's only a year older than you are. I'm wondering what it is. What do you think when you see somebody that's almost your age already pitching important endings in the major leagues?
00:37:44
Speaker 4: You know, it's crazy. First of all, he's an awesome guy.
00:37:48
Speaker 2: We reported January fifteenth for early camp and he was there and you know, like he obviously doesn't speak a lot of English, but it's like you can you have conversations with them, but like it's so cool to just watch him like throw his bullpens. Are just honestly watching him go about his business like he handles it very professionally, and you know, you watching him throw pens and you're like, that guy's he's a major league pitcher, Like he has all the tools. It's just it's awesome to see. It's really cool.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: Yerie top prospecting this organization and made pretty impresive in his debut so far. So yeah, by the time this episode comes out, I'll probably making his second start with the big league team too. Now, i' mean going back to you, there's lots of cover here on you. Just going back to the beginning, do you remember how old you were when you became a pitcher and what it is that made you want to focus on that.
00:38:37
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So like I honestly, well, growing up, basketball was my main sport. I was all in basketball. But then obviously, like reality hit and I was like a five six point guard on the B team, so I was like, you know, basketball is probably not the way to go.
00:38:51
Speaker 4: But uh, my freshman year, I got a.
00:38:53
Speaker 2: Few innings on varsity and I was like, you know, I really started to enjoy it. You know, I had a really good team, really good coaches my fresh and you're at school. So ever since like freshman years, that's neever, I started to like, you know, I kind of realized I was better at pitching and just kind of worked on it then and I really enjoyed it.
00:39:10
Speaker 1: So it really wasn't that long ago relative some of the other guys that were just coming out of the draft this past year. Is there any particular MLB pitchers that back then or even now that you try to pattern your game after that you think you have a lot in common with.
00:39:24
Speaker 4: Uh, growing It was actually kind of funny.
00:39:28
Speaker 2: So like when I was in sixth grade with the Royals from Kansas City obviously, So I watched a lot of Royals games. Johnny Quato he was really that was kind of like I loved watching him throw. I'd go to a lot of his starts whenever. I think it was like sixth or seventh grade. But they won the World Series and so, like I saw the parade, saw him. But it's actually really funny because it was with the Marlins now, so I saw that spring training and all that, and it was just it was so cool to see that.
00:39:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might see him around super sometimes soon because he's in the middle of rehabbing an injury right now. Yeah, that is That is a funny coincidence with him. So a few years later, you made pretty rapid progress from that freshman year in order to become a really legit draft candidate right out of high school. But you were committed to go to Vanderbilt. We've talked to there's been a bunch of guys in the exact same position that you're in that have gone on to have careers in the Marlins organization. Like half of them go to Vanderbilt. The other half they get the offer they like and they turn pro right away. It's kind of fifty to fifty even guys in this organization that I've talked to, could you just lead us through that whole decision process, you know, leading up to the draft and then yeah, making the call to turn pro a couple weeks later.
00:40:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:40:38
Speaker 2: So my mom and my family is like very important to me, and they're they're always you know, usually ask for their opinion, but like this time, there's like, you know, pray to God, like whatever feels best for you.
00:40:50
Speaker 4: You go with that, Like you go with that, that that route.
00:40:53
Speaker 2: But uh, I was actually at Vanderbilt for a week and a few days taking a summer class and before I flew home for the draft, So I got that taste to college, you know, moved into my dorm, really liked it. Vanderbilt was awesome. But uh, and the end decision, you know, I got drafted. I really liked the number and pulled the trigger on it, and I'm really happy I did well.
00:41:16
Speaker 1: The thing that you mentioned there about already going to Vandy and taking the summer class is this has kind of been some of a controversy the last few years where they moved the draft date. It's a little later than it used to be, so it creates that awkward situation whereas you said, you're already like proceeding as if you might go to college and you don't know yet, the draft hasn't come yet, and now you get the reverse course and you're allowed to do that. I'm sure from your perspective and other guys you may have talked to, do you think it is you think it'd make more sense the drafts kind of moved back earlier the way that it used to be in June instead of pretty deep into July.
00:41:47
Speaker 4: You think, because like it is, it was.
00:41:49
Speaker 2: It was super weird because I had to I moved in and then a week later I moved out of my dorm. But like while I was there with like Sal Stewart, Brandon, Barry Era and other people that did the same thing that I did.
00:41:59
Speaker 4: So it's it's definitely, it's definitely weird, for sure.
00:42:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be easier selfishly from my perspective. They moved it to line it up with the All Star events now on the calendar, and it's like everything is happening at once, and sometimes the draft gets buried underneath all the major league stuff just because they did that. I'm not a fan of it.
00:42:17
Speaker 4: I'm a fan of ye.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Now getting more to the technical part of it, your pitch mix. You have a pretty deep pitch mix for a guy that is relatively new to pitching and new to pro ball. Could you lead us through, you know, each of the different pitches that you have in your arsenal, in the situations that you like to use them, how they kind of play off each other.
00:42:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I got a fastball, curveball, change up, and then sometimes my curveball moves like a slider, so people think it's a slider, but the whole time it's a curveball. But yeah, so like and the mix kind of you know, it's it's kind of new to me, and it's it's kind of something new because you can't just go you know, it's not high school you can just blow fastballs by people, Like, so it's I'm kind of learning how to use my pitches. But uh, obviously, like you have to fastball up, curveball down, or if like it's kind of reading swings, so you'll like, I.
00:43:06
Speaker 4: Gotta follow a fastball back.
00:43:07
Speaker 2: You're like, all that guy's on it, Like I probably should throw it again, so like slow down his bat with the change up or his bath to change up.
00:43:13
Speaker 4: So it's like and our our pitching coach name is dish He does.
00:43:17
Speaker 2: A really good job of helping me with that, so it's like it's kind of new to me, but I'm slowly figuring it out right.
00:43:23
Speaker 1: That's pitching coach Glenn Dishman out with Jupiter for people that aren't familiar with him. From what I'm seeing, that fastball has been your primary pitch, using it maybe almost two thirds of the time in the games that we've had tracked in in Jupiter and in Low eight so far. I mean, which of the individual pitches do you think would you call your favorite at this point and is there any particular one that this season you're focused most on developing, improving, getting more consistent with.
00:43:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, so obviously my favorite, it's gotta be the fastball. I really love my fastball. I like to I can place it pretty much anywhere I want like it. But uh, we worked on my change up a lot this spring training in early camp, and that's slowly becoming one of my favorite pitches.
00:44:09
Speaker 4: It's just because it's kind of new, and whenever I throw like a good one, it's it's a really good feeling because it's kind of like relief or like, oh, I've been working on that for so long. I sure a good one, you know, so I just feels so good.
00:44:20
Speaker 1: That's a specialty of the Marlins Org. I'm sure you're aware that, of guys developing them pretty quickly and becoming somebody like Santi al Contra all of a sudden it became his very best pitch last year when he broke out and won the Sie Young as a pitch they didn't even have when he was your age. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of examples of that of guys like getting They usually tell me that it's just a certain number of reps. Right after a while, you just throw it as much as possible, maybe play catch with it more often than you used to, and then eventually it just clicks. Is that what you're kind of figuring out?
00:44:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like it's like, I've never really threw a change up in high school. There's no reason to throw a change up, but here it's it's like the first week they had me here, had me pick out a grip.
00:45:00
Speaker 4: He's like, what feels comfortable to you?
00:45:02
Speaker 2: So just had my grip and then Yeah, just throwing it a ton That's like the best.
00:45:07
Speaker 4: Way to develop.
00:45:08
Speaker 2: It's just throw It's like it's I threw it like all the time in spring training, and like they even tell you that, like I don't care if it's over the guy's head. I don't care if he hits it at five hundred feet. You know, you can't develop it if you don't throw it.
00:45:19
Speaker 4: So gotcha.
00:45:22
Speaker 1: We're here with carsonvill Brant here on the Official Show, getting back to your fastball sitting about ninety four so far from what I've seen in games this season, and more so than the velo. It's about the movement that you get on this pitch, both the late life that you have both horizontally to the arm side and then the way that it dips sorts the ends. It's pretty terrific. Like just it just measures out pretty similar to a lot of major league caliber fastballs that we've seen out there. Even as young as you are, do you have any like theories as to why it is you get that great late life on it that all of a sudden, that that great, great movement that you get that is ready serving you pretty good right now, But even moving forward, it gives you so much potential with that pitch.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I honestly have no idea. I just kind of throw. It's like a normal fastball. But I do have huge hands, so some of like all my coaches, I've always said, like, you're like, the ball looks really small in my hands, so they could be the big hands.
00:46:21
Speaker 4: I honestly have no idea. Interesting.
00:46:25
Speaker 1: Interesting, Yeah, the hand size, that's something that comes up more and talking about football quarterbacks and the way that they forbid in that way. Yeah, they in baseball. Yeah, it gives up. There are certain guys I know with all speed pitches where if you have really long fingers, maybe that will help you. But you think it's just your overall hand size.
00:46:42
Speaker 2: I have no idea. If I fixed anything, i'd say it's hand size. It's just a normal for team. But obviously, like I've heard, it spends really good and it's got a good movement.
00:46:53
Speaker 1: Got it. Now, talking about pitching at the low A level, the way that you're doing right now, I'm just curious about what it's like preparing for those starts and what it is that you're trying to achieve in those starts, because the goal is different than obviously at the higher higher levels of baseball, it's prioritizing developments, whether more so than actually sometimes even more so than actually winning or losing the games. Is there, and you're also pitching it at a level where it's it's hooked up to a lot of the same stat tracking that we get in the majors. So if you really want to, like you can get all these details about the way that you're throwing the ball and the analytics behind that, and the same thing with all the opponents that you're facing. Yeah, how much do you dive into those numbers when you're either preparing for a start or when you're like evaluating what you did after the fact.
00:47:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, so before the start.
00:47:44
Speaker 2: I throw on Fridays, So we first game of the series is twoues today, So I watched three games and I book the game before I throw, So it's kind of like I don't really dig dig into like the numbers that they're hitting, but it's you can kind of see it. But after it's actually really cool because like it is, there is a lot of like data and stuff on my pitches throughout like the game, So that's really cool to see and you can kind of see where it plays, like maybe why the guy hit this pitch, or maybe I shouldn't have thrown that pitch at this time.
00:48:15
Speaker 4: So that's kind of cool to see.
00:48:16
Speaker 1: That stuff in Aside from that, I noticed that you made your Jupiter debut it was less September and you were throwing to Cameron Barstead in that game, and for most of your starts this year you were thrown to Barstead as well. He recently got moved up to high A. I'm wondering from a pitcher's perspective, when you have a guy that you're familiar with, that you work with a lot, and all of a sudden working with a different catcher because of reasons kind of outside your control. Yeah, how does that affect things? That having a different How does that How what is the value of that relationship went right now? And like how does it change when you have a different catcher all of a sudden responsible for you the next time out?
00:48:54
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:48:54
Speaker 2: I see Barsad's awesome. He's he knows how to call a game. He's very good at what he does. He's really good behind the play. We were like we'd go out to launch our breakfast, you know, we'd hang out a lot I had Sam Prydor. Yeah, but it's you know, it's kind of the same thing. It's like kind of a different bill behind the play. But they're both very good at what they do, and I like them a lot.
00:49:15
Speaker 1: In terms of other things, such as your total pitch count, how many innings you're going to go, you're in an interesting spot where the team obviously once you develop as much as possible, but they understand that you're not used to throwing a certain number of innings. So for a season that started in April, and as you mentioned, you've been early camp started in January, Like, there's a certain limit I guess where by the end of the year. They want to make sure that you don't go too far. So is that stuff communicated to you in advance too, like how many how far you're allowed to go in this particular game, or do you just go as far as you can until they say it's enough.
00:49:48
Speaker 2: It's like five innings, they want you to go five innings or seventy five pitches, But I've thrown more than seventy five pitches, so you can you can kind of bend the line.
00:49:58
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, So that's Carson mill Brandt He's going to be featured right in the middle of our upcoming Fish Stripes Top thirty list of top prospects in this organization. Somebuddy that like the numbers and the IT tests are like really trending in your way right now from what I've been able to see when you pitching in Jupiter. And Yeah, I'm actually gonna have some of my staff out there in Jupiter to cover some of the games. I don't I think they're gonna miss you. I think they're going to go on Jacob Miller Day on Saturday, just because of the way that the schedule lined up now. But this is really insightful, Carson. I appreciate you coming on with me. They were keeping tracking super closely the rest of this year. Only nineteen years old and it's it's really exciting to have you in the Marlins organization. Thanks a lot for taking the time for this.
00:50:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was awesome.
00:50:43
Speaker 1: So I've been eli Susman here on the official show on the fish on First podcast channel. Subscribe to us wherever you get your pods and check out Carson if you're in the Jupiter area. Most of we were in the South Florida area, just make the drive up. Plenty of available seats to see him pitch on most Fridays, Yeah, throughout this entire season. So that's gonna do it for us. Go fish m
