Kim Ng: ‘It was time’ for Marlins to move on from Brian Anderson. Plus more roster talk

While the Miami Marlins have not gained traction so far at MLB’s Winter Meetings, which end Wednesday, the club did make its share of transactions in the month of November.

Not tendering a contract to the team’s longest-tenured homegrown player.

A trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for a reliever with MLB experience and a top prospect.

Adding four relief pitcher prospects and a handful of players who had season-ending injuries back to the 40-man roster at the expense of depth players.

General manager Kim Ng, speaking to local reporters Tuesday for the first time since those transactions took place, explained how those moves came about.

Here are the highlights.

Non-tendering Brian Anderson

The Marlins opted to non-tender a contract to third baseman/outfielder Brian Anderson, who was heading into his final year of arbitration and was projected to have a 2023 salary of $5.2 million.

That, relatively speaking, is a steep price for the Marlins to pay for a player who at this point would not have had a defined role heading into 2023 and has had trouble staying on the field lately.

Anderson, a third-round pick in the 2014 MLB Draft and the longest-tenured homegrown player on Miami’s MLB roster, played 165 games during the past two seasons. He went on the injured list six times in that span — three times with a left shoulder injury, once with a left oblique strain, once with lower back spasms and once after testing positive for COVID-19.

He is a career .256 hitter with 57 home runs, 233 RBI, 106 doubles and 249 runs scored in 531 games and was a Gold Glove Award finalist at third base in 2020.

But Anderson only hit .222 with a .311 on-base percentage and .346 slugging mark — all career lows — in 2022.

“Sometimes,” Ng said, “the arbitration system is not favorable to certain kinds of players. We just felt that it was time.”

Injured players taking roster spots

Miami had eight players finish the season on the 60-day injured list. That included five pitchers — Max Meyer, Anthony Bender, Paul Campbell, Sean Guenther and Cody Poteet — who underwent Tommy John surgery, a sixth pitcher in Jordan Holloway who also underwent a season-ending surgery, second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. (lower back/knee) and outfielder Jorge Soler (back/pelvis).

The Marlins added Meyer, Bender, Poteet, Chisholm and Soler back to the 40-man roster shortly after the World Series ended.

Chisholm and Soler are both expected to be ready to play for the 2023 season. Meyer, Bender and Poteet are not expected to pitch next season.

But players can not be put back on the 60-day injured list, which frees up a 40-man spot, until after spring training starts. That means Miami will not be able to use the three spots held by Meyer, Bender or Poteet until mid-February.

It’s a calculated risk. The Marlins believe those three will help the club long-term, so they are willing to hold onto them and then figure out what decisions need to be made later.

As for the other three, the team outrighted Campbell to Triple A Jacksonville; Guenther was claimed off waivers by the Detroit Tigers; Holloway elected free agency.

“Some of those situations resolved themselves,” Ng said, “but I think that sort of goes to the point of just how banged up we were this past year.”

The Rays trade

The only true external additions the Marlins have made to their roster so far this offseason came in a Nov. 15 trade with the Rays, acquiring reliever JT Chargois and infield prospect Xavier Edwards for pitcher prospects Marcus Johnson and Santiago Suarez.

Chargois adds bullpen depth, which is one of the Marlins’ offseason goals. He has a career 3.54 ERA with 155 strikeouts against 57 walks over 155 2/3 innings.

“He helps fortify the bullpen a bit,” Ng said.

Edwards is a 23-year-old switch-hitter who was the Rays’ No. 4 overall prospect according to MLB Pipeline and ranks 16th in Miami’s system. He has a career .300 batting average in the minor leagues and spent all of 2022 with the Rays’ Triple A affiliate, the Durham Bulls.

Ng noted the Marlins like his ability to play multiple positions around the infield as well as his “good control of the strike zone.”

Adding four reliever prospects to 40-man

In addition to acquiring Chargois, Miami added four relief pitcher prospects to the 40-man roster in Sean Reynolds, Josh Simpson, Eli Villalobos and George Soriano.

Simpson, a lefty and the team’s 32nd-round pick from the 2019 MLB Draft, is the only ranked prospect of the quartet, checking in as the club’s No. 28 overall prospect according to MLB Pipeline. All four finished the season in Triple A.

Ng said relief pitching was a notable strength for the organization in the minor leagues last season, with “guys with pure stuff and really good arms.”

“I think at least a couple of them can help us in 2023,” Ng said.

Other players lost

All of these moves had a ripple effect throughout the roster.

Among players no longer in the organization: Pitchers Elieser Hernandez, Jeff Brigham, Cole Sulser and Nick Neidert; first baseman Lewin Diaz; and utility player Luke Williams.

“It was definitely a juggle,” Ng said. “We got through it. We knew for a long time we were gonna need to get through that situation.”