Yuli Gurriel aims for Opening Day with the Marlins

March 28, 2023

In just four days a new Major League season will begin and several circuits of the MLB farm system will also start. These days both major league and minor league teams are putting their pieces together ahead of the start of the season and many players are released from their contracts.

Recently Yuli Gurriel and José Iglesias signed minor league contracts with the Miami Marlins and were invited to Spring Training to be evaluated by the team's management and front office.

Just a few hours ago the General Manager of the organization (Kim) commented on the team's radio broadcast that Yuli Gurriel should be on the opening day roster, meanwhile José Iglesias will not start in the Opening Day roster, but will remain with the organization.

 

Yuli has not had a good Spring Training, but has been improving in recent games. He has been used as a starter and as a designated hitter, batting .227, with five hits in 22 at-bats and one RBI.

For Yuli it will be his first season after seven years with the Houston Astros. Evaluating his future at 38-39 years old is a bit complicated, even so, we knew he could find work at the Major League level, after an rWAR of 3.7 in 2021 to a -0.3 in the following season, decreasing his production in 2022 with an OPS of 647 (the lowest of his MLB career), the former Yokohama DeNA BayStars of the NPB, showed great recovery in the last postseason contributing to Dusty Baker's first title as manager.

In October, Yuli batted .347 (49 AB, 17 H) with 2 HRs (let's remember that in the 2019 campaign he hit 30+ HRs!) and a BABIP of .326, striking out just once throughout the entire playoff, with more than 40 consecutive PAs without strikeouts, ball in play, Ok! While it is true that it is a small sample compared to that of an entire season, Gurriel showed that he was not finished and that he could still contribute at that level.