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Please see our player page for Jakob Marsee to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.

Having opened the season on a nine-game losing streak, the Marlins started swimming against the current early in 2024 and have apparently grown tired of the effort, swapping almost two full seasons of Luis Arraez for a package of four decent Padres’ prospects: OF Dillon Head, OF Jakob Marsee, 1B Nathan Martorella, and RHP Woo-Suk Go. The Marlins will reportedly also cover Arraez’s salary (down the minimum) for 2024. It’s the first big move by Miami’s new head of baseball operations, Peter Bendix, who comes to South Beach via Tampa and has experienced his fair share of high-wire trades. On the other side of the country, we find AJ Preller doing what he does best, flipping an assortment of imperfect prospects for someone he can play tomorrow. 

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It’s tricky business reacting to spring training outcomes. Veterans are working on their game, treating reps like practice, while youngsters and journeymen are striving to make a good impression. That doesn’t negate all the outcomes, of course, but I feel a little silly reading sentences about how a player looks based on a week of half-games, and I feel even sillier writing them. Nonetheless, playing time is up for grabs, and small samples or not, guys are proving themselves worthy (or unworthy) of season-opening opportunities, so we can’t just play ostrich and ignore the new realities revealing themselves. 

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It’s 2:58 on Friday afternoon. Should be primetime real estate for escapism, but here I am staring at Dennis Franz’s naked ass. 

That’s not true, but it might as well be because I’m actually looking at a 15-team dynasty draft room. There’s six hours left on what was an eight-hour draft clock. The team that has the power to move us forward timed out last time and feels likely to time out again. Another serial offender timed out earlier today after carrying over the first two of eight-hour clock from last night, so the league has seen two picks in the last 20 hours. We’re close to the end, but it’s never felt further  away. 

Games were not designed to be played this way, but there’s no easy fix to this flaw in the design of dynasty leagues. Even in redraft leagues with fairly high entry fees, people fart around and people time out. The problem feels magnified in dynasty partly because it tends to be the usual suspects year over year. 

It wasn’t all bad though. First-Year-Player Draft season is mostly great. Or at least it should be. Here’s how it’s gone for me. 

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Please clap for Busch’s slash line of .323/.431/.618 with 27 home runs across 98 Triple-A games in 2023. Now that he’s out of Los Angeles and being all but handed the first base gig in Chicago, he can finally stop faking second base and fully flower as a hitter. Or so goes the thinking that led the Cubs to acquire him, anyway. 

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1. SS Jackson Merrill | 20 | AA | 2024 

Supreme contact skills from the left side give Merrill a fantastic base from which to develop his game over the next decade. He struck out just 62 times in 114 games across two levels last year, posting a 111 wRC+ in High-A and a 104 in Double-A despite being 4.3 years younger than the league average age. He’ll open in Triple-A and could look ready for the majors in April. There’s a chance the club trades Ha-Seong Kim and/or Jake Cronenworth this winter and opens an early avenue for Merrill.

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Like Jackie Daytona in Tucson, Arizoña, Fall baseball is timeless. The playoffs are great, for sure, especially whenever it looks Houston is on the outs, but it’s not just the biggest stars on the brightest stage that make this season special. The Arizona Fall League provides a chance for youngsters from all levels to get another few cracks at the bat before winter, another few sweepers and spiked curveballs in their efforts to become blood-thirsty creatures of the night, baseball-wise. 

Padres OF Jakob Marsee got hotter and hotter throughout the regular season and is enjoying the chance to keep cooking under the desert sun, slashing .475/.569/.825 with ten strikeouts, eight walks, seven steals and two home runs. San Diego’s outfield picture is a little cloudy right now, but we should be able to (mar)see it much more clearly closer to spring. 

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I’ve been thinking about the pitch clock a lot this week. Went from a huge, over-the-line-smoky deal to oh-yeah-the-pitch-clock in record time. Been wondering if the clock could take center stage again for a moment or two during the playoffs. Also been thinking about what other rule changes could follow that path. The extra inning runner should move to first base, particularly in the new steals-happy paradigm. Fans remember big postseason steals because they’re fun. Dave Roberts spun a whole managing career out of knowing how to snag that key bag. Even if we wind up with a couple more 14-inning slumber parties, the game would feel more just, which I think fans would appreciate over the long haul. I don’t mind the idea of a shootout type scenario and understand how we got to the ghost runner, but people might prefer a home run derby if we’re doing that, which feels pretty far from quote-unquote real baseball. 

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