Are you tired of Miami Marlins depth moves? Here’s one more!

Yet another depth move by the Miami Marlins took place today. The Fish have been making depth moves the last few days. Are you excited to hear about yet another one? OK all jokes aside, depth is very important and I’m not saying that it’s bad. It’s just frustrating to keep waiting for big moves before we get to Spring Training. We should still look at every depth move and see if it’s likely to help the team.

RHP Darren McGaughan is coming over to the Miami Marlins from the Seattle Mariners. The 27 year old righty debuted for Seattle back in 2021. He produced an abysmal 8.00 ERA/8.73 FIP, with 2.0 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 in 2 games and 9.0 innings pitched. One of those games was a start. It was obviously a terrible performance, but it was also his debut so there was a chance for him to improve on these results.

It took until last season for Darren to make his Major League return. This time he produced a 5.40 ERA/3.66 FIP, with 18.0 K/9 and 5.4 BB/9, in 3 games and 5.0 innings pitched. He was strictly a reliever during those games. This time you could see an improvement in his strikeout rate and his FIP. He wasn’t very impressive in AAA, where he produced a 5.83 ERA, with 8.4 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 25 games and 139.0 innings pitched. All of those games were actually starts.

I’m curious to see what Darren McCaughan will bring to the table in 2024. He will be pitching depth for both the rotation and the bullpen. We’ll see how good he will actually be, but there’s at least some promise.

To make room for McGaughan, The Fish designated OF Peyton Burdick for assignment. Burdick batted .200/.281/.333 over 46 games and 139 AB over two seasons in 2022 and 2023. Burdick hasn’t been much better in the Minors, so it doesn’t look like the team will miss him that much. Let’s hope that in the next few days we hear of a more impactful Miami Marlins move.