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Sunday, Aug 16th, 2013

Jake Marisnick plays tremendous defense out in center field for the Marlins.

Sam Evans ( Baseball Writer and Marlins, Mariners Correspondent): Follow @RJA206

It’s been almost an entire month since the Miami Marlins called up star prospects Christian Yelich and Jake Marisnick from Double-A. Since then, the two outfielders have seen plenty of playing time for the Major League Club.

The two have posted very different and interesting results facing the best pitchers they’ve ever seen.

Both of them have struggled with strikeouts and walks, but Yelich has been able to hit for average and Marisnick has not.

While they both have under 200 combined at bat’s, the Marlins have been able to get a close-up look at both players and start to see how they will fit into their future outfield.

Behind Enemy Lines: Jake Marisnick Suns Outfielder

It’s fair to say that Christian Yelich probably has one of the sweeter left-handed swings in baseball since Ken Griffey Jr. retired.

Despite Marisnick having a far superior season in Double-A, Yelich has always stole most of the spotlight from him, due to his vast variety of tools.

Yelich has developed quite the reputation among scouts and talent evaluators for his future hit tool, sweet left-handed swing, and his ample athleticism.

The Marlins called him up after he finally appeared to be healthy and so far, the promotion has paid off. Yelich is hitting an impressive .299/.346/.392 in 104 plate appearances with 1 HR and two stolen bases.

However, he has only walked 6.7% of the time and he’s striking a little over 21% of the time. It would be nice to see Yelich cut down on the strikeouts and work pitchers a little bit more, but it’s hard to be critical of the sterling start he’s had so far in Miami. 

Jake Marisnick has not had the start to his Major League career that a lot of the Marlins organization had been hoping for, and even expecting.

In 298 plate appearances with Double-A Jacksonville this season, he hit .294/.358/.502 with 12 HR and 11 stolen bases.

However, once he was promoted to the Majors, Marisnick has only hit .200/.250/.253 in 84 plate appearances – with 1 HR and two stolen bases.

While Marisnick has never been as promising of a batting average leader as Yelich, the disappearance of his power in the Majors has been very surprising.

It has been a very small sample size and he is still very young, so there’s definitely no reason for the franchise’s fans to get too worried about Marisnick’s slow start.

Jake Marisnick is still looking like he is in line to become the Marlins center fielder of the future. 

Christian Yelich, plus the aforementioned,  are both vital to the future of the Miami Marlins organization.

Marisnick’s rangy defense and power will make him a center fielder that other teams hate to face.

Yelich’s ability to hit for average and line-drive power coupled with his speed should guarantee himself a spot in the middle of the Marlins lineup for years to come.

The Marlins are lucky to have these two (in addition to Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna) in their future, and I’m sure that their first month in the Majors won’t play too much in what the ckubs thinks of them.

It’s been a rough month for Marisnick, and just a pretty good month for Yelich, but both of them still have a lot of talent that has yet to be exposed to the baseball world. 

Christian Yelich is so talented that this offseason some made the case that he was a better prospect than Jose Fernandez.

*** The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com and their partners***

A big thank-you goes out to our ‘Marlins and Mariners Correspondent’ Sam Evans for preparing today’s featured article. Sam is a high school student from the Seattle area.

 He is a longtime Mariners fan, and has been an off-and-on season ticket holder for the last five years.

Sam enjoys interacting with readers and digging beneath the surface to find the truth in baseball.  Sam was our 2nd Intern who has graduated to the position of  Baseball Writer. For all of Sam’s archived articles- click here.

You can follow Sam on Twitter: Sam Also writes for the Marlins website Fish Stripes. Follow @RJA206

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