MIAMI – Peter Bendix hadn’t planned on leaving the Tampa Bay Rays, even when he to start with uncovered the Miami Marlins ended up intrigued in possessing him lead their group.
Bendix had expended his total 15-12 months Major League Baseball career in the Rays’ front office, to begin with as an intern in 2009. He labored his way up to starting to be the team’s senior vice president of baseball growth, then typical supervisor, a place he held considering that December 2021.
Tampa Bay experienced grow to be his house. The team was his spouse and children. And he couldn’t see anything prying him absent.
“I am great exactly where I am, definitely,” Bendix recalled considering when he acquired of the Marlins’ fascination. “I had a phenomenal problem with the Rays, been there for 15 years, had a whole lot of results, worked with phenomenal persons. … The strategy of not doing the job there anymore, it needed to be the actual appropriate situation with the suitable individuals in put, frankly, with the right operator.”
But in a offer that came alongside one another in just a couple of weeks, the Marlins confident Bendix to leave Tampa Bay to turn out to be their new president of baseball operations. The Marlins introduced the employing previous week, and Bendix was formally introduced by the staff at its ballpark on Monday as the 3rd president in club history.
What changed?
“I talked to Bruce,” Bendix said Monday, referring to Miami’s chairman and principal operator Bruce Sherman.
Through a using the services of course of action that Bendix described as “complete,” his ease and comfort with the thought of a career change grew as he understood that the two he and Sherman’s ideas were being pretty much correctly aligned.
“And that was ample to get me to say, ‘You know what, if I’m likely to leave an great circumstance. It has to be the perfect fit,'” Bendix said. “And this is a best in good shape.”
Sherman said that Bendix was “a single of numerous, numerous” names that the Marlins sifted via during their research for a new chief.
Bendix will take over the division formerly overseen by Kim Ng, who had been Miami’s standard supervisor for three seasons. Ng remaining previous thirty day period immediately after she and Sherman could not agree on the framework of the division likely ahead the Marlins had exercised a deal solution to maintain Ng in 2024, but Ng declined.
“I was hoping Kim would remain,” Sherman explained. “I would like Kim nothing but the ideal. Fantastic lady. Not dropped on me, we’re in the playoffs, and I consider she’ll be just fantastic. We experienced several hours and several hours and several hours of conversations, Kim and I. She produced the election not to keep on. I respect that conclusion she built.”
Ng had a hand in constructing a roster that put Miami in the playoffs for the to start with time considering that the pandemic-shortened 2020 year and the 1st time in a comprehensive year considering that the Marlins won the 2003 Globe Sequence. Miami shed to Philadelphia in the Wild Card Collection final month.
The 38-year-old Bendix, a graduate of Tufts, outdoors Boston, has been aspect of a Tampa Bay crew that has furnished a blueprint for reliable results for nearly a 10 years. The Rays have designed the playoffs in every of the past five seasons and have baseball’s fourth-ideal normal-year record around that span, driving the Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston and Atlanta. Tampa Bay missing in the wild card spherical this 12 months to eventual winner Texas.
The Rays’ results has appear with a payroll that continually ranks amongst the bottom 3rd of the 30 teams, with lots of clubs spending at minimum $100 million additional than Tampa Bay each calendar year. The Marlins are one more workforce that just isn’t among the the league’s big-spenders but are hoping to replicate some of Tampa Bay’s achievements.
“I am not blind to Tampa’s good results,” Sherman said. “We’re not likely to be the 29th payroll. I consider they’ve averaged the 29th best payroll for about a decade or much more, and they have the (fourth)-most wins. And that’s like off the charts on any statistical analysis. Whichever top secret sauce he has … ideally he provides that to this organization above numerous many years.”
Sherman additional he will give Bendix loads of home to shape the business. Sherman will weigh in as needed, but he expects that to be infrequently.
Bendix is inheriting a crew with strong pitching but struggled before this period to entice substantial-profile hitters. Miami does have the Nationwide League batting winner Luis Arraez, who has expressed desire in a feasible longterm contract.
Nevertheless, the Marlins recorded the sixth-fewest hits and fifth-fewest operates very last year.
Bendix explained he’s basically wanting for “truly excellent gamers” when requested his philosophy on roster building.
“The factor that the Rays always informed themselves that I will carry below is that it can be consistent evaluation and it is really consistently looking to boost,” Bendix mentioned. “And you have to often be seeking to innovate, to try new things, to not be concerned to fail, because we need to maximize each element of the organization that we maybe can. We need to generate each edge that we can. And it does not matter how thriving any workforce has been to this position, you usually want to be constantly bettering.”
