‘He’s a polished player’: The Miami Marlins have high expectations for JJ Bleday
The Houston Astros infield had shifted right, expecting him to pull the baseball with his left-handed swing.
JJ Bleday had other plans. He grounded out his first time at the plate on Sunday, the ball barely staying fair down the first-base line.
He took a pair of pitches during the second plate appearance in the fifth inning and then, with a 1-2 count, Bleday turned on a fastball from Astros pitcher Bryan Abreu and sent it deep to left field for a leadoff, opposite-field home run. It was an exclamation mark on Miami’s 6-1 win at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches to begin their 24-game Grapefruit League schedule.
“The main thing,” Bleday said a day later, “is just having the confidence and the trust in your own ability to go out and perform each at-bat at the plate and each opportunity you’re given.”
Eventually, the Marlins hope Bleday will be making this type of impact on their big-league roster.
Eventually might also become a reality sooner than later.
Bleday, the Marlins’ first-round pick in 2019, is ranked as a consensus top-100 prospect, listed as high as No. 20 by MLB Pipeline and as low as 89 by The Athletic’s Keith Law (Baseball America ranks him as No. 43 and ESPN has him at No. 55). He was highly touted heading into the draft for his consistent hitting in the Cape Cod summer baseball league and for his junior year performance with the College World Series-winning Vanderbilt Commodores.
His consistent approach at the plate — and his priority of putting the ball in play over solely relying on power — along with his ability to play sound defense in the corner outfields give Bleday the potential to crack the big league roster as early as this season.
“In my mind,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said, “this guy’s not a guy you feel like you say ‘OK, we’ve got to get his outfield play together’ or ‘He’s still developing his baserunning.’ This is a guy that comes from a great program at Vanderbilt. Those guys have been pretty solid. They’re all pretty solid fundamental guys that look like they know what they’re doing. JJ is no exception.”
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel agrees. Bleday needs seasoning — he’s only played in 38 minor-league games and spent last season at the Marlins’ alternate training site — but the tools are there for Bleday to be a big-leaguer.
“I think Bleday might be the quickest moving [of the Marlins’ outfielder prospects],” McDaniel told the Miami Herald before spring training began. “He hasn’t been to Double-A yet, but I could easily see him making the Big Leagues by the end of this year if he hits the way he did at Vanderbilt.”
Bleday isn’t necessarily focusing on that call-up right now. He knows the moment will come.
But he also knows that for the moment to come, he needs to stay within himself and keep building on the aspects of his game that got him to pro ball in the first place.
The biggest area Bleday plans to improve this season?
“I think just making my timing consistent,” he said. “I mean, literally, if you go out and perform and you do well, good things are gonna happen.”
Mattingly wants to see that steady progression, too.
“Not looking for anything specific out of JJ,” Mattingly said. “Just looking to see what he looks like in games and where he’s at right now, his timing and things like that. JJ is a polished guy. He’s a polished player. He’s a guy that knows how to defend, knows how to play the game, good base runner. He does a lot of things well. He’s just a good guy to watch and watch his development.”
