The 2023 MLB Draft takes place Sunday through Tuesday in Seattle, and the Marlins will pick 10th, 35th and 47th on Day 1. Tune in on MLB Network or MLB.com beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
Mock drafts have Miami selecting anyone from prep pitcher Noble Meyer to Maryland shortstop Matt Shaw. Here's what senior director of amateur scouting DJ Svihlik had to say when previewing the Draft:
MLB.com: How does the team being in the playoff picture affect your approach?
Svihlik: It doesn't affect me terribly. There's certainly considerations and there's conversations that are had about that. We discuss what might happen at the Trade Deadline. But at the end of the day, what we always circle back to is what player is going to be the best fit for this organization at this point in time. If we were flush with hitters, I might be going in a different direction. But we're not flush with hitters, nor is any team -- maybe the Orioles; they've done a pretty good job. It's never been a more difficult time to be a good hitter in baseball, and it's specifically because the pitching development has far surpassed the hitting development.
MLB.com: What's the theme of this Draft?
Svihlik: It's providing hitting depth, and we need hitters, so we take advantage of that. Even if we like the pitcher more, which there are cases on our Draft board, when I bypass the pitcher, you might be in the room like, 'Well, you like that guy more, why wouldn't you take him?' Well, because we will take our chances that we can find something like that pitcher a little bit further down the Draft board. But ultimately, the bigger impact or the bigger decisions are made based on what's harder to acquire in the marketplace, and that's why our Draft boards have and will continue to be lined up for hitters.
MLB.com: Are they college or prep bats?
Svihlik: It's a combination of both, and it's deep. When you look at a Draft board every year, usually you can get to, like, 10, maybe 12-15ish names of players, and then [there's a drop-off]. This year, when you put the players up on the board, you get all the way down to like 30ish before you start doing that.
MLB.com: What's the strategy with three picks?
Svihlik: You're looking at the board, [and] it doesn't even matter how they're ranked. You're just looking at a bunch of players -- like the top 30-40 players on your board -- and you're asking yourself, 'OK, from those 10-12 guys, how do we get two of them?' And that's what we're doing over the next three or four days. That's all we're doing. ‘What combination of players do we like and how can we acquire them?' It's that simple, because there's this money element that's involved.
Christina De Nicola covers the Marlins for MLB.com.