The Miami Marlins haven’t extended a player in so long that Joe Mack was still a teenager struggling through a .132 professional batting line the last time they did it. That stretch has become a trivia answer - soft-tossing reliever Richard Bleier was the most recent extension recipient in March 2022 - but it also highlights a bigger issue for a low-revenue club that wants to build something lasting.
For teams like Miami, extensions for young players are not a luxury. They’re a necessity.
If a front office wants to keep impact talent without paying full freight later, it has to move early, before the market price explodes. The Marlins, according to Fish On First reporting, did have extension discussions with multiple players last year, though nothing got over the line.
More recently, Christina De Nicola of MLB.com reported that the club has had internal talks about extending Mack.
Mack has made the case to be the one who finally breaks the drought. In a previous offseason blueprint, he was pegged for a six-year, $31 million deal with three club options.
That number feels tiny now. Through 67 games, the catcher is hitting .245/.299/.449 with 11 home runs and a 103 wRC+.
He has also been excellent at pitch framing and blocking, and he leads the sport in runners caught stealing over that stretch. His 1.9 fWAR is already a Marlins single-season record for a catcher in the post- J.T.
Realmuto era.
The club’s decision to trade Liam Hicks to the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday only sharpened the picture. Miami doesn’t have meaningful depth behind Mack if his bat cools off, which says plenty about how much faith the organization has in him. Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix called Mack a " budding superstar" during Tuesday’s virtual press conference.
Catchers complicate extension talks more than most positions. Their bodies take more punishment, their aging curves are different, and the long-term risk is real.
Mack is already under team control through his 20s via arbitration, and the top 15 MLB catchers this season by fWAR are all under 30. Even in recent years, it has been rare to see a catcher over 31 still providing league-average value as time and workload start to push them toward more DH or first-base work.
Still, there’s a case for Miami to buy out some of that uncertainty. Mack is projected to be a Super Two player, which would make him eligible for his first arbitration raise in 2029 and send him through the process four times instead of the usual three. There’s also a belief that his athleticism could help him age better than most catchers.
Two recent deals offer a useful framework. Keibert Ruiz signed an eight-year, $50 million extension with the Washington Nationals in 2023, when he was a year older than Mack is now.
Ruiz had a bit more MLB service time and more perceived offensive upside, but he also came with more defensive volatility. Samuel Basallo’s eight-year, $67 million deal with the Baltimore Orioles is another comparison, even though it was officially announced after his call-up.
Basallo was 21 at the time and was widely viewed as having elite-hitter potential.
Mack has a real argument to top that bar. He has matched Basallo’s offense in 2026, and there’s no comparison defensively. That combination helps close the age gap between them.
The projection here is an eight-year, $70 million extension for Mack. If the club option is picked up, he wouldn’t reach free agency until age 33, which is the price of setting a pre-arbitration catcher record for guaranteed money.
Whether Miami actually gets there is another question. The window to strike could close fast, and with no extensions yet on Peter Bendix’s ledger, skepticism remains until the Marlins prove otherwise.
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