MIAMI -- Joe Mack has turned into one of the Marlins’ most important players, and now the challenge is figuring out how much more the rookie catcher can take.
Thursday’s series finale against the Pirates was a rare breather for Mack, who has been piling up starts since making his Major League debut on May 4. Through 74 big league games, he has made a clear impact on both sides of the ball: he entered Thursday’s 13-1 loss leading the National League in fielding run value with 8, topping the Majors with 19 runners caught stealing and ranking third among primary catchers in fWAR at 1.9.
That kind of production is why manager Clayton McCullough wants Mack in the lineup as often as possible. Mack’s rise also pushed Liam Hicks into the backup role before Hicks was eventually traded to Tampa Bay.
“What Joe has brought, we've seen it,” McCullough said. “We've seen how our team has been elevated and how we've played, how we've pitched since Joe has been up here, and I don't think that's [a] coincidence. He's been phenomenal.”
The workload has been heavy. Mack started 38 of Miami’s first 47 games, which was 81 percent of the team’s schedule to open his career. Since the Deadline, he has started six of nine.
That is a very different rhythm from the one he knew at Triple-A Jacksonville, where he usually worked two games, then got two days off, with an occasional game at designated hitter mixed in.
“It's obviously a lot more,” Mack said. “Just making sure that I'm ready for each day. ...
Even when I'm not playing, there's a chance for you to get in there. So making sure that I'm ready and able to give my best effort when I go in, I think that's a task in itself, alongside the amount of days I've been catching behind the plate.”
To keep up, the 23-year-old has put extra focus on recovery, hydration, sleep and nutrition, with help from the organization. Mack said he tries to avoid unhealthy food, though he admitted his sweet tooth still has a hold on him - Sour Patch Kids are his favorite.
Before a Saturday game in Queens on the last road trip, he loaded up on bacon, sausage, eggs, chocolate chip pancakes, banana bread, a bagel and coffee.
“The past two years, I would say, I came in at like 210 [pounds] in Spring Training, feeling good, feeling pretty healthy and all that, and my body weight would trickle down to like 201, 195, and there was a problem,” Mack said. “That was something that I found out pretty quickly. …
“It's weird because for the last two years, I've played well at a lower weight. Obviously, it's a lot better when I'm a higher weight because I can use less effort and still have the same amount of power, speed, all that stuff that I'm trying to achieve. I definitely notice it a little bit.”
This is also the deepest into a season Mack has ever gone. The Jumbo Shrimp played into mid-September last year on their way to the Triple-A national championship, but this stretch with Miami has gone further than anything he has experienced before.
If the Marlins stay in the National League Wild Card picture, Mack’s name figures to stay in the lineup almost every day.
“Joe is recovering well,” McCullough said. “He's feeling strong.
He's young, too, so I think we have that on our side. He's still a young man.
He probably could catch every game right now, but we know there's a tax he'll end up paying on that. Just kind of go into each game, each series with a plan, and if we have to audible off that and change a game, he may start or may not start based on how things are going and how we use him, we'll just react that way.”
McCullough has the call on when Mack gets a day off. Sometimes that means pulling him early when Miami is rolling, like in Wednesday’s win. Other times, Mack can enter later as a defensive replacement.
The clearest signs that he needs a break show up in his performance, both at the plate and behind it. So far, though, Mack has handled the grind well enough to stay ready for all of it.
“He's generally handled both the offensive and defensive side pretty consistently throughout the course of the workload,” catching coach Craig Driver said. “With a lot of younger catchers, you see their catching's fine and their offense really starts to falter when they catch too much, or they're still hitting but they're not catching as well as they need to catch.”
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