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Marlins general manager Kim Ng said Sunday that Gurriel "should be there on Thursday," implying his contract will be selected prior to the Marlins' season opener with the Mets that day, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald reports.
After drawing limited interest in free agency this winter, Gurriel settled for a minor-league deal with Miami in March and showed well enough in his limited time in the Grapefruit League to earn a spot on the Marlins' big-league roster. The 38-year-old struggled mightily in 2022 with a .242/.288/.360 slash line over 584 plate appearances, but he led all of baseball with a .319 average in 2021. Though he may be able to bounce back in the batting-average department in 2023 if he can stave off any major decline in the career-worst 12.5 percent strikeout rate he sported a season ago, Gurriel's advancing age, paucity of power and poorer team context with the move from Houston to Miami may limit his fantasy appeal largely to NL-only formats.
