After an 80-82 season that had them on the doorstep of the playoffs, Miami looks to step up next season
The Miami Marlins closed the 2026 season on a positive note Sunday, defeating their division rivals, the Atlanta Braves, by a 5-3 score to finish the year with 80 victories.
As the lights went down on the season at loanDepotPark, the team was left with a lot of what-ifs at the end of it all. The Fish looked playoff-bound in mid-season, after racking up an astounding 20-6 record in June.
That momentum disappeared during a franchise-worst 12-game losing streak, creating a deficit the Marlins couldn’t overcome. Miami also struggled against winning teams, finishing 33-50 in those games, while posting a 33-48 record on the road. At home, however, the South Florida Nine established a franchise record with 47 victories.
Miami now enters the offseason looking to build on the progress made in 2026. Everyone in the organization and most of the fan base seems to think the team will be right there ion the mix for a postseason berth next season. That optimism has piggybacked off a solid campaign this year.
“I believe we're close, and I think another important part is we have to realize how far away we are,” manager Clayton McCullough said, according to an MLB.com postseason report. “This is not going to just be guaranteed again... We're going to have to do a lot and continue to have that mentality that we have. We have to be hungrier next year than we were this year, and I think everyone will feel that 'unfinished-type-business' mentality when they go through this entire offseason, and we all get together in Jupiter next Spring."
His players agree that while it would have been a big baseball bonus to make it to the postseason party, the team knows the focus is on the future. And if not for a few bad breaks, says young outfielder Griffin Conine, the team might have even qualified this year.
“If you go back this year and look at that 12-game stretch coming from that All-Star break, that shifted things for sure,” said Conine. “Even when we played good ball coming out of that, it's tough to come back from 12 straight [losses]. When you look at that closely, it's so many close games that could have gone from one play that could have ended it and then shifted things. I think we're right there."
That's what the president of baseball operations, Peter Bendix, and the rest of the personnel staff are hoping for; they're ready to see their blueprint come to fruition. We saw signs of how good the fish could be in flashes, but the time to put it all together will come next February, when pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training.
