In 2017 the Marlins want to contend. Currently, the Marlins are mediocre. If they want to contend, then by 2017 they need to make some changes to better their team. Which is much easier said than done. Especially for the Marlins who possess what is perhaps the weakest Farm System in baseball.

Ultimately, the Marlins need to score more runs than they allow in as many of the 162 games that they can to qualify for the playoffs. Then in the playoffs do the same exact thing but in an environment where every little advantage can make a tremendous difference. Especially if the Miami Marlins are a Wild Card team. Which, thanks to deep rosters of the division rival Nationals and Mets seems to be the most likely route to a theoretical World Series for Miami.

The Marlins have a solid core of position players. The Outfield would be hard to improve upon even with infinite resources. The infield, aside from adding a platoon partner for Justin Bour at first or making a series of video game trades that involve retooling the lineup and taking advantage of bad AI, would be difficult to upgrade.

As judged by their actions, Miami seems sold on their current crop of position players. When they extended team leader Martin Prado for three years at the end of the 2016 season the Marlins' Front Office essentially issued the statement that continuity in the clubhouse and on the field in 2017 was a priority.

But thanks to lack of organizational depth on the farm, Miami has few potential trade chips who are not already cemented into the Major League roster.

The major positional strength of the 2017 Free Agent class is DH. Which, for an American League or big-spending National League team could be great.

The Marlins are neither.

So how can Miami actually best position themselves for success?

Pitching.

The loss of Jose Fernandez. There are no words that I could possibly add to such a tragedy. It isn't my loss to discuss, the breadth of Jose Fernandez's impact in his lifetime extends well beyond the boxscore and I know many other people will say many other things that are much more worth listening to than anything I could bring to the table.

All I can really offer is a Fan's perspective on what might or might not help the Marlins optimize their roster for 2017. So that is all I will attempt to do.

And the Marlins have a real opportunity to gain an advantage over their rivals by revolutionizing the way they construct and utilize their 2017 pitching staff.

Even with the recent signing of Edinson Volquez and his reunion with Jim Benedict there is still little hope that Miami can turn their rotation into a legitimate strength in traditional terms. They will likely sign another veteran starting pitcher to ensure they do not dip into their dubious AAA rotational depth that includes names like Justin Nicolino and Jose Urena.

No matter what Miami does, their rotation will probably not become a unit they will want to leverage.

Research by Mitchel Lichtman from 2013 tells us that there is a real advantage to be gained by minimizing how many times a batter faces a pitcher.

Additional research on similar phenomena conducted by Bill James that tells us that relief pitchers post better ERAs than starting pitchers of similar ability. This might be because relief pitchers are seen by the same batter in the same game less often than their starting counterparts. It might also be because relief pitchers are able to give more effort into each pitch than starters and thus throw harder. Thanks to the same sort of physiological processes that prevent runners from maintaining the same pace for a 5000 meter race that they might maintain over the course of a 1000 meter race.

While with standout talents like Clayton Kershaw it might be best for the individual output of the pitcher and for the Win-loss result of his team to be a starting pitcher and pitch to batters in the 3rd or even 4th time through the order in a given game. The Marlins have nothing to gain by giving more innings to lesser talents like Tom Koehler and Edinson Volquez that have less of an ability to catch Major League batters off-guard...and less ability to overmatch ML hitters when the hitters know what is coming.

While it is likely better to give Justin Nicolino's innings to a pitcher like Edinson Volquez, and the same applies to potential Free Agent targets like Doug Fister or Jhoulys Chacin it is certainly better to give Edinson Volquez 2 times through the order each start rather than 3.

That way Edinson Volquez can be a better, more effective, version of Edinson Volquez.

The best way to keep your starting pitcher from exposing himself in a game, is to be able to confidently remove him from a game before he runs into trouble, and the best way to ensure that, is to have an amazing bullpen.

In a given baseball game the 5th or 6th inning is when the Marlins' opponents would start to get those plate appearances where they would be seeing the starting pitcher a 3rd time. Unless the Marlins have either allowed a ton of baserunners or nearly 0 baserunners.

If Miami could safely handoff the game before the opponent has the advantage in a competitive game (it's a long season, there will be blowouts that benefit both the Marlins and their opponents) the Marlins will find they will win more close games because they will prevent runs more effectively in the latter half of games.

The 2017 Miami Marlins already have the makings of what could be a great bullpen.

A.J. Ramos, David Phelps and Kyle Barraclough are by Fangraphs RAR (Runs Above Replacement) top 25 relief pitchers in the league. The Marlins are already close to limiting 9 inning games to 6 innings. David Phelps, who has been stretched out as a starter before might even be trusted to pitch more than 1 inning in a game.

What really needs to happen, if Miami is to find success in 2017, is to make the games even shorter and prevent opposing batters from gaining what is effectively an advantage of attrition over the starting pitchers.

The Marlins seem intent on adding relief pitchers and appear to have money to spend on the $15+ Million a year it would cost to sign a premium relief talent like Kenley Jansen or Aroldis Chapman.

This sort of splurge would give the Marlins more effective innings, and allow the more mediocre innings provided by the Miami rotation to remain mediocre...rather than stretch out mediocre pitchers and get bad results.

This sort of team construction strategy is particularly effective for a team like the Marlins who play in the National League and thus do not have the DH. If Miami has a good enough bullpen that they can trust it to carry a game from the early-middle innings they can pull the pitcher if the pitcher's spot in the batting order comes up and really take advantage of the additional expected runs a Pinch Hitter would provide Miami.

Additional, budget conscious depth acquisitions such as a platoon mate for Justin Bour, a cheaper LOOGY-type pitcher would help Miami better take advantage of handedness match-ups that will occur on a day-to-day basis. Accumulating small advantages like that over the course of the season might help Miami squeeze out a few more wins without really improving the talent level of the roster.

Based on the 2017 Free Agent class, the Miami Marlins only real option to improve the true talent of the roster is by adding to the relief corps. Sometimes improving a strength is the best way to improve overall. Fortunately for Miami, this sort of addition is possible and would actually be ideal for maximizing the chances to win a single game, such as the one-game playoff they might optimistically find themselves playing in should they win one of the Wild Cards.