The Miami Marlins announced a key addition on Monday: Peter Bendix, who will serve as president of baseball operations.
“It is an exciting day for the Marlins organization as we welcome Peter and his wife Lauren to Miami and introduce Peter as our president of baseball operations,” said chairman and principal owner Bruce Sherman said in a statement. “Peter is an established industry leader with extensive skills and extensive experience who will continue the momentum we have achieved at the Major League level while strategically laying the foundation for sustained success through player acquisition, development and scouting at all levels “In addition to his extensive track record with the Rays, Peter demonstrated leadership and culture-shaping skills that will have a tremendous impact on our organization.”
Bendix, 38, has spent his entire baseball career with the Tampa Bay Rays. He joined them in 2009 as an intern and rose to GM. In 2021, he was promoted to senior vice president of baseball operations in addition to his GM duties. During his time in Tampa, the Rays appeared in eight playoff games, won three American League East Division titles and appeared in the World Series in 2020.
Technically, Bendix isn’t replacing anyone, as the baseball ops president position hasn’t been filled for several years. But he fills the void left by former Marlins GM Kim Ng. Ng, the first woman to serve as GM for a major North American men’s sports franchise, left the Marlins last month amid differing ideas about how the team should be run going forward, but the Marlins wanted to hire a president of baseball operations over her playing role Also reportedly played a role in her decision. (If she had stayed, she would have reported to Bendix rather than the team owner.) Ng led the Marlins to their first full-season playoff appearance since winning the World Series in 2003 and reportedly wanted a commitment on this one Building success free agents to improve the team and fill obvious gaps.
If that’s not the direction the Marlins wanted to go, signing Bendix is a good indicator of their future path. The Rays are known for putting together high-performing rosters on a shoestring budget. Bendix has been with Tampa since 2009 (less than a year after they lost the 2008 World Series to the Philadelphia Phillies), meaning he’s been at almost every game in their rise from baseball’s laughingstock to analytics trendsetter League.
For teams that want to win but don’t want to spend a lot of money to do so, hiring Rays executives has been the first choice. The results have been mixed (for example, Chaim Bloom was just fired by the Boston Red Sox after several miserable seasons), but the Marlins are hoping that signing Bendix will transform their perpetually paltry payroll into a baseball powerhouse.
