JUPITER, Fla. — Former White Sox teammates and first-round draft picks Jake Burger and Tim Anderson could be having a reunion soon on the left side of the Marlins infield.
A Sox fan favorite at third, and a onetime favorite and rising superstar who crashed and burned in 2023 — along with his team — at shortstop.
Burger, whom the Sox dealt to Miami in an unpopular move at last year’s trade deadline, would be A-OK with that.
“He was a great teammate to me,” Burger said. “I always felt like he was a guy in the clubhouse that I could always trust and talk to about any swing thoughts or defensive thoughts. He helped me out, kind of took me under his wing a little bit. It would be awesome to play with him. When he’s at his best, he’s an electric player and one of the best in baseball.”
Burger and Anderson have talked about the possibility more than once as Anderson, a former All-Star and batting champion, remains a man without a team. With Amed Rosario reportedly having reached a deal with the Rays, Anderson is the lone shortstop of serious note on the free-agent market. The Marlins need one and have made an offer.
An interloper at Marlins camp Tuesday asked new president of baseball operations Peter Bendix if he was about to leave for the airport to pick Anderson up.
“Ha,” Bendix said. “Maybe.”
Bendix was more inclined to discuss Burger, who more than delivered over two fun months with last year’s Marlins, batting .303 with an .860 OPS in 198 at-bats, donning a straw hat in the dugout after home runs, being promoted by the club with $5 Burger Nights and dishing out big hits to help an 84-win team sneak into the playoffs.
With slugger Jorge Soler having opted out of the final year of his deal, Bendix is banking on Burger — who belted 34 homers in all in his first full season in the big leagues — to come up big in the power department. Burger’s defense remains harder to believe in. The Marlins will give him a chance to be their third baseman, mixing in days at first base and designated hitter.
“He’s got some limitations, certainly, but he gets the most out of what he can do and he’s always working hard to get better and, honestly, such an important part of defense is the effort you put into it,” Bendix said. “I definitely don’t think of him as someone who really should be just a DH.”
Sox fans had a soft spot for Burger not only because he hit the ball with exit velocity that would make Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani proud, but also because they knew how hard he’d struggled and strained to fight for his career. A 2017 pick out of college, he missed all of 2018 after tearing an Achilles in the spring and again a few months later. He missed all of 2019 with a heel injury. Finally ready to play in 2020, his minor-league season disappeared into the pandemic mist. Amid all that, Burger opened up about his battles with anxiety and depression on social media, inviting anyone who needed someone to talk to to message him directly.
Sox Nation, Family and Friends: pic.twitter.com/pyQe6gnOUg
— Jake Burger (@Burgatron13) March 18, 2020
Burger, who made the league minimum last season, will turn 28 in April but has missed out on so much service time, he won’t be eligible for salary arbitration until after 2025 and is under club control through 2028. That makes him a valuable piece for the tight-fisted Marlins whether they stay in business with him long-term or start dangling his name in front of playoff contenders in five months.
“It’s a tough business,” Burger said, “and it’s been a long journey back to being where I was supposed to be when I got drafted. But I’m always going to have a mindset of gratitude for everybody that’s given me an opportunity to get to this position.”
Burger, a Midwesterner, misses the Chicago weather. His wife, from California, does not. She makes fun of him often because he just can’t catch even a half-shade of a tan.
The Burgers have become close friends with the family of teammate Josh Bell, who was traded by Cleveland to the Marlins a few days before Burger. They have tiny kids in common. Salaries, not so much; Bell is the team’s highest-paid player at $16.5 million, more than 20 times what Burger will make in 2024.
“He’s pushing so hard for himself and his family,” Bell said. “But he’s definitely a special player, and I’m telling you — his at-bats are must-see.”
A few days after they became teammates, Bell and Burger bonded over an incident involving their former teams. Boy, there was a lot to talk about, and they did for hours. Any guesses?
Put it this way: It had to do with Jose Ramirez’s fist and, well, Anderson’s face.
It probably won’t be the first thing brought up if Anderson comes strolling into the clubhouse sometime very soon.
