By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

There has been more than plenty of hullabaloo about Derek Jeter’s teardown of the Miami Marlins in an attempt to shed money and begin a rebuilding process akin to the one the Royals and Cubs have had recent success with.

During the offseason, the Marlins shipped off the contracts of all their major players except for J.T. Realmuto, who begrudgingly remains a Marlin as of this writing. That was step one. Step two is fast approaching and it’s one the Marlins need to nail if they’re to keep whatever is left of their fanbase buying into Jeter’s vision for the future.

The Marlins will be picking 13^th when the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft kicks off on Monday. They will have a fair few good options at that point, including one local prospect that may be a likely choice.

That prospect is Triston Casas out of Plantation, Florida’s American Heritage School. Caas is a first baseman/third baseman who may possess the rawest power out of any high school player on the board.

Casas hit to the tune of .446 his junior year and .387 his senior year, with 28 of his 52 hits combined those seasons going for extra bases.

Plus, there’s the added PR bonus of having a kid in your own backyard as your number one draft pick; it should provide some investment by the Miami community.

There’s also Mason Denaburg, a right-handed pitcher from Merritt Island High School on Merritt Island, Florida. He can touch the upper 90s with potential to develop a mean secondary pitch or two, though he was dealing with injuries during his senior year.

This might be a riskier pick since three or their last four first-round draft choices were pitchers who have been bitten by the injury bug after their signings. Adding a fourth to that list would do the Marlins’ front office no favors in the eyes of the public.

There are older prospects that could be considered for Miami at 13. Alec Bohm, a third baseman out of Wichita State; Jonathan India at Florida also at the hot corner; and South Alabama outfielder Jack Swaggerty all could be big-league ready much sooner than the aforementioned teens.

Bohm, for example, knocked out 16 home runs and drove in 55 while hitting .339 this season. India’s average and power numbers are even bigger. They are good options for Miami if they want players with a little more polish on them, but maybe a little lower ceiling and without the good optics a local high school player would provide.

The safer bets are those two Floridan high schoolers and if Miami does in fact select either one they would have gone with high school players first for five straight years.

It also means another thing: that whoever they pick, hometown prospect or not, he probably won’t be seen in the Majors for a long while. If this is the way the Marlins choose to go, then that rebuilding process may indeed take the better part of a decade.

Can the Marlins survive such a lengthy process? Or would they be completely abandoned by a fan base that only has a tenuous grip on caring as it is?

It would be a gamble, but Jeter and company need to make a statement with this draft one way or another. Half measures will do no one any good. They’ll need to draft the players they think they can build around for the long term and stick with them.

This draft is either going to be the new beginning for Miami, or the last straw before an MLB game is played with less than 1,000 spectators present.