Derek Jeter says Don Mattingly's future with Marlins will be addressed 'sooner rather than later'

Gabrielle McMillen

Derek Jeter says Don Mattingly's future with Marlins will be addressed 'sooner rather than later' image

As the regular MLB season winds down, the Marlins will have an important decision to make: Should they extend manager Don Mattingly's contract, or let him go?

That's a discussion chief executive officer Derek Jeter said will be addressed before the season ends.

“To be fair to Donnie, it's something that we need to talk about sooner rather than later,” Jeter said, via MLB.com . “We have touched base, and we'll continue to talk.”

Mattingly is the in the final season of the four-year contract he signed with the Marlins in 2015, when Jeffrey Loria was owner. He said he would love to remain with the team, but only if the Marlins want him to stay.

“I'd love to be back, especially if they want you back,” Mattingly said. “You don't want to be anywhere that you don't feel like it's the best situation. You don't want to get in the way of anything. If they think they want to go in [another] direction, then that's something you just deal with at the time.”

He was keen to be part of the team's rebuild, which saw the Marlins trade away stars Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna in the past couple of years to gear up for a young and talented roster, on top of Loria selling the team to Jeter and Bruce Sherman's ownership group after the 2017 season.

“Obviously, there was a little bit of a bump in the road in the middle of [my tenure],” Mattingly said. “With the ownership change, and obviously we turned the roster over, and went in a different direction. It's something we'll talk about and see where it goes, where the organization wants to go.”

In four seasons as Miami’s manager, Mattingly has accumulated a 263-340 overall record. The team currently is last in the NL East with a 44-75 record.

Jeter said his decision regarding Mattingly and other staff members won't be over just wins and losses, since there has been so much change in the franchise's front office and a large turnover of players.

“Sometimes you have to take into consideration, when an organization, when a team is at this point, I think it's very easy for the fans, it's very easy for media to look at wins and losses, and that's how they evaluate the job that someone is doing,” Jeter said. “There's a lot of things that go into it.

“Donnie has done a good job. But then again, we've got to sit down, like we do with coaches every year as well, and ask, 'How can we get better?'”

Gabrielle McMillen