Once Classmate With Kelce Brothers, Marlins New Leader Peter Bendix Has Many Distinctions 

Peter Bendix has already attained several distinctions in a meteoric rise from a front office intern to top tier executive in Major League Baseball.

The newly-minted, president of baseball operations for the Miami Marlins, lured in November from the Tampa Bay Rays where he held the same responsibilities, also has a unique connection to the most famous brother tandem currently playing in the sports world.

Bendix, 38, grew up in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, where his parents’ first home was a block away from two brothers his age named Jason and Travis Kelce.

“(Jason) and I walked to school together… I want to say in like first grade,” said Bendix, in an interview with Christina De Nicola, who covers the Marlins for MLB.com. “I went to the same high school (Cleveland Heights) as (current NFL stars) Jason and Travis Kelce. That’s my go-to.”

Another conversation starter is how Bendix earned his way into acclaim as a rising number of 30-somethings who have reached general manager status with MLB teams.

He’s embraced an arduous challenge of elevating the Marlins minor league system of talent to where it creates a consistent pipeline to the big leagues. In his role with the Rays – a model of small-market success through player development – Bendix gained familiarity with the Blue Wahoos as one of nearest rivals in the Southern League.

“The thing that the Rays always told themselves that I will bring here (to Miami) is that it's constant evaluation and it's constantly looking to improve," said Bendix, during his introductory press conference in November when Marlins owner Bruce Sherman hired him away from Tampa Bay.

“And you have to always be looking to innovate, to try new things, to not be afraid to fail, because we need to maximize every part of the organization that we possibly can,” Bendix said. “We need to create every edge that we can. And it does not matter how successful any team has been to this point, you always need to be constantly improving."

Sherman, who visited Pensacola during the Blue Wahoos’ 2022 Southern League championship season, made an instant impression on Bendix to get him to make a cross-state leap.

During his first press conference, Bendix mentioned how the two shared similar visions.

“And that was enough to get me to say, 'You know what, if I'm going to leave an excellent situation. It has to be the perfect fit,'" said Bendix, who began his baseball career in 2009 as an intern with the Tampa Bay Rays and rose in the organization. "And this is a perfect fit.

“I had a phenomenal situation with the Rays, been there for 15 years, had a lot of success, worked with phenomenal people. The concept of not working there anymore, it needed to be the exact right situation with the right people in place, frankly, with the right owner."

Under first-year manager Skip Schumaker, the Marlins were a surprise team in 2023. They reached the MLB playoffs as a wild card entry from the monster division of the National League East.

It earned Schumaker the National League Manager of the Year honor. The Marlins will head into spring training in two weeks with the same kind of uncertainty faced last year before the season.

In a recent interview with the Miami Herald’s Jordan McPherson, Bendix acknowledged he wants to see the entire minor league system reach a new level.

“To have sustainable success is to have a farm system that is constantly giving you another wave of players to add to your roster and I don’t think we’re at that point yet,” Bendix said in the Miami Herald story. “It has a lot of room to improve.”

There are six players on the 40-man Marlins roster for 2024 spring training, whom were either drafted, or signed as free agents, in the past seven years and have made MLB debuts.

All six of those players, pitchers Eury Perez, Max Meyer, Andrew Nardi, Bryan Hoeing, catcher Nick Fortes and outfielder Peyton Burdick played for the Blue Wahoos. They were mentored by manager Kevin Randel, who has been the Blue Wahoos manager for all three seasons (2021-2023) as the Marlins’ Double-A affiliate.

The Marlins have not finalized all of their minor league coaching staffs, but are expected to announce soon. The Blue Wahoos have been consistent winners. They won the first half division crown last year in the Southern League, knocked off Montgomery for a second time in the divisional series, before losing to the Tennessee Smokies in a rematch of the 2022 championship series that Pensacola won.

The Marlins’ Low-A affiliate, the Jupiter Hammerheads won their first Florida State League title with Pensacola Catholic High grad Jordan McCants, a 2021 third-round draft pick, in the starting lineup.

It’s the kind of team success Bendix wants to see throughout.

“I think to build the organization that we want to build, it won't happen overnight and it won't happen in a smooth linear fashion,” said Bendix in the Marlins.com story. “That's not how organizations achieve sustainable success.

“The way it does happen is by keeping an eye on what our end goal is, of building that organization into a place where we can be successful year in and year out, and knowing that it takes decisions that are meant to pay off in the long term to get there.”

This story begins a weekly look each Wednesday at happenings within the Miami Marlins and how it connects with the Blue Wahoos as Miami’s Double-A affiliate.