This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola’s Marlins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- Now in his third Major League season, Bryan Hoeing is uniquely qualified to lead one of the Marlins’ yearly traditions and team-building activities.

Hoeing captained Marlins rookies and fellow players early in their service time through Wrigleyville on Saturday morning -- in full uniform -- to a nearby Starbucks on the team’s annual rookie coffee run.

“Tanner [Scott] and some of the vets came up to me and said, ‘You're gonna be the captain,’” Hoeing said. “And I was like, ‘All right, I can do that for you.’ Last year, I wasn't the captain, but I was able to kind of see how it went down. So, I was a little bit more familiar this year.”

Marlins players, coaches and manager Skip Schumaker wrote down their orders on a list, and Hoeing led the charge to the Starbucks on Addison Street outside the Friendly Confines. Otto Lopez, Jhonny Pereda, Vidal Bruján, Declan Cronin, Andrew Nardi, Calvin Faucher, Sixto Sánchez and Ryan Weathers joined him.

Adding to the unique experience were fans outside the ballpark who noticed and interacted with the players.

“It was pretty cool,” Cronin said. “Obviously, Wrigleyville is an interesting kind of community. People are just going about their Saturday mornings, and all of a sudden, wham, here comes a bunch of players and staff to get some Starbucks.

“It was awesome interacting with just baseball fans in general, the staff there and stuff like that. It was really cool.”

Hoeing put the team’s order in with the Starbucks staff, going down the list with a blue marker in his other hand. Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara -- who does not drink coffee -- picked up the tab ($281.97), as he has the past few years, and the group transported the orders back to the clubhouse.

"I just want them to feel comfortable," Alcantara said. "I just want them to do something for us. It’s not about the money. It's about the relationship and how we feel about it after."

“It went pretty smoothly, from what I could examine,” said Hoeing, who ordered a venti iced latte. “I think everybody got the coffee they wanted.”

As fun as the experience is, it’s also important to Miami as a way for the team to bond.

“I think everyone just gets like a real kick out of it," said Cronin, who ordered a black coffee. "It's a lot of fun. We were just saying we might just do it tomorrow for kicks, because of how fun it was.”

Whether that coffee run comes Sunday or next season, will Hoeing put his name in the (captain’s) hat to lead the group once more?

“Hopefully, I can just pass that torch onto somebody else,” he said, smiling, “and they can take over, and I can just kind of sit back from a distance and watch it. The last two years, it's been fun, but hopefully next year I'm off the hook with it.”