Miami Marlins
2023 record: 62-100
Fifth place, NL East
Team ERA: 4.75 (29th)
Team OPS: .678 (26th)
What Went Right
Virtually nothing relative to expectations. A playoff team from 2023 – albeit an overachieving one – wound up selling everything that wasn’t bolted to the floor at the trade deadline. While difficult to swallow for their fans, the mass exodus did provide meaningful opportunities for a few breakout players.
First, Xavier Edwards went off in the second half. He had a .328/.397/.423 slash line in 70 games with 31 stolen bases in 35 tries, 39 runs scored, 26 RBI, one home run, 12 doubles, and five triples. These numbers are very exciting, but the profile is not without risk.
He tailed off after returning from his back injury, doesn’t show any power (1.8% barrel rate, 102.7 max exit velocity), is older for a rookie at 25, and proved he can’t hang defensively at shortstop. Yet, it’s still likely he settles in as a contact-oriented speed demon with plus on-base skills who can play an above average second base. Weirdly, that profiles as a more valuable version of Luis Arraez, the first domino of their fire sale, in both the short and long term.
Otherwise, deadline acquisition Connor Norby was solid after arriving in Miami with seven homers and a .760 OPS in 36 games. Sadly, he stumbled defensively at third base and like Edwards, also likely is looking at second base for a long term defensive home. Some things change for the Marlins but most things stay the same, I guess.
Jake Burger put a horrible beginning of the season behind him (he had a .580 OPS on June 1st) and wound up with 29 homers.
And, having a bullpen that was good enough to net the type of prospect quantity they wound up with at the deadline should be considered a win. Tanner Scott, Bryan Hoeing, and A.J. Puk all wound up as stalwarts in the second half for their respective new teams and helped jumpstart this next Marlins rebuild along with Jazz Chisholm Jr., Bryan De La Cruz, Arraez and others.
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What Went Wrong
There should be a big red button here that just says “starting pitching” because virtually every starter in the Marlins organization either got hurt, was traded, or didn’t progress.
Sandy Alcantara underwent Tommy John surgery just under one full year ago, so we knew he wouldn’t contribute to the 2024 team. Then, one by one, Eury Pérez, Jesús Luzardo, Braxton Garrett, and Ryan Weathers fell to injuries of their own. Those five pitchers alone could’ve made up one of the best staffs in baseball if healthy.
Max Meyer could’ve been here all season with their bevy of injuries, but was sent down in April to presumably work on his changeup. Its usage spiked in AAA compared to his first few big league starts, yet he never seemed to get a handle on it. He still came back up for eight starts towards the end of the season and was shellacked for a 7.20 ERA and didn’t show dominant swing-and-miss stuff like many hoped. What could’ve been a fantastic opportunity to gain experience at the MLB level instead turned into basically a lost year.
Trevor Rogers was a mess and was traded at the deadline. Edwards Cabrera righted the ship after an ugly first half with a 3.57 ERA in the second half, but still walked far too many batters to be relied upon. Seeing him be more confident in his four-seamer and introduce a sinker offers a glimmer of hope that his long-awaited step forward could come in 2025, if ever.
On the offensive side, Jesús Sánchez is still the same toolsy and tantalizing player without the consistent production we’d like with his type of power/speed profile. Jonah Bride drastically improved his power output in a small sample, but still never hit a ball harder than 106 MPH. Otherwise, it’s hard to spot who the regulars will be in this lineup moving forward.
Fantasy Slants
Xavier Edwards will almost certainly be the first Marlin taken in drafts next year. There’s a world where he pushes Elly De La Cruz for the league-lead in stolen bases if he can stay healthy and either hit or play defense well enough to stick in the lineup every day. Miami’s horrid crop of position players should mitigate that risk some. Just don’t pencil in a .328 batting average again.
Sandy Alcantara is already throwing, so it looks like he’s going to have a normal offseason and be all systems go for 2025. It’s worth mentioning that 2023 was his worst season since breaking out. He struck out fewer batters – under 20% – and walked more than either of the two previous seasons. His strikeout rate was never elite to begin with and more frequent balls in play pushed his ratios up to the point where he probably shouldn’t be considered a high-end option any more, especially off Tommy John surgery.
Eury Pérez had his Tommy John surgery in April, so it’s likely he returns at some point during the 2025 season. Monitor whatever news trickles out regarding his rehab this winter and let that be your guide whether to treat him like a priority injury stash or not.
Jesús Luzardo is a much more curious case. He hasn’t pitched since June with a lumbar stress reaction and reportedly still hasn’t thrown at all. Seeing him come back for even one appearance would give us comfort that he’d have a normal offseason, but that isn’t the case. His injury took his fastball down up to two MPH at times which cratered his effectiveness. Luzardo has what Eno Sarris has dubbed a ‘precarious fastball’ meaning the shape is poor while the velocity is good. Without plus velocity, that just becomes a bad fastball and 5.00 ERA and drastically reduced strikeout rate showed how much the rest of his repertoire relies on that fastball velocity.
I mentioned Edward Cabrera above and can’t help but be a little encouraged by his second half. He had back-to-back starts against the Phillies and Nationals in September where it all worked: his command was on point and he expanded his repertoire to five pitches after introducing a sinker. File it away and be prepared to get hurt again.
Ryan Weathers might wind up as the Marlins’ most intriguing starter at cost. He added velocity for the second straight season as his fastball averaged 96.2 MPH after sitting 95.2 MPH last year and 93.9 MPH the season before. While he missed a good chunk of the season with an injury, it was a finger sprain and unrelated to those gains. His sweeper is fantastic and changeup very good, giving him a true out-pitch against hitters from either side of the plate. There’s plenty of upside left here.
Everyone’s favorite soft-tossing, junk-balling lefty Braxton Garrett came back to make a few starts in the minor leagues after spending most of his season on the IL with a forearm flexor strain. Funny, even the guy that throws 89 MPH hurt his arm. Regardless, he was pitching poorly (5.35 ERA) when he went down, but was in the same range of strikeouts, walks, and ERA estimators he was when he had a 3.63 ERA over a 47 start sample between 2022 and 2023.
There’s a very real possibility Calvin Faucher or Jesus Tinoco break camp as the Marlins’ closer next season. Faucher assumed the role after the trade deadline and pitched well until a shoulder impingement knocked him out in early September. Tinoco ran with the job soon thereafter and either would be a name to file away if they are given the job outright.
Key Free Agents
They traded them all.
Team Needs
Meaningful investment and a genuine follow-through on talent acquisition after tearing down this roster for the umpteenth time this past summer. And, a manager to replace Skip Schumaker who did a great job to steer the ship after injuries and ownership gutted a playoff team.
More seriously, someone who can handle short stop defensively would allow the other infield pieces to file in more evenly. Then anyone who can hit for power or really at all consistently would help.
This season was a catastrophe for them in terms of pitcher health, but insulating themselves with any bit of cheap depth could go a long way.
It’s unlikely they build this bullpen up through free agency but Faucher, Tinoco, and Declan Cronin will be their only relievers to trust even mildly when the season opens.
