Baseball’s hottest team in June, the Marlins were flying high as the All-Star Break approached. They pulled as many as 10 games above .500 on July 9 after sweeping the A’s and Mariners. Miami pulled within three games in the NL East and sat three games ahead of the field in the Wild Card picture.
On July 10, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that Miami planned to hold Sandy Alcantara and buy at the deadline — at least, in Rosenthal’s words, “barring an utter collapse.” They haven’t won a game since.
Miami finished the first half with a home sweep at the hands of the Guardians in which they scored five runs in three games. They’ve been swept in each of their first three series coming out of the All-Star Break. They went 0-6 on a difficult road trip to Milwaukee and Houston. Last weekend was a new low, as they were swept at home by a struggling Wild Card competitor, the Padres.
The entire lineup has gone cold. Griffin Conine is their only regular who has hit at an above-average level over the past two weeks. Rookie catcher Joe Mack has popped three home runs in that stretch but has otherwise only reached base twice. The rest of the offense has been terrible. Only the Blue Jays and Angels have scored fewer runs than Miami’s 25 in the second half.
It’s not going to get any easier to begin this week. They’ll welcome the Phillies to loanDepot Park and face Zack Wheeler and Jesús Luzardo in the series opener and finale, respectively. They do have the pitching advantage on Tuesday with Alcantara opposing Aaron Nola, but they’re going to need to steal at least one game against one of the NL’s best pitchers to finally turn in a winning series.
The 12-game losing streak is the longest in franchise history. It’s tied with the Mets’ April skid for the worst by any team this season. Any divisional hopes are long gone, as they’ve dropped to fourth in the NL East and double-digit games behind Atlanta. They’re still only three games back in the Wild Card picture, but they have five teams to surpass. Two weeks ago, the Marlins were around 50-50 to make the playoffs. The respective odds from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus now all have them in the 8-12% range to play in October.
Miami will have a chance to build some positive momentum right into the August 3 deadline. On Thursday, they’ll begin a four-game road series against an already bad Mets team that’ll probably begin its own teardown during that series. A 5-2 week against Philly and New York would get the Fish back above .500 and likely within a game or two of the final playoff spot. Even a 4-3 showing might be manageable. Another losing week would probably bury them.
These last few weeks will presumably push the front office away from buying short-term assets. Their playoff odds are too low to give up much prospect capital for rentals. They could poke around for a controllable starting pitcher, but that’s not easy to acquire. The bigger question is whether this will push Miami to pivot to selling — which would refocus the attention on their ace.
Alcantara is controllable for 2027 via a $21MM club option. Barring injury, that’s an easy one for a team to pick up. That’s true even of a Miami club running MLB’s second-lowest payroll (courtesy of MLBTR’s new payroll tracker), which checks in around $83.48MM. Miami doesn’t have anyone on a guaranteed contract for next season. Their biggest commitment is the $10MM they’ll send to the Yankees as a condition of the Giancarlo Stanton trade.
None of their arbitration-eligible players are making more than $2.81MM this year. Kyle Stowers, Otto Lopez, Xavier Edwards and Eury Pérez will all qualify for arbitration, so next year’s group is going to be more expensive, but none of them are going to break the bank in their first year of eligibility. They’ll probably all come in below $5MM.
Although Miami wouldn’t buy Alcantara out, that doesn’t foreclose the possibility of a trade. The extra year of control would make him a coveted target for contenders. Alcantara doesn’t have huge swing-and-miss ability anymore, but he leads MLB in innings and has turned in a 4.01 ERA across 22 starts. That includes an excellent 3.29 mark in his past 10 outings, eight of which have been quality starts. He’s a throwback workhorse who’d slot into a playoff rotation for anyone who acquires him.
The two-time All-Star is also one of the best players in franchise history, a clubhouse leader, and a favorite of owner Bruce Sherman. Miami wouldn’t take moving him lightly, but if they don’t expect to work out another extension, his trade value only declines from here as the contractual control dwindles. An extension probably requires an average annual value in the $25-30MM range over three or four years. It’d be easier to see the Marlins doing that if the next CBA includes a cap/floor system that requires Sherman to dramatically raise payroll. If the Marlins are going to keep their payrolls in the $80-90MM range, an extension probably isn’t happening.
Miami’s deadline would mostly revolve around Alcantara, as they don’t have many other short-term trade pieces. While they probably don’t have any true untouchables, it’d be a surprise if they trade anyone from the Pérez, Lopez, Stowers, Edwards, Jakob Marsee group of controllable core pieces (disappointing season for Marsee notwithstanding). Any chance they tried to sell high on Max Meyer should be dashed by a neck strain that’ll keep him shut down entirely beyond the deadline.
Their only impending free agent, closer Pete Fairbanks, has an ERA north of 7.00. Maybe another team will take a flier on his still strong velocity and strikeout stuff, but that’d mostly be about salary relief for the Fish. Fairbanks will be due a little over $3.5MM on his $12MM salary after the deadline. They’d get minimal returns for any of Calvin Faucher, John King or Braxton Garrett.
Perhaps they’ll cash in setup man Michael Petersen, a journeyman who has a breakout season at age 32. That’d be a similar to 2024, when they flipped Huascar Brazobán to the Mets for a mid-level prospect. It would only be worthwhile if the Marlins continue to spiral this week and extinguish any hope for a Wild Card run.
Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch, Imagn Images.
