Here's the wildest thing about the 2025 Miami Marlins, already the most fascinating of the 'bad teams' this year. Statistically, their best player right now is a reliever named Lake Bachar. Bachar toiled in the Padres' minor league system for 8 years, signed a deal with the Marlins and snuck onto the roster last year. So far he's been excellent in relief. Bachar is perfect for Miami baseball, because he has he look of someone who just crawled out of a swamp. He's got long hair, asymmetrical eyes, is somehow gangly and bloated at the same time, and looks perpetually like the mysterious insane drifter in a television show. Equal parts Old Man McGucket from Gravity Falls and Horace Goodspeed from Lost. More relievers should look like barroom denizens. We had Rod Beck, we had Bob Wickman, and now Bachar will do the trick.
I bring this up because the Marlins' thing so far this year has been getting wins out of the most anonymous, incomprehensible types of players. Going into the season, the narrative the Marlins were going with was 'Sandy Alcantara is back, Xavier Edwards, Jesus Sanchez and Connor Norby are the stars of this team, and we're building on last season in order to hopefully be good again soon'. Alcantara so far has a 7.27 ERA, Edwards is decent but limited, Norby and Sanchez just got activated and the team again seems to be reshuffling. And...in the most bizarre way, it's kind of working? The Marlins aren't in last, they're scraping by, and yesterday they won on a 5-RBI day from rookie Javier Sanoja, who also hit his first career home run.
This was against the Philadelphia Phillies, by the way. As was the previous game, which the Phillies won but the Marlins nearly flipped by tacking on 6 runs in the ninth. And you can easily go 'oh, well the Phillies bullpen is having troubles right now', but if the Marlins' lineup wasn't sneakily good then they never would have had much of an issue.
Right now the Marlins' best starter is Max Meyer, who had some excellent 2024 starts despite spending a chunk of the year in the minors. He's got a 2.10 ERA and 41 Ks so far, and as we speak he's silencing the Reds' offense. The team's best power hitter is former Cubs prospect Matt Mervis, who has 6 homers and 12 RBIs despite struggling in most other aspects. Kyle Stowers is undeniably the team's best clutch hitter, as he's been proving since the season started. And the best defender is Otto Lopez, though his contact numbers aren't all the way there yet this year. Plus, Ronny Simon and Agustin Ramirez got called up tonight and both have fit snugly into the equation.
The injuries to this team...you'd think would be more destructive. Obviously Eury Perez and Braxton Garrett are out for a bit, but this team is also without Ryan Weathers, Nick Fortes and now, just as he was getting going, Griffin Conine. And yet the roster depth and farm system are keeping the Marlins in it right now. Maybe not in the starting pitching division, but the variable quality of the lineup is definitely keeping the team fresh. Dane Myers, Eric Wagaman and Liam Hicks have played crucial roles in this team despite having more minor roles at the onset of the season. Only one person has truly outright failed so far, and he's off the team...though Cal Quantrill is close to that designation.
The Marlins, despite any indication that they would be, aren't terrible this year. They aren't GREAT, but they haven't been as much of a disappointment as someone like Atlanta. Hopefully they build on this.
Coming Tomorrow- Fifteen years ago, if you had told me that this guy, all those years later, would still be starting for Cleveland, now coming off a gold glove season as a 1st baseman, I wouldn't have believed you.
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