Meyer Lemon

 

The prevailing theory when the Marlins lost Sandy Alcantara to a year-ending injury and then dropped out of the playoffs was 'well, once he comes back then the team will be good again'. We're currently witnessing evidence to the contrary.

It's not like the Marlins aren't a wealth of talent right now. A lot of the people playing badly are guys who have been very good, and have been put into an opportunity to continue to do well. It's just not happening. Sandy Alcantara, Edward Cabrera, Cal Quantrill and Connor Gillispie all have ERAs over 6 and negative WARs. Alcantara has an 8.42 ERA with 29 earned runs already, a far cry from his 2022 Cy Young season. The only competent starters at the moment [as Ryan Weathers and Eury Perez are still hurt] are Max Meyer, who's had terrible luck his last few starts and now has a 4.37 ERA, and Valente Bellozo, the ultimate low-K, keep-it-in-the-park craftsman. The point of someone like that is not to put that much weight on them. But, y'know, if Alcantara was actually pitching well then they wouldn't have to. I genuinely feel like Meyer, Cabrera and Alcantara could put together great seasons if circumstances are different, but there have been a lot of gutter balls, and a lot of teams that just light up the Marlins. 

The hitting might be just as snakebitten this year. Jesus Sanchez missed a ton of time and now arguably isn't at 100%, Otto Lopez had a great start then got hurt, Griffin Conine clicked in the majors then immediately needed major surgery, and both Nick Fortes and Connor Corby missed big chunks of April before helping out more recently. You can tell the situation's dire when losing Derek Hill qualifies as a big offensive hit. Statistically, the team's best hitter is former reserve outfielder Dane Myers, who's hitting .338 and has 14 RBIs and 6 steals. The team leader in home runs is Matt Mervis, and he's still not hitting for average. Javier Sanoja had one good series against Philly and hasn't done much else since.

You can at the very least see an offensive backbone growing, between Xavier Edwards, Dane Myers, Kyle Stowers and Agustin Ramirez, all of whom have been great this season. Ramirez is an excellent power bat with 4 homers already, and Stowers has 25 RBIs and a ton of wonderful clutch hits. Clearly there are competent hitters on this team, as evidenced by the team average being .248, a lot better than one would think. There's just a lot of mess, in the pitching, defense and contact. I was kind of hoping there'd be a Marlins team that didn't use as many replacement options in lieu of competent play, but this is apparently where they are still, and this is probably where they'll be for another year or so.

As fun as the Marlins are to talk about on the hitting side, I'm really worried that the pitching will make subsequent Marlins posts really dreary. And with Alcantara back I think that should have been avoided.

Coming Tonight: The comeback player absolutely no one was expecting.