Trade Deadline Outlook: Miami Marlins

Six weeks ago, the Marlins looked like one of the league’s few obvious sellers. They’ve been baseball’s best team since the beginning of June, reeling off a 24-8 stretch to climb eight games above .500 for the first time in three years. A walk-off win over Seattle last night was their fourth straight victory and has them two games ahead of the field for the National League’s final Wild Card spot.

Baseball Reference gives the Marlins a 58% chance of securing their first playoff berth since 2023. Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs both place them just north of 40%. While it still seems unlikely they’ll surpass more talented rosters in Atlanta and Philadelphia to win the NL East, they’ve climbed within three games of the division and are firmly in the Wild Card picture.

For a lot of bubble teams, their performance over the next month is the biggest factor in how the front office will approach the deadline. Miami has a moderately difficult schedule leading up to August 3. They have two more against the Mariners and will close the season’s first half with a home set against the Guardians. They’ll go on a road trip to Milwaukee and Houston coming out of the All-Star Break, then host the Padres and Phillies to close out July. They’ll play a four-game set in Queens against a reeling Mets team as their lead-up to the deadline.

If they’re still in possession of a playoff spot at the end of July, it seems fair to expect the front office to add. A bad month could tip the scales back toward standing pat or a modest sale, though it’s clear they’re beyond the full rebuild stage of Peter Bendix’s tenure running baseball operations. Let’s run through both potential outcomes depending on the team’s performance over the next few weeks.

Record: 50-42 (41% playoff odds, per FanGraphs)

Buy Mode

Potential needs: Back-end starter, high-leverage relief, third base, right-handed bat

Rotation

While the Marlins have built their rebuild mostly around pitching, they nevertheless find themselves in need of more arms to take the next step. They traded Jesús Luzardo, Ryan Weathers and Edward Cabrera — seemingly out of concern about injury risk more than any pressing financial reasons. Their top two pitching prospects, Thomas White and Robby Snelling, went down this year. Snelling is certainly done for the season after undergoing elbow surgery, while White has a shoulder sprain and seems unlikely to make his MLB debut before 2027.

Max Meyer and Sandy Alcantara have been the two constants in the rotation. Meyer, a former third overall pick, has broken out and is pitching at a top-of-the-rotation level. Alcantara isn’t a Cy Young contender anymore but remains a well above-average starter and still works as deep into games as any pitcher in the league. Eury Pérez made a quick return from a gracilis (thigh) strain and still has some of the best stuff in MLB.

It’s a good top three. The trades and injuries have tested the depth. Tyler Phillips has moved from long relief into the rotation. He has done a decent job overall but has a 5.24 ERA and 15% strikeout rate as a starter. He’d ideally be in a swing role. The Marlins will get Janson Junk back from shin inflammation tomorrow. That’ll technically give them a full rotation, but one injury would force them to go back to a depth option like Ryan Gusto or Braxton Garrett (the latter of whom the club clearly doesn’t trust despite his strong Triple-A numbers).

Can Meyer and Pérez be trusted to stay healthy all season? The former has already thrown 108 innings. He has never tossed more than 111 frames in a minor league or MLB season and managed just 64 2/3 innings last year before requiring season-ending hip surgery. Pérez’s workload track record is even more alarming; he has never reached 100 innings in a professional season and is at 79 2/3 this year. Miami has such a rigid plan to monitor his in-start workload that they pulled him amidst a perfect game bid at 92 pitches on Sunday.

“Us looking to play beyond the regular season, Eury’s going to be an important part of that,” manager Clayton McCullough said postgame (link via Christina De Nicola of MLB.com). “He had it really going today, and I totally get it; and there was a part of my heartstrings pulling at his opportunity to keep on going, but I think I have to think about Eury, one, and our organization, our team, and what’s best moving forward to give us a chance to continue to win games. So, made more of a calculated decision with where he was with the pitch count to take him out.”