Jakob Marsee's reemergence makes it easier for Marlins to trade Jesús Sánchez

[Ely Sussman]

I still don't know what happened to Jakob Marsee last season. Our Fish On First staff had tabbed Marsee as a high-probability future fourth outfielder when the Miami Marlins acquired him, but besides drawing walks and hit-by-pitches, he did very little at the plate against Double-A competition.

Marsee finished 2024 on a relative high note coinciding with his promotion to Triple-A. Spending all of 2025 at that level, he has fully gotten back on track. At this point, the left-handed hitter is merely biding his time until room opens up for him to play in MLB. That opportunity could be coming in a matter of weeks. 

Marsee's counting stats are gaudy. Entering Thursday, the 24-year-old leads the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp in hits (71), home runs (12), total bases (128), runs scored (45), walks (53) and games played (82). He has even accounted for a majority of the club's sacrifice bunts. Most notably, he paces the entire International League with 40 stolen bases.

Marsee is a plus runner. His 29.1 ft/sec sprint speed this season would rank second among all Marlins big leaguers behind only Derek Hill.

About half of Marsee's defensive reps in 2025 have come in right field. He doesn't possess prototypical arm strength for the position, but he compensates for that with accuracy and composure—you won't see him airmailing his target out of desperation and gifting extra bases to opponents.

At the very least, Marsee would be more impactful than Hill. The bolder question is, would he provide comparable or superior value to longtime Marlin Jesús Sánchez? Pairing his consistently good plate approach with a recent uptick in power makes it plausible.

There is significantly less raw power to harness, to be clear. While the 6'4" Sánchez has shown the ability to go deep to all fields, the 6'0" Marsee is only a threat to do so to his pull side. Thankfully, he recognizes that—Marsee has been hitting balls to right field more frequently than he did during any of his previous minor league campaigns. All 12 of his homers this season have been hit to right or right-center.

As Marlins fans are well aware, Sánchez's glaring flaw is production against left-handed pitching. He is a lifetime .180/.229/.290 MLB hitter with the platoon disadvantage and even worse so far in 2025. Marsee comes with that same red flag—since arriving at AAA, there is a 205-point gap in his OPS depending on pitcher handedness (.834 OPS vs. RHP, .629 OPS vs. LHP). That means hot-hitting, right-handed rookie Heriberto Hernandez would still be getting ample opportunities against southpaws.

Sánchez amassed 1.4 fWAR in 2023 and 1.5 fWAR in 2024. He's on pace for a similar number yet again at age 27. That should not be taken for granted, but Marsee has the potential to match, if not exceed his overall output.

The Marlins would save close to $1.5 million by trading Sánchez at the July 31 deadline. The far greater motivation, however, should be the combo of receiving prospect capital in return and finding out how Marsee's skill set translates to the majors.

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[Slacker Mills]

As a proponent of speed and solid defense all over the field, I'm ready to watch Marcee for the rest of the season. I would absolutely trade Jesus Sanchez at this point.

My key trade chip would be Stowers. How about sending him to Seattle, which is allegedly looking for a lefty bat? The target there would be Harry Ford, who could platoon with Joe Mack at C and also play OF. The Marlins could then trade Nick Fortes and Liam Hicks. San Diego, in particular, is a potential destination for Hicks.

I love Marsee hitting first and Edwards second.