Offishial News: Can Marlins crush the Mets' dreams again? Plus 2025 Minor League Awards

[Ely Sussman]

While mourning the end of the Miami Marlins' 2025 playoff push, let's celebrate the burgeoning young talent that will help them compete in 2026 and beyond. The Marlins have announced the following recipients of their Organizational Minor League Awards: Kemp Alderman (Player of the Year); Robby Snelling (Pitcher of the Year); Jakob Marsee (Triple-A Jacksonville MVP); Thomas White (Double-A Pensacola MVP); Karson Milbrandt (High-A Beloit MVP); Eliazar Dishmey (Low-A Jupiter MVP); Nate Payne (FCL Marlins MVP); José Castro (DSL Miami MVP); Luis Cova (DSL Marlins MVP); Jeremy Almonte (Student of the Year) and Angel Espada (Staff Member of the Year).

They'll be presented with their hardware during a pregame ceremony at loanDepot park on Saturday.

On the field Thursday night, Triple-A Jacksonville clinched the International League championship with a 7-4 win over the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (New York Yankees affiliate). The Jumbo Shrimp took control immediately with a five-run first inning and got five scoreless frames from starter Adam Mazur. If there were such a thing as the ILCS MVP award, it likely would've gone to outfielder Matthew Etzel (5-13, HR, 4 RBI, SB).

Jacksonville will take on the Pacific Coast League champs, the Las Vegas Aviators, in Saturday's Triple-A Championship Game.

More Marlins news and content below:

🔷 The Marlins lost each of their four series against the Philadelphia Phillies in 2025. The main issue this past series? An inability to score early in games. Miami's offense mustered only one (unearned) run in the 19 combined innings pitched by Cristopher Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo and Walker Buehler.

🔷 Janson Junk was the tough-luck loser in the series finale. Unique season for Junk, who arrived as a minor league free agent signing, only to finish third on the Marlins in innings pitched, refusing to walk anybody upon getting called up.

🔷 This will be the 14th time in the last 15 full-length seasons that the Marlins finish below .500. On the bright side, winning just one of the final three games would set a new franchise record for most wins added from one year to the next (only counting consecutive full-length seasons).

🔷 Lance Brozdowski dove into the Marlins' strategy to call pitches from the dugout and how the algorithmic calls that coaches make may differ from what catchers would've called in the same situations.

🔷 The Prediction Time leaderboard has been updated. Only one series left! Become a SuperSub and we'll keep track of your predictions all season long.

🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, only the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks remain alive in the race for the third National League Wild Card spot. There are four teams—the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Guardians and Houston Astros—jostling for three postseason berths in the AL. The Red Sox and Tigers coincidentally face each other this weekend. The Washington Nationals are hiring Red Sox assistant general manager Paul Toboni to be their new president of baseball operations. Toboni replaces longtime Nats front office leader Mike Rizzo, who was fired in July. Aaron Judge set a new AL single-season intentional walks record, and he is all but assured of being the tallest batting title champ in MLB history.

🔷 Today's MLB game: it's the first of three opportunities for the Marlins to spoil the Mets' season (probable starters RHP Sandy Alcantara and RHP Brandon Sproat). Alcantara is making his 169th and potentially final start in a Marlins uniform. He has a lifetime 2.98 ERA in 17 previous starts against the Mets. First pitch at 7:10 p.m. ET.

 

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[Shawn]

I really hope this doesn’t turn out to be Sandy last start for the marlins. I’ve been a marlins fan from the start, and so tired of watching legends get traded. This is a young exciting team and rotation, let Sandy anchor it next year and be the veteran presence for a young team. I think about if this team didn’t trade luzardo for what looks like another bust where the record would be. 

[CraftyLefty]

Tough loss for Junk. 
 

Re the minor league pitcher awards, it’s all about velo and K/9.  Nothing else matters to the Marlins

[THOMAS JOSEPH]

Interestingly, the new Rays ownership group includes the owner of the Jumbo Shrimp - Ken Babby.  In fact, I heard he was spearheading the stadium project for the Rays. I assume there are no issues with that vis-à-vis minor league teams under his control with non-Rays affiliations.