6 Pitches That Marlins Fans Should Keep an Eye on in 2024

When watching or listening to a baseball game broadcast, "announcers discussing certain pitch types" might as well be a free space on your bingo board. You'll inevitably hear "Player A's best pitch is..." or "his bread-and-butter offering" to segue from one plate appearance to the next.

The Miami Marlins were led to the 2023 postseason by their pitching staff, whose collective 17.5 fWAR ranked eighth in the majors. Let's examine a handful of intriguing individual pitch types belonging to members of that staff and explain why they ought to be ones to watch for during the 2024 season. 

Note: The metric we'll most commonly cite, Pitching Run Value, is defined according to Baseball Savant as, "the run impact of an event based on the runners on base, outs, ball and strike count." Other factors that were considered when putting this piece together included plate appearances (PA), batting average and expected batting average (BA and xBA), slugging percentage and expected slugging percentage (SLG and xSLG) and hard-hit rate (Hard Hit%), to name a few.

Just Missed

• Max Meyer's slider: Tommy John surgery midway through 2022 leaves Meyer's slider as one built more on reputation at the prep and lower levels, With all of just six innings to show in his first taste of the big leagues, Meyer whirled off 41 sliders, briefly showcasing the pitch's potential (.154 xBA, 50 K%). Leaving him off was an easy decision entering this year. However, a healthy Meyer in 2024 could show us why that pitch received a 70-future grade on FanGraphs and why the outlet continues to rank him as Miami's top overall prospect.

• Sandy Alcantara's sinker: Were it not for the fact that Alcantara is set to miss all of 2024 as he recovers from Tommy John, Alcantara's sinker most definitely would have made an appearance on this list. For now, though, we'll include this little blurb highlighting a pitch that authored a positive-14 run value, sixth among all sinkerballers.

• Jesús Luzardo's slider: On the surface, a negative-4 run value would suggest Luzardo's slider was a liability in his repertoire, but there's enough here (at least for my sake) to propose it was much better. A .233 average, while respectable on its own merits, proved Luzardo a victim of poor luck considering his xBA of .170 and .288 xSLG. Among the 18 hurlers to have at least 200 PA ending in sliders, only Spencer Strider's .162 xBA proved lower. Notable too was the 52.7% K-rate "Zeus" generated on the pitch, tops among pitchers with at least 100 PA ending on sliders.

The List

Jesús Luzardo's four-seam fastball

Kicking off the list with some heat, we have Luzardo and his primary offering. While Sandy Alcantara's four-seamer is thrown harder (98.0 mph to Luzardo's 96.7 mph), it is Luzardo's that earns the nod here, as he possesses the rotation's best fastball. Registering a plus-16 run value, by far the best such pitch on the 2023 club and tied with 2021 Trevor Rogers for most run value by a Marlins four-seamer since the metric's introduction in 2019, hitters fared to the tune of a .230 average and .381 slugging percentage against Luzardo's heater. While grading out highly, Luzardo's fastball is here in large part due to his prolific use of the pitch—his 1,375 four-seamers were 18th-most in all of baseball in 2023. On a rate basis, pitchers such as Andrew Nardi and Tanner Scott (1.6 RV/100) and Huascar Brazoban (1.3) threw the pitch more efficiently than Luzardo (1.2), and much of the batted ball data (.267 xBA, .478 xSLG) all point to signs of potential regression should the underlying and surface-level numbers meet somewhere in the middle. How hitters fare against Luzardo—the presumed Marlins Opening Day starter—and his blazing fastball will be something that will come to define his continued success in 2024.

Edward Cabrera's changeup

"A year ago, the other Baltimore Orioles took to calling them Cy Young, Cy Old, Cy Present, and Cy Future. That, perhaps, is because the only thing that Mike Flanagan, Jim Palmer, Steve Stone, and Scott McGregor have in common is their uncommon excellence on a pitcher's mound." This, from a 1981 piece by famed Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell, feels loosely applicable to the current-look Marlins and their core of young, phenom-esque pitchers:

• Cy Young—Edward Cabrera
• Cy Old—Sandy Alcantara
• Cy Present—Jesús Luzardo
• Cy Future—Eury Pérez

Though the first 200-or-so innings of his big league career have been ravaged by command problems (1st percentile in BB%. 2023) and sheer putaway stuff (6.6 H/9, 10.1 K/9), Cabrera has all of the makings of the potential league's best pitcher. As Luzardo's fastball does, Cabrera's changeup ranks in the 95th percentile in offspeed run value, posting a plus-9 mark in 2023. Among 58 pitchers to complete at least 100 PA on the pitch, Cabrera ranked 9th in RV/100, 1.6, while the .171 xBA ranked 7th. The aurora in Cabrera's changeup comes mostly with how hard he throws it, as evidenced by an average velocity of 92.9 mph (third among 224 changeup pitchers). While I won't rush to call it the best single pitch on this Marlins club, given how the numbers under the hood suggest it could be even better, Cabrera finally putting things together will largely depend on him continuing to befuddle hitters with his potent offspeed.

Braxton Garrett's cutter

While his slider may be the superior pitch by what most metrics would indicate, Garrett's cutter earns the mention here. After he cameoed the pitch a handful of times in 2022, Garrett made regular use of the pitch last season, throwing it 17.7 percent of the time. His efforts in increased usage were awarded by way of a plus-7 run value, making it a top-20 pitch on those merits alone. It earns mention here, though, due to signs pointing to that perceived effectiveness dissipating. "It was intriguing when he added it last season, but I don't see what's remarkable about it given the pedestrian results," noted Fish On First founder Ely Sussman. While the league hit just .243 on his cutter, the 48.9-percent hard-hit rate—second-highest among 43 pitchers with at least 100 PA ending on the pitch—gives hitters an xBA of .315 (40th of 43) and xSLG and xwOBA of .573 and .383 (both 41st). While he may employ some of the game's best command, Garrett will have to resemble something akin to Greg Maddux to get away with his frequent cutter usage if he wishes to continue to succeed in getting hitters out. 

Tanner Scott's slider

The first five-plus seasons of Tanner Scott's career made you feel for the guy. Among the 128 relievers to throw at least 200 innings between 2017-2022, Scott's 0.7 ERA-to-FIP variance ranked fifth-worst. His first season in Miami was no exception, as evidenced by his 3.67 FIP and 12.9 K/9 next to his 4.31 ERA and 1.61 WHIP. Then, in 2023, he put it all together, authoring maybe the best-pitched season by a reliever in Marlins history, posting a 2.31 ERA, and setting the single-season club record for strikeouts by a reliever (104). Suffice it to say Scott couldn't have done so without the use of his slider, a pitch that registered a plus-16 run value. Among NL pitchers to have at least 100 PA end on the pitch, only Cincinnati's Alexis Díaz and Lucas Sims registered a higher RV/9 than Scott's 2.5. Like Cabrera's changeup, the results against Scott's primary offering were anemic. Hitters hit a paltry .173 with a .237 SLG, with no luck to speak of, as the underlying metrics would suggest (.180 xBA, .229 xSLG). While Luzardo may have thrown the better slider in terms of generating whiffs (51.8% to Scott's 40.3%), Scott being a two-pitch pitcher means the lack of an elite offering off his fastball could signal disaster for him moving forward, making it evermore paramount he continues to mow hitters down with it.

A.J. Puk's sweeper

"A zero run value? Why is it on this list?!?" Sure, this isn't akin to most other pitches on this list, but what if I told you there's more than meets the eye about Puk's sweeper? While hitters hit .241, we see by way of a 19% hard-hit rate and .237 xwOBA bad luck intertwined with the randomness of baseball. Of the 55 hurlers to complete at least 50 PA with this pitch, Puk accounted for the sixth-lowest hard-hit rate, while posting the 14th-best whiff rate, all while it was the second most-frequented pitch in his arsenal. Given the peripherals and the fact that Miami is slated to stretch him out as a starter in Spring Training, how Puk utilizes the sweeper in 2024 will provide a fascinating insight into his evolution as a pitcher. 

Eury Pérez's curveball

If Eury Pérez showed us anything in his 91-inning introduction to the Majors last season, it is that he throws not one, not two, not three, but possibly four plus-pitches. By run value, his four-seam, slider, curveball, and changeup were all net-positives, with none of those proving more valuable than his slider (+9), but our pick is the 20-year-old's curveball. There were 173 pitchers in 2023 who completed at least 25 PA with curveballs. By several metrics within the confines of this query, Pérez's curveball is a bonafide-top 10 offering of its kind. Hitters hit .098 (fourth-lowest), posted an xBA of .122 (seventh-lowest), slugged .171 (seventh-lowest), and whiffed 54.3 percent of the time (second-lowest). It's also worth noting the consistently weak contact he generates on the pitch, as batted balls averaged just 79.5 mph off Pérez's curve. This, as well as Pérez's aforementioned slider, explains why his breaking ball run value ranks in the 95th percentile. In a year where the team is set to be Alcantara-less, Eury is poised to be the pitcher we all ought to fawn over the most.