With fully healthy rotation, 2025 Marlins can contend! Well, that's not how this works

"The injuries that we sustained were one of the reasons that we had a difficult season," Miami Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said during Tuesday's end-of-season press conference.

That point is inarguable. Entering 2024 spring training, Jesús Luzardo, Eury Pérez, Braxton Garrett and Edward Cabrera were atop Miami's starting rotation depth chart. Each of them spent multiple months on the injured list with Pérez being sidelined for the full year. Spring standout Ryan Weathers helped fill the void through early June, only to lose more than half the season with his own fluky finger injury. Moreover, Sandy Alcantara, the most accomplished pitcher on the club, was ruled out for the entirety of 2024 before it even began while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery.

"At this point, we're optimistic about all of their health," Bendix continued, "and we know what those guys can do when they're healthy."

Bendix declined to elaborate on why he's optimistic that the Marlins will be more effective at repelling the injury bug in 2025, simply saying, "we're always evaluating ways that we can get better."

Within hours of this media availability, Bendix acted upon his evaluation. Head athletic trainer Lee Meyer and strength and conditioning coach Brendan Verner are among the 70-plus Marlins employees who have been fired recently, Craig Mish and Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald report. Similar personnel changes are being made at lower levels of the organization as well. As of Thursday afternoon, the Marlins have seven job postings related to minor league athletic training, strength and conditioning, rehab and nutrition.

Simultaneously onboarding qualified people for each of those positions and making sure they are philosophically aligned could have its benefits. That being said, I wanted to take a moment to properly calibrate expectations.

Too often, injured pitchers are likened to robots undergoing routine maintenance. Reduced innings totals in a given season are "bullets saved" for subsequent seasons.

There is no evidence to substantiate this. One of the only hard truths in this notoriously gray area is that past injuries are the strongest precursor of future injuries. The Marlins losing so many arms for extended periods was unequivocally bad for their long-term outlook. The 2024 campaign should not be dismissed as an anomaly and the outgoing support staff should not be scapegoated for it.

To use Garrett and Luzardo as examples, sure, they are capable of pitching fully healthy seasons. The left-handers co-anchored the 2023 Marlins rotation, making every scheduled start. However, the vast majority of their professional seasons have been abbreviated by injuries. Both are Tommy John survivors who had new forearm scares this year.

Fresh off of his own TJ rehab, Alcantara will try to emulate 2015 Matt Harvey and 2022 Justin Verlander, immediately re-establishing himself as an ace. That should be considered the ceiling for his performance, not a guarantee. El Caballo is extraordinary yet mortal, susceptible to the same unforeseen setbacks in availability and sharpness that afflict most other pitchers who've been in his exact situation.

An additional layer of uncertainty: How successful will the Marlins be at developing new waves of reinforcements without the services of longtime pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. and minor league pitching coordinator Scott Aldred? Each of the aforementioned pitchers singled them out as positive influences on their careers. Bendix has elected to replace them anyway.

Lastly, it's crucial to point out that pitchers do not have full control of their results. Even the most dominant ones rely on the fielders behind them to record the majority of their outs, and the Marlins' existing defensive alignment stinks. With the exceptions of Otto Lopez at second base and Nick Fortes behind the plate, the incumbent pieces do not fit together. There will be a frustrating gap between their actual and deserved results unless something changes this offseason.

There is some randomness involved with the frequency and severity of injuries. It feels like the Marlins got especially unlucky in 2024. However, it'd be irresponsible to plan on Alcantara, Luzardo, Garrett, Pérez, Weathers and Cabrera all being healthy at the same time. If Bendix intends to field a significantly improved team in 2025, he ought to be proactive about adding depth and quality to this roster rather than banking on their luck evening out.