Ely Sussman

Player status updates, insightful stats and more information to fully equip you for today's Marlins game. Here are the latest Miami Marlins game notes, produced by the Marlins communications department and relayed to our loyal SuperSubs. Got thoughts about this matchup? Head over to Fish On First's Marlins game thread. View full article

Offishial News for 6/4/24 On Monday down on the farm, FCL Marlins won, 4-3. Another scoreless start for LHP Luis Cesar (5.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 2 K). Hopefully everything's okay with 1B Julio Henriquez—the 19-year-old right-handed hitter was removed from the game after three innings. The Dominican Summer League season is underway. DSL Marlins lost, 6-0. Two-way player Janero Miller served as designated hitter. It'll be interesting to follow his usage after splitting time last season between DH and pitching (and not being particularly effective in either role). DSL Miami won, 11-9. The star of the day was OF José Castro (FOF #28 prospect), who went 2-for-3 with a home run and two walks in his professional debut. INF Breyias Dean went 4-for-5 with 3 RBI. Here's more Marlins news and content for you: 🔷 There are 10 National League teams below the .500 mark! I briefly pondered whether the Marlins would still be competitively relevant and part of the league's jumbled middle here in early June had they not been so eager to initiate a rebuild. 🔷 Woo-Suk Go remains in DFA limbo. His fate will be determined by Thursday at the latest. 🔷 Ben Badler of Baseball America did a thorough review of the Marlins' 2024 international signing class, with glowing reports about OF Luis Cova (FOF #6) and RHP José Paulino, who is "the hardest throwing pitcher any team signed in 2024," already topping out at 99 mph at age 17. 🔷 Just Baseball's updated MLB Top 100 prospects list includes four Marlins: RHP Noble Meyer (No. 48), LHP Thomas White (No. 70), OF Dillon Head (No. 88) and RHP Max Meyer (No. 94). 🔷 Ted Schwerzler of Twins Daily contemplates a Jesús Luzardo trade package centered around infielder Brooks Lee. 🔷 On this day in 2019, the Marlins set a team record with an 11-run fifth inning in Milwaukee. Even JT Riddle and Pablo López had hits during the rally. 🔷 Join us for a new episode of Fish On First LIVE tonight from 5:30-6:30 p.m. ET on YouTube/Twitter/Facebook. Special guest: @Sean Millerick. FOF LIVE is presented by Berger & Hicks. If you’ve been injured as a result of somebody else’s negligence, give them a call at (305) 670-7050. 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano is under investigation by Major League Baseball for betting on baseball while a member of the Pirates. Speaking of the Padres, Luis Arraez is day-to-day with right shoulder soreness. He's expected to avoid an IL stint. In his absence, San Diego lost to the Angels on Monday. 🔷 Today's MLB game: the Citrus Series begins with the Marlins (probable starter LHP Jesús Luzardo) hosting the Rays (RHP Ryan Pepiot). The Rays have had the head-to-head advantage over Miami in each of the last five seasons. One of Tampa Bay's best hitters during the 2023 season, outfielder Josh Lowe has just been reinstated from the injured list. Christian Bethancourt is likely to come back from the bereavement list this afternoon, replacing Jhonny Pereda. The Marlins have a 49.4% chance to win, per FanGraphs. First pitch at 6:40 p.m. 🔷 Today's MiLB schedule: Triple-A Jacksonville at Charlotte, 6:35 p.m. ET Double-A Pensacola vs. Mississippi, 7:05 p.m. ET High-A Beloit vs. Lake County, 7:35 p.m. ET Low-A Jupiter at Lakeland, 6:30 p.m. ET DSL Marlins at DSL Mets Blue, 11:00 a.m. ET DSL Miami vs. DSL Phillies Red, 11:00 a.m. ET Marlins podcast episodes View full article

This afternoon, Fish On First is scheduled to interview Marlins OF Jakob Marsee (our seventh-ranked prospect). If there's anything in particular you want us to discuss with him, please leave a comment!

Have you checked the National League standings lately? Most clubs are clustered slightly below .500, though not enough below to open the door for the Marlins. Last season's main theme across the National League was underachievement. The New York Mets, San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals each entered 2023 with the expectation that they'd probably make it it to the postseason. Instead, all three of them faded from contention early on, with only the Padres making a half-hearted push during the second half of the campaign. The Miami Marlins fully capitalized on these circumstances. They don't have to apologize for it and it doesn't put any sort of asterisk on their Wild Card berth, but that is what happened. Beyond its top four (the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies), the NL had a dearth of quality teams. The Marlins mortgaged just enough of their future and eked out just enough one-run wins to play into October. The theme for 2024 is chaos. The Braves, Dodgers, Brewers and Phillies are above the fray. The Marlins, Mets and Colorado Rockies are below it. Every other club is separated by no more three games in the loss column. A .483 winning percentage is Wild Card-caliber for the moment. Apart from a free agent spending spree that Marlins ownership would never authorize, Peter Bendix didn't have a realistic path to matching 2023's win total. What if, though, the front office actually gave their flawed roster a chance of performing up to its full potential? Hold onto Luis Arraez until the summer trade market fully opens, keep Max Meyer on the major league pitching staff and turn the page on Sixto Sánchez, bench Tim Anderson in favor of Otto Lopez/Vidal Bruján...would that have been enough to propel the Marlins into the NL's jumbled middle instead of the cellar? Impossible to definitively say, but I think the fanbase would be more accepting of Bendix's inevitable rebuild if he began the season by genuinely keeping "one eye of the present and one eye on the future" as he said he would be instead of rushing to wave the white flag. View full article

Signed in 2019 as part of the same international class as Eury. Similar to the draft, it's an organizational win if you can find two average-or-better MLB regulars/starters in the same class. By that standard, that might prove to be the first Marlins int'l class in recent memory to qualify.

Fortes' defense and intangibles make him a major league-caliber backup. I just don't see how the team can justify giving him the lion's share of playing time at the position. Particularly when Sandy and Eury come back, it's important to pair them with a catcher who controls opposing runners. And as a hitter, although Fortes frequently puts the ball in play, there's been frustrating lack of "productive outs" that manufacture runs. Prototypical backup.

I'll be intrigued to find out how the league values him. Good offensive player when accounting for his baserunning, but mixed interpretations of his defensive impact and his injury history hangs over everything. For a massive haul, I agree it'd be appropriate to deal him. But I would guess that offer is only forthcoming if he ups his slugging percentage over the next couple months.

Only two years removed from being demoted to rookie ball, Sanoja is excelling as Triple-A Jacksonville's youngest player. Assignments speak louder than words in the case of Javier Sanoja. The Miami Marlins have accelerated the development of the 21-year-old prospect and he's been unfazed by it. The first intriguing decision was bringing Sanoja to Marlins major league spring training as a non-roster invitee. He was the youngest position player in camp. Although he did not make a significant impact during Grapefruit League games—slashing .211/.250/.263 with two stolen bases in 16 games—the Marlins must've been enticed by something behind the scenes to keep him around for so long. While more highly rated prospects were sent to the minors early on, Sanoja wasn't reassigned until the final Monday of camp. Then came Sanoja's promotion to Double-A Pensacola to open the regular season after having spent just 30 games with High-A Beloit at the end of 2023. He started each of the first 15 Blue Wahoos games, splitting time between shortstop and center field with one appearance at second base mixed in. Slightly better offensive production than spring training (.246/.279/.316 with 79 wRC+ and 3 SB), but unremarkable by most measures. Even more surprisingly, the Marlins promoted Sanoja again on April 23. He moved up to the highest level of the minors, seemingly in response to José Devers' head injury. Through his first two series with Jacksonville, he struggled, but you wouldn't know it from looking at his overall numbers now. As Jumbo Shrimp broadcaster Scott Kornberg tells it on Swimming Upstream, Sanoja worked with hitting coach Greg Colbrunn on adjusting the positioning of his top hand to generate more consistent quality contact. He's been arguably the best hitter on the team in four weeks since then. There are only five players age 21 or younger who have accrued at least 100 Triple-A plate appearances so far this season, per FanGraphs. Three of the five are consensus elite prospects with MLB All-Star upside: Jackson Holliday (Baltimore Orioles), Junior Caminero (Tampa Bay Rays) and James Wood (Washington Nationals). They're joined by Owen Caissie of the Chicago Cubs, a tier below that trio in the eyes of most evaluators, but still widely ranked among the sport's Top 100 prospects. The fifth is Javier Sanoja. He has a 118 wRC+ through 153 plate appearances (35 games) against competitors who are on average more than a half-decade older than him. Throughout his time in the Marlins organization (he was signed out of Venezuela in 2019), Sanoja has distinguished himself with his bat-to-ball skill. His lifetime minor league strikeout rate is 8.0%, about one-third of the MiLB average. That's otherworldly! For context, in a very similar sample size, Luis Arraez had a 8.1 K% in the minors. There's much more to hitting than putting balls in play, of course. In April/May of 2022, Sanoja hit just .162 for Low-A Jupiter. His lack of plate discipline had been exposed. The Marlins demoted him to the Florida Complex League. He made much better swing decisions when he earned his way back up following that year's All-Star break. As mentioned earlier, there have been more dry spells since then. He overcame the most recent one with a mechanical change. The 5'7" Sanoja is very limited in the power department. Despite being durable throughout his career, his highest single-season home run total has been six, set in 2022. Through 50 AA/AAA games this year, he has gone deep only twice with a max exit velocity of 107 mph (that would rank in the 30th percentile of qualified MLB players). That limits his ceiling. There's also a concern about his groundball tendencies (51.7 GB% this season). MLB-caliber defenders with detailed infield positioning data will convert far more grounders into outs than Triple-A opponents. Sanoja has above-average speed, though as Scott Kornberg said, his baserunning "still needs to be refined" to translate to positive value. He's been successful on only 64.6% of his career stolen base attempts (73-for-113). On Sunday, he was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple. Vmc4MUJfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X0F3RUNCVllEQlZZQUR3TUFWZ0FBQ0E4RUFGZ0FVMWtBQzEwSEFRTU1BQVZXVlZSUw==.mp4 With that being said, Sanoja's defensive versatility is a crucial factor. He is deployable at the premium positions of shortstop and center field—he's not extraordinary at either spot, but also not a liability. That could get him a chance to play in the big leagues this season, especially if the Marlins part ways with Tim Anderson and/or Jazz Chisholm Jr. at some point. Sanoja ranked 26th on the most recent edition of the Fish On First Top 30 list. He'll certainly rise up the rankings when we update it again. View full article

Among teams actually eligible to win the lottery (excluding White Sox & A's), the Marlins are still likely to finish in the bottom three. The most significant odds change is between the third-worst and fourth-worst eligible teams. Mets are fourth-worst, for the moment.

Offishial News for 6/3/24 On Sunday, former Marlins first-round draft pick Andrew Heaney worked six scoreless frames. Miami's offense was held without an extra-base hit. Speaking of extra-base hits, Tim Anderson has not had one since April. He's 1-for-his-last-21 at the plate. Trevor Rogers set a season high by completing six innings himself, but he surrendered three runs in the opening minutes of the game. Rogers' average fastball velocity was lower than any other appearance of his MLB career. The Marlins lost, 6-0. Down on the farm, Triple-A Jacksonville lost, 3-1. Avisaíl García went 0-for-3 with a walk, an error and a double play grounded into. He slashed .105/.190/.211 this past week in five rehab games. JT Chargois threw two more innings of hitless relief and his reinstatement from the injured list seems imminent. High-A Beloit won, 7-2. RHP Ike Buxton (5.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 84 pitches/57 strikes) recorded his first win of the season. Low-A Jupiter won, 2-1. RHP Jake Brooks (6.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K, 71 pitches/48 strikes) retired 18 of the 21 batters he faced. Here's more Marlins news and content for you: 🔷 The same bothersome right shoulder that derailed Sixto Sánchez's career from 2021-2023 has landed him on the injured list again. Frankly, the Marlins won't miss him—Sánchez's 10.5% strikeout rate was second-lowest among major leaguers with a minimum of 30 innings pitched. In seven starts, he never exceeded five innings, taxing the rest of the pitching staff. Roddery Muñoz is the leading candidate to fill his vacated starting rotation spot. 🔷 Listen back to the latest State of the Fish call-in show. Beginning at the 44-minute mark, we were joined by Craig Mish from SportsGrid for an extended Q&A about Marlins trade candidates and the direction of the franchise. Perhaps the top news nugget was that Avi García's Marlins tenure "may be coming to the end of the line," per Mish. Do not assume that he will be reinstated from the IL this week. García is earning a $12M salary from the Marlins this season and is still owed $17M more beyond 2024. Mish also considers right-hander Declan Cronin the second-most likely Marlin to be traded behind only pending free agent closer Tanner Scott. He compared Cronin to Nick Anderson in 2019, who was flipped in the midst of his first full MLB campaign to acquire then-prospect Jesús Sánchez. Mish wrapped up the show by acknowledging he's been very "negative" about Sixto through the years...and insisting that he has formed that opinion through conversations with members of the Marlins organization. 🔷 Through 19 Marlins series, @Isaac Azout has soared into second place on the Prediction Time leaderboard. Make series predictions with us all season long when you become a Fish On First SuperSub. 🔷 On Saturday, Alex Carver wrote about the keys to Cronin's success, particularly his excellence during the month of May. His first June appearance on Sunday was more of the same. 🔷 Louis Addeo-Weiss ponders a possible position change for Jazz Chisholm Jr. Would potential trade suitors give up more for him if he demonstrates that he can be a solid defensive shortstop? 🔷 The 2024 Dominican Summer League season begins today. The Marlins continue to field two affiliates in the league: DSL Marlins and DSL Miami. OF Luis Cova (Fish On First's #6 Marlins prospect) will be making his professional debut. Several international signings from recent years who never made it stateside have been released, including LHP Luis Baldiris, RHP Willian Campos, OF Anthony Rodriguez and RHP Nicolas Uriepero. 🔷 On this day in 2017, Edinson Vólquez threw the most recent Marlins no-hitter against the Diamondbacks. A month shy of his 34th birthday at the time, he's the oldest pitcher to throw a no-no with the Fish. Due to injuries, he would make only 10 more starts during the rest of his MLB career. 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, the Tigers demoted former No. 1 overall draft pick Spencer Torkelson to Triple-A. After tapping into his immense power frequently toward the end of 2023, Tork has just four home runs through 54 games played this season. Vladimir Guerrero started at third base in a regular season game for the first time since his rookie season. The Yankees completed their sweep of the Giants with a ninth-inning comeback that featured Juan Soto's go-ahead, two-run homer. Teammates Aaron Judge and Soto now rank first and second among qualified MLB hitters in wRC+ (200 and 191, respectively). Old friend Giancarlo Stanton reached 1,500 career hits (960 of those came with the Marlins). 🔷 Today's MiLB schedule: DSL Marlins at DSL Giants Orange, 11:00 a.m. ET DSL Miami vs. DSL Rangers Red, 11:00 a.m. ET FCL Marlins vs. FCL Cardinals, 12:00 p.m. ET Marlins podcast episodes View full article

Welcome to FOF's 60th Miami Marlins game thread of the 2024 season. There is a Eury Pérez bobblehead giveaway for the first 8,000 fans in attendance. In the midst of a season-long slump, Tim Anderson has been dropped to the eighth spot in the batting order. Full-circle moment for Andrew Heaney. The former Marlins top draft pick is pitching at loanDepot park for the first time since 2014 (the club traded him during the following offseason). The roof at loanDepot park is closed. SuperSubs can access exclusive game notes here. Pregame roster moves: RHP Emmanuel Ramirez recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville; RHP Sixto Sánchez (right shoulder inflammation) placed on the 15-day injured list retroactive to June 1. Enjoy live on-site coverage from Kevin Barral.

Under non-COVID circumstances, I wonder how Jazz would've performed there. That's where he was supposed to be in 2020. Coincidentally, he turned out better than any of the other prospects despite unintentionally skipping that level.

Player status updates, insightful stats and more information to fully equip you for today's Marlins game. Here are the latest Miami Marlins game notes, produced by the Marlins communications department and relayed to our loyal SuperSubs. Got thoughts about this matchup? Head over to Fish On First's Marlins game thread. View full article

Player status updates, insightful stats and more information to fully equip you for today's Marlins game. Here are the latest Miami Marlins game notes, produced by the Marlins communications department and relayed to our loyal SuperSubs. Got thoughts about this matchup? Head over to Fish On First's Marlins game thread. View full article

Welcome to FOF's 59th Miami Marlins game thread of the 2024 season. It is Flanigan's Fest at loanDepot park, with classic items from the restaurant chain available at The Change Up concession stand. Ryan Weathers seeks his sixth consecutive quality start, facing many of the same Texas Rangers hitters who tagged him for six runs in his Marlins debut last August. The roof at loanDepot park is closed. SuperSubs can access exclusive game notes here. Pregame roster moves: C Jhonny Pereda recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville; C Christian Bethancourt placed on the bereavement list. Enjoy live on-site coverage from Kevin Barral.

Well I'd say this reinforces why prospect rankings should not be based on single-month snapshots haha. Of that bunch, I have to give a lot of credit to Lopez—he's been a brilliant addition. I will dedicate an article to Sanoja on Monday.

Player status updates, insightful stats and more information to fully equip you for today's Marlins game. Here are the latest Miami Marlins game notes, produced by the Marlins communications department and relayed to our loyal SuperSubs. Got thoughts about this matchup? Head over to Fish On First's Marlins game thread. View full article