The Marlins will option prized pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez to their alternate site/Triple-A to begin the season, Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald reports (Twitter links). They’ll open the year with a four-man rotation.
While the first reaction of many fans will be to assume this is a decision driven by service time, that’s not the case in this instance. Sanchez racked up 103 days of service in 2020, meaning he only needs 69 days of service this season to reach a full year. The Marlins would need to keep Sanchez in the minors for at least 118 days in order to delay his free agency by another season at this point, and there’s no plausible scenario where that happens — barring an unfortunate and untimely injury while continuing to ramp up at the team’s alternate site.
In all likelihood, Sanchez will be up in the big leagues within the first few weeks of the season. Sanchez has been behind in camp after being in Covid-19 protocols early on, and he didn’t make his Grapefruit League debut until March 15. He’s still appeared in only three games and tallied just eight innings of work, so it’s understandable that the Marlins don’t want to drop him right into the big league rotation before he is sufficiently stretched out. In the meantime, they’ll be able to carry an extra reliever or an extra bench player, and early off-days will give them the luxury of skipping the fifth spot of the rotation until mid-month (when Sanchez will presumably be ready for his ’21 debut).
The Herald’s Craig Mish tweets that the Marlins are eyeing an innings target of about 150 to 160 for Sanchez in what will be his first full season at the MLB level. The 22-year-old flamethrower debuted last summer and hurled 39 innings of 3.46 ERA ball with a huge 58 percent ground-ball rate, a 20.9 percent strikeout rate and a 7.0 percent walk rate. Once he’s built up a bit more, Sanchez will step into the rotation behind Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, Elieser Hernandez and Trevor Rogers.
“They’ll open the year with a four-man rotation.”
Taking Bauer’s advice, I see.
In the old days four-man rotations were common, but again making 40 starts was expected. What is your take on Wooward’s cryptic comments about Odor this weekend?
How bout 3 man rotations?
Y’all too young to remember Spahn Sain and pray for rain.
In Boston these days, it’s Evoldi and Spumoni and pray for Macaroni….
bauer wanted to pitch every 4th day, that still isn’t the case here
No. It’s because their schedule allows it.
Does he need special cleats for his 6 toes? Or does he have normal sized feet?
Dad joke. I’ll have to use that one on my kids!
Love it haha
He also has 6 fingers on his non throwing hand. That’s why everytime u see him – he’s wearing a glove
Wasn’t it Antonio Alfonseca of the Marlins from fifteen years ago who had an extra digit on each hand and foot? He could count to 24 easily!
Yes ! His nickname was “pulpo” which means octopus in English. Spanish is not as P.C. as English. Lol
six finger, six finger, man alive, how’d I only get along with five
This comes on the heels of the optioning of Sevento Sanchez
Ocho Sanchez is clearly superior.
I wonder if they are looking for a 2B/3b with minimal 2 years control left, from cryptic comments from Woodward this weekend Rangers may have one to give? Can you smell what J.D. and Chris Young are cooking?
I’m still wary of implausible scenarios on service time. Teams seem to have an almost unlimited ability to convince arbitrators that manipulation never happened, even when it’s obvious to the world. if we didn’t see Sixto until 68 days from the end of the season, I wouldn’t be super surprised.
If they wanted to manipulate Sixto’s service time he wouldn’t have been called up at all in 2020.
The Marlins just made Jazz Chisholm their Opening Day second baseman.
There is no manipulating. Teams have every right to keep a player down. That’s the agreement between the union and baseball.to me this and few other things need changing in the next cba. Look a a guy like clint Frazier. Clearly has bright future but jerked around for years because teams can.
Lee Mazzilli for HOF2 hours ago
Look a a guy like clint Frazier.
=====================================================
Frazier stunk his first couple of years. He could barely catch a flyball.
Totally not true. One weekend he lost a ball in the sun and terribly misplayed a flyball. All in one weekend. Then gets branded as a terrible fielder which he actually pretty decent out there.
See, see what you foster MLBTR. You push these theories and in time every team, their owners and personnel are guilty.
LOL
@ pjmcnu;
From Bob Dylan’s 2nd album in 1962. I inserted “Service Time Manipulators’ in. This is how Sevento Sanchez must now live his life. Share this with everyone you know so they can learn to HATE every single MLB owner and those they employ. That helps spr3ead love for the game.
–
“Well, I wus lookin’ everywhere for them gol-darned Service Time Manipulators
I got up in the mornin’ ’n’ looked under my bed
Looked in the sink, behind the door
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn’t find ’em . . .
I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Service Time Manipulators everywhere
I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair
I looked way up my chimney hole
I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl
They got away . . .
Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat
Figured they wus in my T.V. set
Peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain
Them Service Time Manipulators caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones”
if you use enough mental gymnastics anything is service time manipulation.
This really seems more like a “ok, let’s keep the innings low on our most coveted prospect coming off a 30 inning season, we’ll see you in May” kind of situation.
SeRvIcE tImE mAnIpUlAtIoN!
The Marlins technically don’t need a 5th starter til April 12th so it would basically allow them to carry an extra reliever for the first week and a half
Yeah they want to build him up a little more I’m sure and control the innings. But there is also the Rule 5 bullpen dilemma. They want to keep Pop and Campbell. Pop has looked great Campbell has not. Neidert also should have won a spot on the team but it looks like Rogers is #4 for now. For some reason the team is obsessed with giving Elieser a rotation spot no matter what. Then they made the lovely mistake of giving Detwiler an MLB deal. In the meantime they will option Anthony Bender to the alternate site as well even though he should make the team as well and looks like he should be the set up man with Pop (and one or them becoming the closer by the end). But they will keep giving Cimber Detwiler Hoyt and Curtiss chances…. When the next Nick Anderson is sitting right in front of you
Were the Marlins prospects named by a Sega-Genesis or something? This could potentially be the most unique lineup card ever assembled. I’m loving it.
Thats pretty funny. Thanks for laugh
Actually, it can very easily be for service time reasons. Right now he has 5 years left of team control and if they keep him down the minimum number of days, he can end the season with something like 1.90 years of service time which would allow for that extra year. The rule was that last year if you were in the majors for even one day, it counted as a year of service but those rules don’t apply this year.
That is not how last year’s service time was calculated. Each day in the Majors was prorated. Sanchez spent 37 days in the Majors and received a prorated 103 days of service as a result.
He’d need 69 days of service in 2021 to reach one full year, meaning he’d need to be in the minors for 118 or more days in order to delay his free agency.
This isn’t a service time issue. If the Marlins were concerned about service time, he wouldn’t have been up in 2020, and Jazz Chisholm probably wouldn’t be their Opening Day second baseman.
I’m not sure where you read about last year’s service time calculations, but it was not correct.
69. Nice.
“The rule was that last year if you were in the majors for even one day, it counted as a year of service…”
Where did you read that, the back of a cereal box?
When the facts don’t fit your narrative…just make some up
In addition to having only 8 IPs this Spring, his 8 IPs were less than impressive with only 3 Ks.
I can’t wait to see the Marlins final 26. So curious about the situation between Sierra, Brinson and Cooper.
I’m guessing Isan going down keeps all three on the big club for now?
I’m trying to find the news on Sandy Leon. Are we carrying 3 catchers?
Looks like Marlins are gonna carry 13 pitchers instead of 13, so I guess that means Brinson will make the bench.
And no, Leon is not gonna make the roster barring a big surprise.
My guess is one of these two possibilities:
1. They carry 9 relievers, so it is either Brinson or Sierra as a 4th OF, being the latter the most probable given that Brinson still has a minor league option (my preferred guess)
2. They carry 8 relievers so both Sierra and Brinson make the team and then evaluate performances until Sixto is ready, so one of them will be sent down/released.
Good comments.
Interesting that the Marlins will only have 3 middle infielders on their roster. Either a lot of organizational rotation with the AAA club or they’re going to occasionally hide corner infielders with shifts – maybe Anderson being hidden in a shift as a 2B or SS when only one of the middle infielders is on the field since Anderson already does shifts from the right side of 2B
Is he the guy with six fingers and toes?
Looks like I need to pick up a SP in my fantasy league smh
Me to lol
he’ll be back by the end of the 2nd turn in the rotation.
Is everything a conspiracy?
QAnon wants to know
Damn picked this guy way before his projected rank in my fantasy, hope he’ll be back quickly
I got him in the 14th round, and thought he was a steal, even with an innings limit. Still, to me, it’s a bit like ERod. If you were only expecting, say 140 innings, it doesn’t matter too much if he misses innings in the beginning or the end.