Marlins’ Griffin Conine Suffers Dislocated Shoulder

The Marlins announced after today’s game that outfielder Griffin Conine suffered a dislocated left shoulder and is currently undergoing further evaluation and treatment. It’s all but certain that Conine will require a stint on the injured list. While a more specific timetable for the injury won’t be clear until he’s been evaluated more fully, it should be expected that Conine will miss quite some time. Dislocated shoulders can often require a recovery period measured in months rather than weeks, and severe dislocations can even require surgery that would jeopardize the remainder of Conine’s 2025 campaign.

Trevor Story, Shohei Ohtani, and Jung Hoo Lee are among the players to have recently required surgery after suffering a separated shoulder. Ohtani’s partial dislocation required only arthroscopic surgery, and he wound up being ready for Spring Training just three months after going under the knife. Story’s surgery in April of last year was also to correct a partial dislocation but was nonetheless expected to be season-ending, although he ultimately managed to make it back to the majors in late September after roughly five months on the shelf. Lee, by contrast, suffered a full dislocation back in May and ultimately missed the remainder of the 2024 season.

However long Conine ends up missing, it’s nonetheless a frustrating setback for the 27-year-old. A second-round pick by the Blue Jays back in 2018, Conine was traded to Miami as part of the Jonathan Villar trade and made his MLB debut late last year. Conine has looked like a solid contributor in 49 big league games since his promotion, hitting .273/.338/.441 (116 wRC+) to this point in his young big league career and even earning the everyday left field job for the rebuilding Marlins. That everyday job figured to be a very effective proving ground for Conine that could offer him plenty of runway to earn either a long-term job as a regular in Miami or perhaps even catch the attention of rival clubs as a potential trade piece, but all of that now figures to be scuttled for the foreseeable future.

A Marlins club that was already lacking in outfield depth after Derek Hill hit the shelf due to a sprained wrist earlier this week now figures to be tested even further. Jesus Sanchez and Dane Myers are currently sharing time in center field while Kyle Stowers serves as a regular fixture in right field. That would leave a combination of Sanchez, Myers, and utilityman Javier Sanoja to mix and match in left field as necessary out of the club’s current outfield options, though a bat will surely be brought up to replace Conine on the roster in due time.

Victor Mesa Jr. is already on the 40-man roster and could be called up to share time in center with Myers, pushing Sanchez over to left, or a non-roster veteran like Albert Almora Jr. could have his contract selected from Triple-A to help fill out the outfield depth chart in Miami. One other potential x-factor for the Marlins could be top outfield prospect Jakob Marsee, who came over from San Diego in the Luis Arraez trade. Marsee has looked good in 18 games at Triple-A to this point in the year and could slide into an everyday outfield role seamlessly for Miami, though it’s unclear if the club would have any interest in bringing the 23-year-old to the majors (and starting his service clock) without seeing a larger body of work at Triple-A. Marsee is also not yet on the 40-man roster and would require a corresponding 40-man move, though a particularly long absence for Conine would solve that issue by way of the 60-day injured list.