Last winter's offseason trade market featured mostly "baseball trades," swaps of big leaguers at positions of need between contenders. The handful of rebuilders had torn the roster so far down that they didn't have much to offer in the more common type of deal -- a quality player being dealt from a bad team to a good one in exchange for prospects.
The Jesús Luzardo trade was probably the biggest exception. The Marlins dealt him to the Phillies in the middle of December for a pair of low minors prospects, shortstop Starlyn Caba and center fielder Emaarion Boyd. A talented player down to his final two seasons of arbitration control on a team that lost 100 games is generally an obvious trade chip. Luzardo's candidacy was made more complicated by his injury history, most notably a back problem that ended his '24 season in June.
Miami's front office faced a risk-reward calculus. Should they hold Luzardo until the deadline? A strong first half could make him the best controllable starting pitcher available. Another injury would sap most of his remaining value. An offseason trade was the safer play, but it also came with lower upside as a bit of a sell-low move. For slightly different reasons, they may be faced with a similar decision two months from now on Sandy Alcantara.
It's too soon to render definitive judgments on the Luzardo trade. The southpaw's first eight starts with the Phillies couldn't have gone much better, though. He took a 2.11 ERA into this afternoon's start against the Cardinals, in which he fired another seven innings of one-run ball. Luzardo has struck out 26.6% of opposing hitters. His stuff looks as sharp as it did before last year's elbow and back issues. He's performing at a top-of-the-rotation level.
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Seems simple to me. Unless another team is offering one top 30 overall or two top 100 overall prospects, Marlins play the waiting game.
Alcantara should be fine but it may take months or over a year. Marlins can afford to run the experiment until the return is large enough to justify.
I agree, no way would I be trading him without a haul that includes top prospects. Still under contract for 2026 and 2027.
Keep in mind the Marlins have to pay his salary which is 17.3 million in 2025 and 2026 and then either 21 million in 2027 or a 2 million buyout. He’s not cheap. And he’s pitching poorly no doubt about that. I think if they get a package similar to what they got for Luzardo or Rogers they should probably take it. No guarantee he’s going to bounce back. Luzardo has but Rogers has not.
Luzardo package was god awful.
Caba is the 69th overall prospect on the recently updated top 100 list. Thats not bad at all. Obviously Luzardo has bounced back and is pitching amazing but he might turn into Trevor Rogers instead. You just don’t know.
“Luzardo package was god awful.”
It was the timing that was awful. Under the circumstances the package going by grading and upside potential was pretty good.
The Farm system at the time of the trade was weakest at A & A+ levels. There is a very good chance the demand for 40 man roster spots at the end of the season will easily exceed supply
Caba hasn’t really shown anything other than being young and fast. No minor league production whatsoever.
I see the point in referencing the return in the Rogers trade. But referncing performance and bouncing back, the 2 arent on anywhere near the same level. Alcantra has had for more success and has shown to be far better and has numerous seasons better than any Rogers has had in his career.
A player with Alcantra’s talent and the value of that talent is worth the risk . As for the $ owed, that is relatively cheap for a 1 or 2 TOR arm.
Rogers has a better career FIP than Alcantara does. All 3 guys are extremely close 3.80 for Rogers, 3.82 for Luzardo and 3.85 for Alcantara. All are similar in talent.
Alcantara might be Luzardo. He also might be Rogers. And hes more expensive than either are or were.
ALcantra is that expensive compared to other top of rotation arms.
And while they might have close FIPs,.one of those 3 had been a workhorse up until his injury while the others haven’t. And anyone who has watched Alcantra and Rogers pitch knows quite well which of the 2 has more talent and is much more valuable(Alcantara). A quick glance at stats and cherrypicking one statistic does not spell reality.
The fact that Alcantara was a workhorse could be directly tied to him getting hurt.
FIP isn’t cherry picking a stat it’s the best stat for predicting future pitching performance and the best stat to define a pitchers true talent level. And anyone who has seen Alcantara pitch recently would tell you he looks terrible. There is no guarantee he gets back to health and to performing at a high level.
That’s incredibly funny. Alcantara was roughly MLB average in 2023 then he missed all of 2024 to Tommy John surgery. Since his return he has looked not just bad, he has been among the very worst starting pitchers in baseball.
Just how bad has he been? If he has a 2.00 ERA and throws 6 innings in all of his 11 starts between now and the deadline he will still not have an ERA lower than the 4.15 average for starting pitchers so far this season.
There has been nothing in his performance to date that points to coming improvement. All his peripherals point to more of the same.
After a 2023 season in which he put up MLB average numbers, Alcantara was not an Ace capable of bringing the Marlins a return of two Top 100 prospects and that was prior to his injury. At this point, unless Alcantara has a sizzling performance over his next 10-11 starts, the type of return the Marlins got for Luzardo may be out of reach.
I mean when Sandy has pitched at least 28 starts he’s produced at least 3 war and has been 13% above replacement.
Elite Average production if you ask me. That should bring back a decent haul. Marlins should be in no rush till next years trade deadline
When was that again? 2022?
He wasn’t elite in 2023, his most recent season.
He had surgery that does not have a 100% success ratio. 1 in 5 never return and 42% never get back to their career averages.
He is really, really bad this season. Bottom 3 in MLB kind of bad.
What he did in 2022 will give him more starts in Miami. It won’t net the Marlins better prospects in trade. After what teams have seen this year, the Marlins will not get anyone of value back for Alcantara until he shows on the field that he can actually produce. Unfortunately for them, with every start his return in trade is going down and unless he makes a 180, the return they got in the Luzardo trade will be just a dream.
@Baseball in 2023 he had a handful of bad starts that skewed his stats. One in particular he was left on mound to the tune of 9 Rs. From June he hadn’t given up 9 total Rs in any month.
Yes Alcantara’s return from injury has left alot to be desired. Prior to injury he was a workhorse with top of rotation stuff most games.
Better idea
Sell the damn Marlins to a Owner who is actually going to spend money on FA
And one who doesn’t totally scrap their gameplay every few years & start from scratch again. A neverending rebuild.
The team that made the playoffs 2 years ago was awful. There’s no way they should have added to it. They made the correct choice in what they did.
It’s not always either/or. Spending money can actually help a rebuild. You can flip guys, for instance. These atrocious teams don’t even sign anyone but basement level players hoping for a rebound. They just don’t want to invest any money and heaven forbid the team is actually near contention and you might not be poised to sell off every little piece. If they were so hellbent on not trying to add anything why did they not trade Alcantara and Luzardo when they had more value?
I remember when the Luzardo trade rumors were at their peak and I was fascinated by how some pitchers like Luzardo and at an earlier point in his career, Greinke, can have really bloated ERA’s but scouts/experienced folks can see the diamond in the rough that indicates they could actually be one of the best pitchers in baseball and they get traded enough that someone figures them out and they become one of the best pitchers in baseball after a string of entirely or mostly 4+ or 5+ ERA’s.
One of those 4D Chess things some people can see that others can’t.
Surely it takes a crystal ball to see that a former top prospect that had 208 K and a 3.5 era a year prior at age 25 has some potential. He was already a solid starter. He just got hurt.
.3.50 ERA is indicative of someone who will have around a 2 ERA?
3.5 ERA’s are a dime a dozen. C’mon now.
A 2 era thru 9 starts. Honestly it was always apparent that he had a very high ceiling for people following him. And I don’t discount era but we are talking about one year and a 3.5, 3.3 the year before. Era’s fluctuate a decent bit year to year. Couldn’t hurt to not be on the Marlins. And he was 25. My point is he had a lot of good ingredients to work with.