This has not been the comeback year Sandy Alcantara and the Miami Marlins hoped for coming into 2025. Alcantara, the 2022 NL Cy Young winner, missed the entire 2024 season with Tommy John surgery. He looked electric in spring training but has been anything but during the regular season. Through 13 starts, Alcantara has a 7.14 ERA with ugly underlying numbers.
The tide may be turning, however. Tuesday night, Alcantara delivered his best start of the season, tossing six shutout innings against an admittedly weak Pittsburgh Pirates lineup (MIA 3, PIT 2). He struck out six and walked only one. It was Alcantara’s second straight quality start too. Last time out, he held the Colorado Rockies, another bad offense, to two runs in six innings.
“Complete outing tonight from him,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said after Tuesday’s game (via MLB.com). “… Some of the swings the guys took, I think it shows the quality of the stuff, while also I think relentlessly pounding the strike zone. Back-to-back really good ones, and I thought that was even better than the one he just had against Colorado just from an overall execution (standpoint). The quality of the secondary pitches, he was able to get a lot of misses.”
Granted, the Pirates and Rockies are not the fiercest competition, but Alcantara could not complete five innings against Pittsburgh earlier this season. The lowly Chicago White Sox tagged him four runs in 5 ⅔ innings last month. Alcantara had not pitched well against any team up until these last two starts. If it takes facing the Rockies and Pirates back-to-back to get him on track, so be it.
Alcantara’s recent success comes with a change in pitch mix. He’s upped his curveball usage significantly, from less than 10% earlier this year to roughly 30% the last two times out. The Rockies start was the most Alcantara had ever used his curveball in his career, then he topped it against the Pirates. He’s also cut back on his four-seam fastball and slider, and thrown more sinkers.
“He’s been doing a lot better getting the fastball more gloveside and getting in on guys a little bit more, especially with righties as well,” Marlins catcher Nick Fortes said Tuesday (via MLB.com). “Getting the sinker in on their hands, and just being able to use both sides of the plate with his fastball. And then, like I said, pair that with good secondary execution. It’s helped him a lot.”
The change in pitch mix is a tangible reason to buy into Alcantara’s back-to-back strong starts, as is the fact he’s further away from elbow reconstruction. I know we think of Tommy John surgery as routine, but it is a major procedure, and it is not uncommon for guys to need time to get back to being themselves. It certainly looks like Alcantara needed some innings to knock off the rust.
Still only 29, Alcantara figured to be the top starter on the market at the trade deadline, and he still might be even with his poor season to date. He’s shown signs of getting back to being himself the last two times out, plus the track record is unimpeachable and the contract is so team friendly. Here’s what Alcantara is owed the next few years:
- 2025: Remainder of $17M salary
- 2026: $17 million salary
- 2027: $21 million club option ($2 million buyout)
These days, $17 million a year buys you a Frankie Montas or a Marcus Stroman in free agency. Alcantara will have roughly $6 million still owed to him this year at the deadline, so take on his full contract in a trade, and it’s only $25 million guaranteed, with the upside of the 2027 club option. That not cheap by any means, but it is a relative bargain in this market for pitching.
The big question is not Alcantara’s money and whether another team(s) is willing to take it all on. It’s what will teams give up to get him? Interested trade partners will undoubtedly attempt to use the surgery and his poor start to this season to drive down the price. Instead of giving up, say, two top prospects plus secondary pieces, they could hold the line at one top prospect. That sort of thing.
Ultimately, the price will be set by a bidding war. The Marlins will leverage potential trade partners against each other and extract as much as possible in a trade. And, if nothing comes across that makes sense, they can keep Alcantara and put him back on the trade market in the offseason, when it might be easier to move him because money hasn’t been spent and payroll space is open.
Tuesday’s win improved the Marlins to 25-40, the fourth-worst record in baseball. They are still fairly early in POBO Peter Bendix’s rebuild. The question is not if they will trade Alcantara, but when, and for how much? The start of his season was dicey, no doubt. These last two starts look more like vintage Alcantara though, and that’s a welcome sight for the Marlins and Sandy himself.
