The Marlins Odd Path to Success

The Miami Marlins 2023 season has been a rollercoaster ride. Despite being statistically average or below-average, the Fish are above .500 in June.

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The Miami Marlins 2023 season has been nearly impossible to explain, and we’re only a third of the way through this 162-game rollercoaster! Miami is half a game ahead of the Mets, holding second place in the NL East with a 31-28 record. Going into the season, the Marlins were projected to be a fourth-place team in their tough division for the third consecutive season. With that being considered, their performance so far is slightly over the expectations entering the season. The Fish have been able to at least stay around .500 for the first 1-2 months of the season for the past two seasons, so they will have to prove that they are legitimate during the second half.

Let’s start with the “bigger picture,” the Marlins called up top prospect Eury Perez, Luis Arraez leads MLB in batting average, Jorge Soler is on pace to hit fifty home runs, and the Marlins finally found a true closer and centerfielder after a couple of years of searching for an answer at the position (well, sort of).

The Marlins are fighting against the advanced projections, as their run differential is -45 while being two games over. Their -39 run differential ranks 24th in MLB, only ahead of teams with a notably worse record than the Marlins, such as the Athletics, Royals, Tigers, Rockies, and White Sox. The Marlins Pythagorean expectation (expected record based on run differential) is 25-34. The Marlins can pull this off thanks to a league-best 16-4 record in one-run games. Miami struggled to win one-run games in 2022, and writers said that losing so many one-run games was one of the biggest things hurting the club. The Marlins solved that problem, and some are now saying that winning one-run games at this rate is an “unsustainable way of success,” but the Marlins have sustained it through the first two months of the year.

While it seems like the Marlins are overperforming based on their run differential, an important stat shows that the Marlins offense could be much better. Miami leads MLB in GIDP (grounding into double-plays), averaging 1.08 double plays per game. These double-plays have really hurt the Marlins, as they are 8th in the league in batting average while being an awful 27th in runs scored!

These crazy numbers have to due a lot with the disappointing seasons from Joey Wendle, Jean Segura, and Jacob Stallings. The OPS+ for Joey Wendle is 48 (league average is 100), but it gets much worse. Jean Segura was signed this offseason to a 2-year contract worth 17 million dollars, his OPS+ through a third of the year is 40. Jean has yet to hit a home run this season after hitting nine of them last year with the NL champion Phillies. Just when you think it can’t get any worse than Segura, Jacob Stallings enters the picture. Stallings is 12-for-80 this season with an incredibly terrible 22 OPS+. The Marlins have great hitters at the top of their order like Jorge Soler, Luis Arraez, Yuli Gurriel, Bryan De La Cruz, Jesus Sanchez, and Jazz Chisholm when he’s healthy, but a lot of their hits get erased by the double-play ball. The Marlins are on pace to break the MLB record for ground ball double-plays in a season, the record is 174 and the Marlins are going for 179.

Jean Segura’s walk-off single

The Marlins pitching rotation has also been very confusing to explain. The starting rotation was the assumed strength of the team going into the season, starring reigning Cy Young award winner Sandy Alcantara. However, Sandy has unexpectedly struggled. Marlins experts have tried figuring out why Sandy is struggling, but there is no clear answer. Sandy’s ERA is 4.93, a sudden drop-off compared to his 2.28 ERA last season.

If I had told you before the season that through the first two months of the season, Sandy’s ERA is 4.93, Luzardo’s is 4.05, Cabrera’s is 5.02, Rogers made four starts, and Cueto has pitched just one inning, you definitely wouldn’t have said the team is over .500. In fact, most people would’ve likely guessed that the squad is one of the worst teams in MLB.

Braxton Garrett has probably been Miami’s most consistent starting pitcher this season. Outside of his May 3rd start against the Braves, he allowed 11 earned runs in 4.1 innings to a scorching hot Braves lineup; Garrett has been awesome. Braxton Garrett has given the Marlins a chance to win the game in almost all of his starts, and he has made a huge step in the right direction this season.

In a small sample size, Eury Perez has been dominant during his first stint in the major leagues. Perez has a 2.25 ERA through his first five big league starts while averaging one strikeout per inning (9.0 K/9). The 20-year-old Eury is already dominating MLB lineups, and he still has a lot of room for improvement!

The recent emergence of Jesus Sanchez has also been extremely intriguing. Sanchez had an awful April, slashing .227/.346/364. Jesus Sanchez was chasing everything and making awful swings, leading to Skip Schumaker reducing his playing time. Then all of a sudden, Sanchez made an adjustment and started hitting. Sanchez wasn’t over-swinging anymore and was hitting the ball to the opposite field, which he struggled to do in April and the rest of his young career. Sanchez hit .444 in 10 games during the month of May before going to the IL on May 14, an unfortunate injury considering that he was at the peak of a hot streak. However, it looks like Sanchez has stuck with his approach; since coming off the IL, he has had some impressive hits.

Jesus Sanchez’s opposite-field single

I can’t finish this article without mentioning the success of Luis Arraez in his first season as a Marlin. Arraez leads the league with a .389 batting average. Arraez always steps into the box, looking to hit the ball in play. He has a league-best K and whiff percentage, as he only strikes out on rare occasions. Players with less major league experience, like Jesus Sanchez and Bryan De La Cruz, can learn from Arraez’s approach. Arraez should be in the MVP conversation if he continues to put up video game numbers and be an All-Star starter at second base for the bare minimum. The man has more multi-hit games than hitless games! Arraez is a current-day version of Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs.

Luis Arraez’s textbook 2-run single

In conclusion, the Marlins have had an extremely funky year. However, the Marlins are in a good spot, with Jazz Chisholm Jr. and AJ Puk set to return soon. So, if the Fish keep playing like this and mix in a little luck, they can buy at the deadline and try making a playoff appearance for the first time since 2020.