The Miami Marlins are somewhat like cicadas. Every couple years, they emerge and make the playoffs, only to then immediately go back underground for a while. Unfortunately, the Yankees caught one of the worst years of that cicada infestation in 2003.
Recently, the Marlins made the playoffs in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, and then somewhat more legitimately in 2023. Those appearances didn’t end up leading to anything substantial and the Marlins dipped to below .500-dom, sending Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the Yankees in the process.
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Going into 2026, it’s tough to expect that this will be a year where the cicadas emerge.
Miami Marlins
2025 record: 79-83 (3rd in NL East)
2026 FanGraphs projection: 75-87 (4th in NL East)
At least prior to the new season, it sure does appear like the 2026 season will be a year of the Marlins seeing what they have. For position players, all but two of their expected Opening Day roster (at least according to FanGraphs) are under 27, and the two that aren’t are only 28. The pitching side of things has a bit more experience and guys you’ve heard of, but a bunch of them are probably candidates to be flipped in a trade if they’re good and the team isn’t going anywhere this season.
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At the top of Miami’s rotation will still be 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara. Between injury and a bit of a decline, he hasn’t been close to that pitcher since winning the award in 2022, and has been below average in general since 2023, when he was pretty good. He’s set to be a free agent after this season, so it’s hard to imagine any scenario where he ends the year in a Marlins jersey. If he looks good again, he probably becomes a top trade target. Even if he’s not great, there will probably be some team who tries to take him on a low risk deal and figure out if they can unlock the former All-Star that he was.
Elsewhere, the Marlins already cashed in on one particular rotation trade piece in sending Edward Cabrera to the Cubs. They signed Chris Paddack to the one-year contract, so if he shows anything, he could be another one that gets flipped if he’s even somewhat good.
As far as position players go, as mentioned this’ll probably be a year of development. Of the young players on their roster, Otto López and Xavier Edwards have both shown promise in the field, but the Marlins will hope they can show something at the plate, while they hope for improvement of a little bit of everything from former Yankees prospect Agustín Ramírez. In the aforementioned trade with the Cubs, Miami picked up Owen Cassie, who debuted for Chicago last year and is still making appearances on top 100 prospect lists. Besides him, several of the Marlins’ highest rated prospects are in the higher levels of the minors, so we could see several of them get callups this year.
The best hitter the Marlins had last season was outfielder Kyle Stowers. Age-wise, he falls outside of that group of 26 and below players, but he’s still early enough into his service time that they don’t have to make any decision yet. That being said, he’s nearing arbitration, and it wouldn’t be shocking given the Marlins’ history if they do something with him before a potential pay rise. Other than him, Miami doesn’t have a ton of position players you’d want to spend big on, but maybe someone can play themselves up in esteem.
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At least as of now, I can’t say that there will be many Marlins games I’ll be intrigued to watch, but as a former Yankees radio broadcaster would say “you can’t predict baseball,” so who knows.
More Pinstripe Alley MLB team season previews can be found here.
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