Just one season removed from the Marlins’ second playoff appearance in over 20 years, the team once again appears to be headed for the Major League Baseball cellar.

An organization that seems to be in perpetual rebuilding for most of this century is starting from scratch.

A slew of deals during a doomed 2024 campaign has fans once again reaching for their scoreboards to put names to the faces of the players making up Miami’s roster — except one, and it’s a name that many fans of Major League Baseball may have forgotten. .

Former Marlins staff ace Sandy Alcántara, whose Cy Young-winning campaign helped lead the team to the 2022 playoffs, was the toast of MLB before a terrible 2023 campaign was cut short by an ulnar collateral ligament injury in his right elbow that ultimately required Tommy John surgery.

Alcántara missed the entire 2024 season as the Marlins fell to the bottom of the National League East Division with the fourth 100-loss season in the organization’s 32-year history.

The 29-year-old has progressed well through surgery and rehabilitation and aims to be ready for Opening Day 2025. according to Christina De Nicola or MLB.com.

However, Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller believes it would be better for Alcántara to make his next MLB start for a different team and urges the Marlins to trade the two-time All-Star this winter.

Alcántara is expected to earn $17.5 million this upcoming season. Miller notes that the salary is “nothing” for a major-market contender, but is ridiculous for a frugal franchise like the Marlins.

“A team that has a wide range of viable options for its starting rotation, virtually no hope of making the 2025 playoffs and an average Opening Day payroll of $74.1 million over of the last 12 seasons? It’s too much, and it seems almost inevitable that they’re going to make it available to the highest bidder,” says Miller.

However, any deal made this winter — before Alcántara can show whether or not he can return to 2022’s 2.28 ERA, 207 strikeouts — would sell for pennies on the dollar.

If Alcántara returns to the same form that another Dominican native – Luis Gil of the New York Yankees – did in his return from Tommy John surgery, Miami would be much better off trading him for a king’s ransom to the 2025 trade deadline.

Retaining Alcántara, however, carries certain risks. If seventh-year Marlin returns only to pitch like he did in 2023, when his ERA rose to 4.14, then Miami would be left with a contract albatross for the next two seasons.

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