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In an awful year for pitching injuries, one more just got added to the list. And this one might be the most devastating news yet. Eury Pérez, the phenom Miami Marlins pitcher still two weeks away from his 21st birthday, was shut down for the 2024 season due to injury Thursday and is set to undergo Tommy John surgery. The 6-foot-8 Pérez had been treated with the utmost care during his big league transition, even being sent back down to the minors last July despite dominating in his first 11 starts. And now, it’s all for naught.
Pérez’s injury is just the latest crushing blow in what has already become a travesty of a season for the Marlins, who were preparing to face the Phillies in the playoffs just six months ago. They’ve just become the first team ever to start 0-7 after a playoff appearance the prior season, with all seven losses coming at home. In the ultra-competitive NL East, they’re as good as toast.
So how did we get to this point? How bad is the Marlins’ situation moving forward? And what, if anything, can this team still hope to achieve in their remaining 155 games? Let’s break it down from top to bottom.
We should’ve seen this coming after the 2023 Marlins season
The 2023 Miami Marlins were one of the most fun underdog franchises to root for during the regular season. They had the runaway National League batting champ, Luis Arraez. They had a stable of young starting pitching and a dominant bullpen. And they snuck their way into a Wild Card spot at 84 wins, despite being outscored by 57 runs on the season.
On the surface, the Marlins looked like a young team on the come-up, led by reigning Manager of the Year Skip Schumaker. But there were signs underneath the surface that things were less than rosy in the offices of loanDepot Park.
Not even two weeks after the season ended, general manager Kim Ng, the first female GM in the history of major North American professional sports, declined to return for the new season. It was reported that Marlins owner Bruce Sherman wanted to hire a president of baseball 0perations above Ng, despite the fact that she helped build a playoff team with a payroll ranked between 23rd and 28th in MLB during her three-year tenure.
Taking the reins from Ng was a clear sign that all was not well in Marlins country. It was also a clear sign that the Fish had no designs on upping their payroll in 2024. The team hired Rays exec Peter Bendix as its new president, presumably to try and build a sustainable contender on a shoestring budget. And though many teams have tried to emulate the Rays throughout the years, none have yet succeeded.
Losing two aces in Eury Pérez and Sandy Alcantara is unrecoverable
The Marlins could have survived losing Eury Pérez if they had their 2022 Cy Young winner, Sandy Alcantara, operating at full workload. But, of course, Alcantara is already presumed to miss all of 2024 as well, recovering from the same surgery Pérez is about to undergo.
Without both Dominican fireballers, the Marlins’ once-loaded starting staff is down to bare bones. Jesús Luzardo, the breakout star of 2023, is alone at the top, with 2023 rotation fixtures Braxton Garrett and Edward Cabrera also sidelined with injuries.
The No. 2 starter is A.J. Puk, a converted reliever who so far has nine walks in six innings. Between Puk, Max Meyer, Trevor Rogers, and Ryan Weathers, there were 92 career MLB starts and only two seasons of 100 innings pitched (both Rogers).
As much as it was clear ownership wasn’t willing to invest in this year’s club, it isn’t fair to blame either ownership or the front office for the state of the rotation. Losing that much big-league talent at once and trying to rebuild a pitching staff completely from scratch is simply an impossible task.
An already bad Marlins offense got worse
The 2023 Marlins miraculously made a playoff appearance despite ranking 26th in runs scored, thanks to a ridiculous 33-14 record in one-run games. Success in close games isn’t fully random, but it’s something that fluctuates heavily season-to-season.
Miami had to know it would need more offensive production to build on its 2023 foundation, and instead, it watched production walk out the door. 2023 All-Star Jorge Soler, who hit 36 of the Marlins’ 166 home runs, walked out the door for just $14 million a year. That left Arraez, Josh Bell, and Jake Burger as the only hitters left on the team with an OPS+ above 110.
Not only did that put a huge burden on the three names above, but Bell and Burger both had under-the-hood stats that suggested regression was in order. One can never expect a repeat performance of a season like Arraez had in 2023, exemplified by his 5-for-27 start to this season.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. is 3-for-23. Jesús is Sánchez 3-for-13. As a team, the Marlins are hitting .197, second-worst in the NL, with a dead-last .285 slugging percentage. When you operate without a plan and hope for the best, the opposite usually occurs.
No help is on the way
If the Marlins’ season truly is cratering, then the worst part is that there are no top prospects for the team to get excited about bringing up to the Show.
The number one prospect in the organization is No. 57 overall prospect Noble Meyer, a 2023 high school draftee who likely won’t be ready until 2026. As a whole, the Marlins’ farm system is ranked 29th of the 30 teams according to MLB Pipeline, meaning the prospects the team does expect to call up this season aren’t expected to be all that good.
And with the 16th and 56th picks in the upcoming MLB Draft, it isn’t as though the Marlins are certain to land a prospect that will alter the course of the franchise’s future. The cupboard is bare, the team already looks to be bad, and the future may just be as bleak as it’s ever been in South Florida.
More must-reads:
- Four reasons for the Houston Astros' struggles
- MLB rankings: The five most disappointing free-agent signings
- The 'Active MLB strikeout leaders' quiz
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