1:18pm: Miami is also promoting top outfield prospect Jesus Sanchez, Heyman tweets.
1:02pm: The Marlins are calling up top pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link). The flamethrowing righty will likely step into Miami’s rotation.
Sixto Sanchez was the centerpiece of the trade package the sent J.T. Realmuto from the Marlins to Philadelphia. He immediately became one of the Marlins’ top prospects and didn’t disappoint in 2019, his first full season with the team. Last year, as a 21-year-old, he pitched to a combined 2.76 ERA with 8.1 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9 in 114 frames between Class-A Advanced and Double-A. Sanchez can reach triple digits with his fastball and also garners praise for a wipeout changeup that is regarded as a plus offering. He’s considered to be among the best pitching prospects in all of baseball, ranking No. 18 at Baseball America, No. 24 at MLB.com and No. 48 at FanGraphs. Keith Law’s preseason rankings at The Athletic had him at 49, and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel listed him at No. 55.
Jesus Sanchez, who is about 300 days older than Sixto but still 22 himself, came to the Marlins alongside Ryne Stanek in the trade that sent Nick Anderson and Trevor Richards to the Rays last summer. He’s a top 100 prospect himself on most lists, garnering praise for exceptional bat speed, plus raw power and a feel for hitting. He’s played some center field but is more likely to end up in a corner. The hope for Sanchez is that he’ll eventually be a quality corner defender who hits for power and average, but he’s yet to see that raw power manifest in game settings. He split last year between Double-A and Triple-A, slashing .260/.325/.398 in 465 plate appearances. He’s not a big strikeout concern, but Sanchez also only walks in about six percent of his plate appearances.
Both players will be controlled through at least the 2026 season even if they’re in the Majors to stay, and they’ve been promoted late enough in the year that they should fall shy of Super Two status when arbitration rolls around for them in a few years’ time.
Can’t wait to see that Sixto 12 curveball
A curveball that rises?
Underhand perhaps
6-12 status
The clock is just upside down
lol
A 12 curveball? Dear goodness! I don’t think any MLB hitter has ever faced that.
I hope Sixto is as good for the Marlins as Realmuto has been for the Phillies. Good trade for both teams.
Seems a bit premature due to no experience above AA and literally just facing his own team in the alternate training site… but I kinda like it for the Marlins. I mean, if there is a year to do it, this year for them makes sense. Good luck, hope he’s great expect when he faces the Braves
Keeping players down for service time is over rated and outdated w so many young elite players making a splash at 19 while other guys disappear prior to service time being exhausted like Bryant.
When they can 1/2 the minor league teams- you’ll see promotions happen faster and the service time thing will be gone for good
TIL that a .903 OPS is “disappearing.”
I can’t wait for that to happen, Bot. Most teams keep prospects down way too long, while giving major league roster spots to players with 0.0 to -0.7 WAR. There’s never a perfect time to promote a youngster but as far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better! Let him learn what he needs to work on first hand vs. a bunch of old timers telling him he needs to do this and that. Nothing beats first hand experience, and failing the first time can be beneficial as well. That’s how good players become great.
Lots of players skip over AAA. Some orgs do it rather routinely with their top prospects.
Lol welcome to 2020. Can’t get reps in AAA if there is no AAA. This is the norm this year.
Level is irrelevant for a pitcher. You are there to work on mechanics and control or to master a pitch. Once you do that it doesn’t matter what level the hitters are you are facing.
That being said I thought he had some work left to be done but maybe he made leaps this summer. He has excellent control and keeps the ball in the park but should be so much more than that with his fastball.
I’m a excited marlins fan
Adding these two increases the team’s Sanchez of making the post-season.
I hear they are also looking to re-acquire Anibal Sanchez.
Adding a third would give them more Sanchezes than they have fans.
They already have more Sanchezs than they have fans. 1 Sanchez is more fans than they currently have.
You completely miss the 36,742 empty seats in the 928,000 square feet stadium?
If either of them pan out, particularly Sixto, might we have a player we can call Filthy Sanchez?
Jeter’s on the phone trying to get Gary.
Another one. Another one. Another one.
Most underrated comment I’ll read today!
Crazy amount of top prospects debuting this season. Atleast 2020 has one benefit, if you can call it that . It sucks that a lot of other prospects are losing a year of development but I love seeing all these blue chippers debut.
go get em Sixto.
Wake up Boston and follow suit! Time to bring up Dalbec, Mata, Houck, Downs, etc.. There will never be a better time to get these kids some major league experience with literally zero pressure on them to perform (unless you want them to tank). Time to send down or DFA, Lin & Peraza, trade Mitch Moreland and let Dalbec play, trade JBJ and bring up Duran and throw two darts at the pitching and DFA them for Houck and Mata. If Miami continues to play well, maybe they could use a Mitch Moreland or JBJ type in the dugout. Would be sad to see them go, but it’s time for Boston to turn the page and time for Miami to show fans they are for real and are ready to become a perennial playoff contender.
I like these moves. After the Covid issue, we have a roster that was too thin to have extended success, other than the smoke-and-mirrors Mattingly pulled off after returning from quarantine. While Sixto may be challenged making the jump, he certainly should help by giving us one less bullpen game from the 3 out of every 5 we’ve had. Now we’ll only have 2 of every 5 games being bullpen games, which allows us to keep them apart, which we weren’t able to before.
And for Jesus, this can help in just that we needed a new look from the failure of Brinson, who is now at a point that is clear that his time in the organization is coming to an end.
Now, with these two moves, it seems that we may not be getting one of our SPs back soon and we are likely not getting back one of our bats (Ramirez or Cooper) soon either. The bat part also looks this way since we’ve already brought up Lewin Diaz.
I do also question if the OF move is directed to keep Villar at 2B after Rojas comes back, sine Isan opted out.
Finally, if we find our way to remain in contention into the deadline, do we address anything if we see a need?
I wouldn’t trade away anything good. How likely are they to win it all? And if they do is it best for business? I don’t think we have to worry about it but from a ticket sales point I would much rather have a playoff team or close to making it then a world series winner. Plus no fans no parade. Also for a small market team a acquisition increases interest and ticket sales so they would miss out on that as well. Much easier to give up a prospect and take on salary if you make a few million and get good pr. I think the trade deadline will be a higher percentage of salary dump and rental players as ever. Thought it would be pretty decent but a lot of likely trade canidates that weren’t rentals are having a terrible year.
Is Sixto, 6’2″?