The Marlins announced several roster moves this morning, headlined by the club placing left-hander Braxton Garrett on the 15-Day injured list with a left forearm flexor strain. The club also optioned right-hander Shaun Anderson to Triple-A. Taking Garrett and Anderson’s spots on the club’s active roster will be right-hander Kyle Tyler and left-hander Kent Emanuel, both of whom had their contracts selected. Left-hander Jesus Luzardo and right-hander Edward Cabrera were both transferred to the 60-day injured list to clear space for the duo on the 40-man roster.
Garrett’s placement on the injured list isn’t necessarily a surprise, as the club had already scratched him from today’s start due to elbow soreness yesterday. With that being said, the diagnosis of a forearm flexor strain is a concerning one that suggests Garrett could be in for a lengthy absence, though details about his exact timeline are not yet available. For Marlins fans, it surely brings to mind September of last year, when the Marlins provided the same diagnosis for right-hander Sandy Alcantara before the ace ultimately required Tommy John surgery.
Fortunately, not all forearm strains require such drastic treatment. Nationals right-hander Josiah Gray suffered a similarly-termed strain back in April that ultimately proved to be purely muscular without damage to the UCL. Gray is currently on a rehab assignment and could factor into the Nationals’ pitching plans prior to the All Star break, roughly three months after the initial injury. A similar timeline could see Cabrera return sometime in September, prior to the end of the 2024 campaign.
Regardless of when Cabrera winds up being able to return to the club, however, the Marlins figure to be in a bit of a pickle as they look to piece together their rotation mix. Miami currently has seven starters on the injured list, leaving them with lefty Trevor Rogers, righty Roddery Munoz, and righty Yonny Chirinos as their only three established starting pitchers. That trio will be joined by Tyler, who is slated to start today’s game against the Mariners. A 20th-round pick by the Angels in the 2018 draft, the righty has made eight multi-inning relief appearances in the big leagues since he first made his MLB debut back in 2021, though he’s never started a game at the big league level.
He’s pitched fairly well in his limited opportunities in the majors with a 2.45 ERA and 4.36 FIP in 18 1/3 innings of work. That includes a single appearance with the Marlins earlier this year where he allowed one run in two frames where he allowed one hit and no walks with one strikeout. It’s unclear if Tyler will continue to pitch as part of the club’s rotation after today or if this is a spot start for the 27-year-old. Also joining Tyler on the active roster is the lefty Emanuel, who has been shuttling between the 40-man roster and the minor leagues all throughout the 2024 campaign for the Marlins. In 8 1/3 innings of work for the club this year across four appearances, Emanuel has struggled to a 7.56 ERA with an 8.19 FIP. Nonetheless, the southpaw will provide the club with a multi-inning option out of the bullpen who could piggyback with the right-handed Tyler if necessary this afternoon.
As for Luzardo and Cabrerea, the 60-day IL placements come as a mild surprise for both players. In Luzardo’s case, the lefty was placed on the IL just yesterday with a lumbar stress reaction, and manager Skip Schumaker suggested that injury typically has a 4-6 week timeline. Now that Luzardo is out for at least the next two months, it’s safe to say the Marlins believe he’ll be out for longer than that general timeline. He’ll first be eligible to return from the shelf in late August. Cabrera’s placement also somewhat surprising given the fact that he’s already built up to the 50-pitch range on a rehab assignment, though given the fact that the righty would be eligible to be activated from the shelf in just two weeks it could be a purely procedural transaction.
I should probably start stretching myself out, it looks like I might get called on to pitch for somebody before the season is over at this rate. Good lord.
I feel bad for the Fish.
Look at Nationals re-build and Fish seem way behind:
Wood
Crews
Thomas
Abrams
House
Garcia
Meneses (need an upgade at 1B)
Ruiz
Gore
Gray
Irvin
Herz
Williams
Finnegan
Harvey
Nationals started their rebuild 2.5 years sooner.
Correct the Marlins made the playoffs in 2023.
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. The 2023 Marlins are the poster child for that quote.
The 2006 Cardinals I believe won 83 games. Lot of luck to make it into the playoffs with so few wins. And they won it all that year.
Luck counts……
The Marlins currently have no drafted position players in their minor league system even remotely capable of helping the big club. Absolutely none. That’s some legacy of failure. Check the battling averages of the guys at Jacksonville and Pensacola. They’re microscopic. Worst system in MLB for developing hitters. Which is why you don’t trade someone like Luis Arraez!
There’s gotta be some NASA concocted indestructible elastic that never loses its stretch of range of motion, would be P getting TJS n weave that new “bionic” ligament in w/procedure or they grow all kindsa things in petry dishes now w/stem cell research, ear, nose, how bout super tuff genetically modified ligaments to harvest when TJS is required ? Would it be legal or cheating ? 1st guniea pig would be like Tommy John was w/Dr Jobe. Medical science may catch-up w/Ps frail arms but that only opens new questions bout baseballs future.
Which begs the question- how do we ensure that neuro-links aren’t used to “cheat” in ball games? Because once we all start becoming cyborgs (laugh if you like, but it’s coming!) the whole game plan will change. Or maybe we just “turn them off” in games, but still. The salient talking points are “out there”!
Here comes the bionic pitcher throwing 700 MPH against the bionic hitter who get’s fooled by the slow stuff.
“frail arms” is absurd. Pitchers are being asked to put more stress on their arms than ever before to achieve the velocity and spin required to pitch at the MLB level. At some point, it’s too much, and we’re pretty much at that point now.
Hey now, this isn’t the time or place for reasonable takes!
NASA isn’t concocting anything except for their fake space missions and CGI images of the round spinning “Earth.” Go check out how the pictures and the size/shape of the continents change every year. And the people keep falling for it, of course.
Welp. At least we might have the most impressive collection of starting pitching talent in the history of the IL.
Wow, you know it’s bad when your entire talented starting pitching staff keeps getting injured, but then your inept bullpen stays healthy for the most part.
gbs42
I’m glad you said spin cause that’s where the big problem is at.
If a pitcher spins the ball wrong it’s common sense to say that’s where an injury is going to happen.
In 2018 there were more strikeouts than hits for the first time in MLB.
It’s not hard to figure out what pitch that was.
It’s not hard to figure out some idiots then tried morphing that pitch into something that is destroying arms like no other time in baseball.
Nothing is going to change because, if someone tells me I might make millions of dollars risking having a TJ or Major Teres throwing a horribly designed pitch, I’m going to throw the flawed pitch for the big bucks every time.
Peter Bendix took advantage of the Rays pitchers success with the slider they learned from an individual in 2018, didn’t realize exactly how it should be thrown and now is in charge of teaching it to the Marlins.
Cash and Bendix took advantage of others’s success that they didn’t create and are exploiters.
They aren’t even men enough to give credit where due.