In case you’ve been asleep all season, the Marlins are heading into the July 30 trade deadline as sellers and are all but certain to trade closer Tanner Scott within the next 13 days. Top starter Jesus Luzardo was seen as a near-lock to go as well, before a trip to the 60-day IL tanked his trade candidacy. Center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. — who is completely, 100 percent coincidentally getting his first work at second base since 2022 at a time when Miami is listening to trade offers from infield-needy teams — also seems quite likely to change hands. If the Marlins can find a taker for even a portion of Josh Bell’s $16.5MM salary, he’ll go too.
But for all the talk on Scott, Chisholm and Luzardo throughout the season, the Marlins have another pretty obvious trade candidate who isn’t discussed nearly as often even though he’s arguably a more appealing trade candidate than Scott. Perhaps that’s because a disastrous start to the season tanked his numbers, but A.J. Puk has not only salvaged his 2024 campaign — he’s been one of the best relievers in baseball for more than a month.
Heading into the season, Miami raised a few eyebrows by opting to stretch Puk back out as a starter. The former Florida Gator was drafted as a starter but had never started a game in the majors. He last started four games in 2021 when still in the A’s organization and hadn’t worked as a full-time starter since 2017.
If you’ve followed any of the reliever-to-starter experiment check-ins I’ve written up this season (one from the quarter mark and one from the halfway mark), you’ll know that the exercise didn’t go well. Puk made the idea look brilliant in spring training when he pitched 13 2/3 innings of 1.32 ERA ball with a gargantuan 41.1% strikeout rate and sharp 7.1% walk rate. It was only four starts in exhibition play, but it’s easy to see why the team was encouraged.
Unfortunately, Puk’s regular-season dalliance with starting also lasted all of 13 2/3 innings over four starts. He was shelled for 17 runs (14 earned) on 19 hits and an alarming 17 walks. He fanned only 12 opponents. That’s a paltry 15.6% strikeout rate and stratospheric 22.1% walk rate. The Fish put Puk on the injured list with shoulder fatigue. He returned as a reliever tasked with the unenviable mission of lowering a 9.22 ERA over a series of one-inning stints. Good luck, Mr. Puk.
Or maybe he didn’t need the luck. Puk’s ERA is down to 4.73 on the season, and while that’s a wholly unimpressive number in its own right, it’s skewed dramatically but that lamentable foray into rotation work. Since he’s moved to the bullpen, Puk sports a 2.39 ERA in 26 1/3 innings. He’s fanned 26% of his opponents against a 5% walk rate. Puk walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings in one start at Yankee Stadium on April 9. He’s now walked five batters total since May 13, all while posting a terrific 13.8% swinging-strike rate and 34.1% chase rate.
Not only has Puk been rejuvenated in his move to a bullpen role, he’s also saved his best work for the summer run-up to the trade deadline. No one has eked out an earned run against the lanky 6’7″ southpaw since June 17. Puk is riding a 12 2/3-inning scoreless streak that’s seen him whiff 18 of the 43 batters he’s faced (41.9%) while walking only two of them (4.7%). Puk, after averaging 93.3 mph on his four-seamer out of the rotation, has averaged 96.1 mph since moving back to short relief. He’s been throwing even harder during this scoreless run, sitting 96.6 mph on his fastball, which has helped him post an eye-popping 20.5% swinging-strike rate and laughable 40% opponents’ chase rate. Everything is working for Puk right now; his four-seamer, sinker and slider have all generated plus results during this hot streak.
Puk looks every bit like he was miscast in his role as a starter to begin the year, but since moving back into the bullpen he’s been electric. And over the past month, he leads all major league relievers in FanGraphs WAR. He’s seventh among qualified relievers in strikeout rate during this current stretch and fourth in K-BB%. Puk hasn’t simply been better since moving back to the ’pen — he’s been the best version of himself we’ve ever seen. And for a pitcher with more than four years of MLB service who saved 19 games and tallied 22 holds while working to a 3.51 ERA in 2022-23, that’s pretty notable. Puk wasn’t a bad reliever before the ill-fated move to the rotation, but he also wasn’t a great one. Now, he looks like a potentially elite one.
The timing couldn’t be better for a Marlins club that has no hope of reaching the postseason and waved the white flag on their season back in early May when they traded Luis Arraez in a stunning early-season blockbuster. Detractors could argue that the Fish waved the white flag on the season before Opening Day, as their biggest offseason additions of note were Tim Anderson, Nick Gordon, Vidal Brujan and Calvin Faucher (while also subtracting Jon Berti and Steven Okert).
Puk suddenly stands as an interesting trade candidate not only because of his recent dominance but because of his contract and remaining club control. He’s earning just $1.8MM in 2024 and will have $600K of that sum remaining as of deadline day. (Right now, he’s at $716K left on his deal.) An acquiring team would then be able to control Puk for two more seasons beyond the current campaign. He can’t become a free agent until the 2026-27 offseason. His early struggles and IL stint — plus Scott’s presence as the closer — have limited his time on the field, his rate stats and his save/hold opportunities. All of that will combine to help keep his arbitration price tag lower than if he’d spent the entire season as a high-end setup man or closer who excels in leverage situations.
Puk is a 29-year-old former top-10 draft pick and consensus top prospect who’s battled myriad injuries. He looked unimpressive as a starter but has quickly reminded everyone why he was a well-regarded reliever and someone former Marlins GM Kim Ng felt comfortable trading away another former top-10 pick (JJ Bleday) in order to acquire. He has two years of club control remaining, and it’s doubtful he’d even cost a new club a total of $10MM over the course of his remaining window of control.
It’s plenty understandable that Scott and Chisholm are drawing attention — but Puk should be right there alongside them. It was a mistake, plain and simple, to leave him off last week’s top trade candidate list. The Marlins seem willing to listen on just about any member of the active roster, and Puk is arguably the most appealing target for other teams as they look at what’s on the menu in Miami. He’s missing a similar number of bats to Scott but issuing walks at a mere fraction of the rate while earning a third of the salary and carrying two extra years of club control. Puk should command a legitimate prospect package, and there will be no shortage of teams calling.
I didn’t realize Puk had been so much better since going back to reliever. I actually thought the article was going to be about Trevor Rogers but yeah Puk looks like a guy who can help a contender for sure. Cardinals still have Ivan Herrera to trade perhaps a deal can be worked out there. Marlins need a catcher as bad as anyone in baseball.
Word on the street is that his heart beats for Baltimore and he longs to return but refuses to be part of the same org as Stowers and Norby… who says no?
The orioles. Definitely the orioles.
Stowers and Norby have next to no trade value
Set aside Stowers. May not move the needle if DelaCruz, Chisholm and Sanchez are kept.
Norby? Hitting .300 with .900 OPS after a full year in AAA. Serviceable at 2B. A big upgrade over any 2B in the Marlins organization. At least as much value a Joey Ortiz 12 months ago.
Bat to ball skills and defense have regressed to the point where he might not be a 40 FV guy anymore.
28% K-rate while repeating AAA, slashline is a product of a .386 BABIP and the Int’l League’s historically terrible pitching in 2024, can’t catch up to velo and pull fastballs, exit velos don’t grade out as well as the slashline would indicate, only capable of playing 2B/LF and even then he’s not great, Davenport projections have his peak-year OPS as .700
Completely different from Ortiz in that Ortiz could actually play defense and had better contact/EV data
He is a marlin as of now therefore he will be traded
I’d like to see the Mets make a play for Puk.
“Make a play for Puk”…Wolfgang or A.J?
Thank you for calling the Miami Marlins, if you know your party’s extension please dial it now, if your calling for Josh Bell please leave your name, number, and what type of medication your on. Thank you and have a fishtastic day
Bell is better than anything the Tigers throw out there.
The Marlins are a clown show and I hope the next time there is talk of contraction that they are top of the list. Their owner should be forced to sell the team after the fiasco of Kim Ng basically being a Buttermaker and turning the team around and getting fired the next year.
1. Kim Ng didn’t turn the team around.
The Mets and Nationals collapsed in 2023.
2. She didn’t get fired.
She resigned.
3. No other MLB franchise has asked her to come in and run their baseball operation. And if one truly believed she “turned that team around” there would be interest in her. MLB is, after all, a business.
I didnt see any other teams chasing after her. She is working in softball now.
“Turning the team around”…Hyperbole much? Finishing a couple games over .500 and making an expanded format wild card slot is hardly “turning the team around”. When teams get “turned around”, it’s not likely they will fall apart the very next year.
Who hired Kim? She was so great. She wasnt fired. She refused to sign on. She is working a softball league. Are there not 29 other teams that would want her? Maybe not.
Saying she doesn’t have a job in MLB at the moment isn’t making a case that she doesn’t deserve one. She earned the job she had and got pushed out. Saying she resigned is being disingenuous the team hired a person ahead of her in a role that didn’t exist prior.
“Being disingenuous”…You’re the one being “disingenuous”. Kim Ng works by contract and if she had been fired, she’d still be getting paid. For legal and employment purposes she resigned her position and twisting the facts to fit your skewed worldview doesn’t make it true.
The Marlins created a new position above her. They basically demoted her and that’s why she left. She wasn’t treated fairly. The Marlins had a good year in 2023 better than anyone should have expected. They forced her out and because that happened they allowed Schumaker, the reigning manager of the year, to convert his 2025 option into a managers option so he’s now most likely leaving after this year.
Another poster trying to act like Kim Ng was a good GM. I bet this poster does what every other poster stating similar comments has done when challenged…disappear without defending their stance about Kim Ng. They’re starting to all look like trolls created by MLBTR staff to generate responses, because they are always never-before-seen accounts, and they never show up again to follow up with the posts.
It’s me hi I guess I’m the problem. They were in the playoffs last year with Kim steering the ship. Another Rays genius running the show now and they can’t even smell 500
“In the playoffs” lmfao. They were an absolute fluke of a team. They won 84 games despite a negative run differential based completely on a irreproducible 33-14 record in one run games. They scored 5 runs or less in 120 out of 162 games, they team actually sucked and limped into a phony playoff spot, sorry most of you are too blind to see it.
@whosehighpitch
Kim was at the helm for the previous two years where her bullpen stunk up the joint and had the Marlins failing. 1 season out of 3 is not good to praise someone.
And as @cuban1 says, we can see last year was a fluke…no matter what the reason. For me, it was a fluke because Kim Ng’s lousy bullpen did well for the bulk of the season. The fact that they sucked in 2021 and 2022, and blew our season early this season, shows that 2023 was a fluke for them because now, in 3 of the last 4 seasons, the bullpen blew lead after lead after lead after lead that was handed to them.
When Kim Ng took over in the 2020 offseason, the main need the Marlins had was a legit Closer. She said that bullpen was her first priority on Day 1. All she did was bring in middle relievers with erratic careers, and she tried to trun them into Closers. She started with signing Anthony Bass, who proceeded to save a whopping 0 saves in his 1 1/2 Marlins career…showing he was not the answer from his first appearance with the Marlins and continued all the way through. After the Bass thing failed, she tried Yimi Garcia, who proceeded to get some saves, but blew games at a high percentage. After him, it was the likes of Dylan Floro and then Anthony Bender before he blew his arm. She tried otehr career middle relievers in the Closer role, and all of them failed…which is why they were middle relievers in teh first place prior to coming to the Marlins. In 2023, we got a good first half our of AJ Puk and after he had some dead arm and imploded,..and Dave Robertson followed with an implosion, Tanner Scott was put back in the role and had a good run. But Tanner’s late 2023 proved to be a fluke right away this year, In his ‘Fool’s Gold’ fashion, Scott and the rest of the Marlins bullpen blew everything in sight, and single-handedly knocked the Marlins out of being contenders in teh first couple of weeks when they blew half of their games…nearly all of the games they were handed leads in. This put the Marlins in a hole they (and really no team) could climb out of. This was Ng’s failed bullpen.
Oh, and for good note, while she stuck with career, mediocre middle relievers as the Closers, she refused to let any of the young arms in our system take a crack at the role…seemingly to prefer to send them down if they didn’t win a starting role, instead of placing them in the bullpen to gain some MLB experience while stabilizing a major weakness of the team.
These are the facts.
So @whosehighpitch, if you’re not just another troll trying to create comments on a Marlins article with some pro comments about Ng that you know yourself is nonsense, let’s see if you will do what no other ilk like you have done…and let’s see you have a comment in response to what I just stated. I’m guessing you won’t because none of you posters that have done so, seem to always be new screen names that come comment, then disappear…almost like MLBTR is creating these accounts to just say things they know is ridiculous, but will tick readers enough to respond to it. I’ll wait for you to respond now. But I bet you won’t…and you won’t be seen on these articles again.
@cuban1
I think he’s one of many trolls that I believe is being made by MLBTR staff members to generate responses on articles for the Marlins by continuing to say the stuff about Kim Ng. Do you notice how it’s always some screen name none of us have seen before? Then, after we comment with facts about how poor a job Kim Ng did as a GM, we never see a response from these random screen names…and we never see them again? And it’s always the Kim Ng stuff they post…so very likely the same MLBTR staff person creating different screen names to make the comments.
Watch how this person won’t show up back now that we both commented about it. And it isn’t the first or even the first 50. It’s been going on for a while with the mysteriously new accounts with the same blah blah Kim Ng garbage.
To me, it’s either a MLBTR staff member or maybe someone who knows Kim Ng or is Kim Ng.
Dump them all. Puk completely sucks. He is always hurt and has few career innings. Jazz wants a big contract. Let somebody pay up for him. Luzardo always hurt he had one good season. Hard hit ball rate form him is very high. Tanner Scott wants a big contract. Its one thing to play in Miami. zero presssure. Its another in a stadium with 40-50K people screaming.
The Mets should be all over Puk. He could add a run to his RP ERA and he’d still be their best lefty in the pen. What do they need? How about money? Would money do?
A significant prospect haul for a reliever with a negative WAR? I get he was bad as a starter and that’s skewing things, but I can’t imagine he’d be very expensive to acquire.
To acquire him, you have to give something of interest to the Marlins, otherwise they can simply keep him.
Obviously. But they’d need to be interested in a more middling minor leaguer because there’s no way he’s getting them one of a team’s top ten prospects. He’s not good enough.
They don’t need to lower their expected return if they don’t want to. If a team can’t meet their demands for Jazz, they can simply keep him. He’s a young player who can fit into a rebuild.
He’s 29. I wouldn’t give up much for him.
Um, I don’t know what you’re looking at. Jazz is 26.
I’m talking about Puk, like the article. I’ve never said one thing about Chisholm, you brought him up.
He has a 2 year track record of elite strikeout rates as a reliever and certainly the fact he’s controlled for 2 more years will create large demand
Better trade return for the Marlins! Works for me!
Sorry to be Mr. Buzzkill here, but extremely small sample size alert. If I were the Marlins I’d hang onto him. Price tag will only go up if he keeps this up. The return they’d get for him at the deadline probably wouldn’t be as interesting as it would be this summer if he pitching like Zach Britton.
*keeps
Steve, are you in my fantasy league? Because someone just added him yesterday and I was curious as to why, but now I know. Solid article, man.
There shouldn’t be this many comments.