While there’s still one marquee free agent reliever on the market — David Robertson has yet to sign — it appears increasingly likely that the Diamondbacks will largely go with the arms who are already in camp as they look to sort out the ninth inning. Arizona’s payroll is already projected for a franchise-record $195MM. That’s a new highwater mark by a measure of nearly $30MM. We can always adopt the “never say never” mentality as long as there are a few viable closing options on the free agent and trade markets, but the D-backs may already have their closer in house. At present, A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez appear to be the front-runners.

Puk, acquired at the deadline from the Marlins in exchange for young slugger Deyvison De Los Santos and outfielder Andrew Pintar, enjoyed a quietly dominant season in 2024. His cumulative 3.15 ERA looks more good than great, but it’s skewed by a failed experiment wherein the Marlins tried to stretch him back out as a starter early in the season. Puk was clobbered for 17 runs in 13 2/3 innings. He moved back to the bullpen, and from that point forth was arguably the best reliever in the sport.

After giving up 17 earned runs in his four starts, Puk only allowed 11 more earned runs for the entire season. He posted a 1.72 ERA out of the bullpen in 2024, fanning a colossal 35% of his opponents against a terrific 5.1% walk rate. Opponents averaged only 86.6 mph off the bat against him in that time with a middling 32.6% hard-hit rate. Per Statcast, only five of his opponents’ batted balls in that time were barreled. Puk allowed a run in his second appearance with the D-backs and then went on a run for the ages, rattling off 23 2/3 scoreless innings with a 38-to-4 K/BB ratio. He punched out 44.7% of opponents in that career-best run.

Martinez was nearly as dominant for the early portion of the 2024 season. The young flamethrower posted a 1.60 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate and mammoth 64.5% grounder rate in his first 50 innings of work. His exit velocity and hard-hit rate were nearly identical to Puk’s marks as a reliever. An 11.5% walk rate was in clear need of improvement, but for a 22-year-old who averaged better than 100 mph on both his four-seamer and sinker, it’s hard to draw up a more promising start.

That run of dominance didn’t last the full season, however. While Martinez remained a solid reliever, his 3.90 ERA over the final 27 2/3 innings of his season was far less eye-catching. The young righty’s strikeout rate actually ticked up during that span, perhaps due to roughly doubling the usage of his four-seamer at the expense of his sinker, but his grounder rate fell sharply. There was surely some poor fortune in play, as Martinez was hampered by a .388 BABIP during this stretch despite continuing to limit hard contact (and allowing only one home run).

Whether in the ninth inning or working in a setup capacity, both Puk and Martinez will be in high-leverage roles this season. They were two of the D-backs’ top five arms in terms of their average leverage index — but not the top two. Paul Sewald’s departure in free agency subtracted one of Arizona’s top leverage arms, but it was actually righty Ryan Thompson who found himself most frequently in high-leverage spots, followed by Martinez and then by fellow righty Kevin Ginkel.

The 32-year-old Thompson isn’t the prototypical power arm often associated with pressure-packed, late-inning situations. He’s a sidearming righty who averages just 91 mph on his sinker and 92.5 mph on his lesser-used four-seamer. Thompson’s 19.1% strikeout rate was well below the 23.4% league average among relievers. However, he boasts a 61% grounder rate, rarely issues walks (5.5%) and posted nearly identical results versus righties (.254/.299/.377) and lefties (.254/.293/.377). He picked up two saves and 24 holds.

Ginkel, 30, has quietly emerged as a key arm in Phoenix. He was never a top prospect and didn’t truly establish himself as a reliable reliever until his age-28 season, in 2022. Over the past three seasons, he’s tossed 164 2/3 innings with a 2.95 ERA. It’s not necessarily flashy, as Ginkel is more good-than-great in terms of strikeout rate (26.5%), walk rate (7.3%), swinging-strike rate (12.5%), ground-ball rate (47.1%) and fastball velocity (96 mph average) in that time. Even with the lack of one standout area in which he truly excels, his above-average rates across the board have made him a consistent and reliable late-inning option for manager Torey Lovullo.

Also entering the mix is 34-year-old Kendall Graveman, who signed a one-year, $1.35MM deal after missing the 2024 season due to shoulder surgery. With 24 saves and 56 holds from 2020-23, Graveman is no stranger to late-inning work. After moving to the bullpen in Sept. 2020 with the Mariners, Graveman rattled off 197 1/3 innings with a 2.78 ERA, 24% strikeout rate, 10.3% walk rate and 49.2% grounder rate. At his best, Graveman averaged better than 96 mph on his heater and offered a Ginkel-esque blend of above-average strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates while sitting around 96 mph with his main offering. Whether he can return to that form in the wake of last year’s shoulder surgery is an open question.

However it shakes out, the Snakes look to have a solid quintet of arms rounding out the late-inning group at Chase Field. Lefty Joe Mantiply offers a solid middle-inning complement who has picked up around 12 holds per year over the past four seasons. A starter who doesn’t make the rotation (e.g. Jordan Montgomery, Ryne Nelson) could hold down another spot. Bryce Jarvis, Kyle Nelson and non-roster candidates like Shelby Miller, Scott McGough, John Curtiss and Josh Winder (among others) will vie for what’s likely one open spot.

There’s enough left on both the trade and free agent markets that it’s not impossible to envision a change still impacting Lovullo’s bullpen composition. Signing Robertson might be too pricey, likely pushing the D-backs into $200MM+ payroll territory for the first time, but if GM Mike Hazen ultimately finds a trade partner for Montgomery, any savings could make Robertson feel likelier. The Padres have been open to offers on Robert Suarez. Trading within the division probably isn’t either team’s first choice, though. A Ryan Helsley trade before next offseason feels virtually inevitable but also seems likelier to happen in-season at this point.

In any bullpen, there’s almost always room for one more addition. But, if this is the group the D-backs take into the season, they can still feel good about an impressive breadth of experienced late-inning arms who have the makings of a strong overall unit.

General manager Mike Hazen told reporters this afternoon that any late-offseason bullpen pickup is likelier to come by way of free agency than trade (relayed by Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports). The bullpen market has moved rapidly over the past four or five weeks. David Robertson stands as the top unsigned reliever. He has ample experience as both a closer and setup man. Robertson will be limited to a one-year deal at age 40, though he could command an eight-figure guarantee after posting an even 3.00 earned run average while striking out a third of opponents across 72 innings for the Rangers.

There are a handful of other free agent relievers who still seem likely to land big league deals. Kyle Finnegan, Andrew Chafin, and Phil Maton should all get major league contracts. Buck Farmer, Lucas Sims, Héctor Neris and injury returnees Kendall Graveman and Keynan Middleton are all unsigned. Craig Kimbrel has the most closing experience of any free agent, though he’s coming off a dismal season with the Orioles.

If the Diamondbacks don’t add anyone from that group, the ninth inning could be up for grabs in camp. Manager Torey Lovullo said yesterday that he’d prefer having an established closer but is “not going to force it” if a committee approach works better (link via Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic). Lovullo listed A.J. Puk, Justin Martinez and Kevin Ginkel as in-house candidates to close.

Puk was utterly dominant after the D-Backs acquired him from the Marlins at last summer’s deadline. The southpaw fired 27 1/3 innings of 1.32 ERA ball while striking out nearly 42% of batters faced. Puk has had three straight seasons as an excellent late-game weapon. He didn’t close much last year but recorded 15 saves two seasons ago.

Martinez turned in a 2.48 ERA over 72 2/3 innings in his first full big league campaign. The righty punched out nearly 30% of batters faced with a massive 58.9% grounder percentage. His sinker landed north of 100 MPH on average, while opposing hitters had no success against his splitter. Martinez doesn’t have Puk’s multi-year track record but clearly has closing stuff. Ginkel turned in a 3.21 ERA with a strong 26.5% strikeout rate across 70 innings. While he seems likelier to stick in a setup capacity, the righty has been a reliable bullpen piece for the past three years.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

• The Mariners acquired Randy Arozarena from the Rays (2:10)
• Seattle also got Justin Turner and Yimi García from the Blue Jays (6:30)
• The Pirates and their multiple deadline deals (11:20)
• Pittsburgh’s long-term starting pitching depth (15:45)
• Pirates acquired Bryan De La Cruz from the Marlins (18:30)
• The Phillies’ deadline moves (19:45)
• The Brewers acquired Frankie Montas from the Reds (25:15)
• The Reds acquired Joey Wiemer from the Brewers (30:10)
• The Diamondbacks acquired A.J. Puk from the Marlins with Deyvison De Los Santos in the return (35:15)
• The Angels are going to be without Mike Trout for the rest of the year (42:15)

Check out our past episodes!

• Trade Deadline Recap – listen here
• Trade Deadline Preview – listen here
• Top Trade Candidates, Hunter Harvey To KC And The Current State Of The Rays And Mets – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

It’s the second consecutive season in which Arizona makes a major addition to the late innings. The Snakes brought in Paul Sewald to lock down the ninth a year ago. Sewald is still holding down the closer role despite a rough stretch this month. Puk adds a high-octane southpaw to the setup group.

A former sixth overall pick by the Athletics, Puk broke through as a high-leverage reliever in 2022. Oakland dealt him to Miami for outfielder JJ Bleday in a swap of former top draft picks the following offseason. Puk fired 56 2/3 frames of 3.97 ERA ball with excellent strikeout and walk numbers during his first season in South Florida. He held the closer role for a stretch, picking up 15 saves and finishing 31 games altogether.

Miami could have been content to leave Puk in a late-innings role. First-year president of baseball operations Peter Bendix and his front office were curious about the possibility of stretching Puk back into the rotation role he’d occupied in college and during the early part of his minor league career. While the Spring Training results were promising, the starting pitching experiment proved a short-lived blunder.

The 29-year-old opened the season in Miami’s rotation. He took the ball four times and didn’t once make it through the fifth inning. Opponents teed off for 17 runs in Puk’s 13 2/3 innings as a starter. He walked 17 and hit a batter while recording just 12 strikeouts. The Marlins placed him on the injured on April 20, citing shoulder fatigue.

When they reinstated him a few weeks later, Miami abandoned the rotation maneuver and kicked Puk back into his customary short relief role. The results since then have been exceptional. The University of Florida product has turned in a 2.08 ERA over 30 1/3 innings out of the ’pen. He has punched out 33 of 114 batters faced while walking only six. Opponents are hitting .159/.204/.252 in that time. Puk has held seven leads in front of All-Star closer Tanner Scott (who is basically a lock to move before next Tuesday’s deadline himself).

Puk’s season stats are still weighed down by his disastrous few weeks in the rotation. Excluding his starting work paints the picture of an impact reliever. Over his season and a half in Miami, Puk carried a 3.31 ERA through 86 appearances when working out of the bullpen. He punched out 31.2% of batters faced compared to a tidy 5.3% walk rate. Puk has been particularly lethal to left-handed batters. Southpaws have hit .174/.215/.287 with 45 strikeouts and four walks over 123 plate appearances when Puk has pitched in relief. Righties have had a bit more success, particularly from a power perspective, but they’ve hit .236 with a modest .283 on-base percentage.

The D-Backs had been light on left-handed relief depth. Joe Mantiply was the only southpaw in Torey Lovullo’s bullpen. He has a 3.99 ERA behind a solid 48.2% ground-ball rate, but he doesn’t throw hard or record many strikeouts. Puk averages north of 95 MPH with his fastball and has a swing-and-miss slider that more comfortably plays in the late innings. Mantiply can serve as the second lefty in the hierarchy, while Brandon Hughes is on optional assignment to Triple-A.

Puk is playing on a $1.8MM salary in his first season of arbitration. The Diamondbacks are taking on a bit less than $700K for the stretch run. He’ll go through the arbitration process twice more before hitting free agency during the 2026-27 offseason. Puk doesn’t have the gaudy save totals that arbitrators tend to value from relievers, so he should be a generally affordable bullpen piece for the next couple years.

Miami brings back a pair of mid-tier prospects in their first of what should be a handful of deadline deals. De Los Santos is the more highly-regarded of the duo. He’s a right-handed hitting infielder who has elevated his stock with a monster season in the upper minors. Baseball America’s JJ Cooper tweets that De Los Santos would have ranked eighth on the outlet’s forthcoming update of Arizona’s top 30 prospects. Pintar would’ve landed 21st on that list.

The D-Backs signed De Los Santos out of the Dominican Republic five years ago. He immediately intrigued evaluators with his power upside but struggled to make contact in the low minors. He played his way to Double-A by age 20 and connected on 20 homers there last season. Yet he also struck out at a 26% clip and only managed a .297 on-base percentage. The Diamondbacks left him unprotected for the Rule 5 draft and briefly watched him depart the organization. The Guardians snagged De Los Santos in the Rule 5 and carried him on their 40-man roster during Spring Training.

Cleveland decided at the end of camp that they couldn’t devote a bench spot to a development project. The Guards returned De Los Santos to Arizona after he cleared waivers. The Snakes sent him back to Double-A Amarillo for a second straight year. De Los Santos obliterated the level, hitting .372/.426/.696 with 14 homers in 38 games. He hasn’t tailed off much since being promoted to Triple-A Reno. De Los Santos has 14 more homers over 49 Triple-A contests, and he’s running a .289/.338/.588 slash.

There’s still a fair bit of risk with De Los Santos’ profile. Scouts have never loved his defense at third base. Arizona has used him mostly at first base this season, suggesting that’s where he projects as a big leaguer. He remains an aggressive hitter who isn’t taking many walks. That’s a difficult profile to pull off, but De Los Santos clearly has impact power that could fit in the middle of a lineup if he hits his ceiling. Miami will need to put him on their 40-man roster at the start of the offseason to keep him out of the upcoming Rule 5 draft. There’s a good chance they call him up at some point after the deadline, particularly if they manage to find a taker for Josh Bell in the coming days.

Pintar, 23, was a fifth-round pick out of BYU back in 2022. A righty-swinging center fielder, he has spent the bulk of the season in High-A. Pintar hit .304/.403/.516 with nine homers and nearly as many walks as strikeouts over 57 games. Arizona had promoted him to Double-A a couple weeks ago. Pintar has above-average speed and has improved his offensive profile with his strong showing through the season’s first few months.

As for Jacques, he’ll likely land on waivers in the next few days. Arizona claimed him off waivers from the Red Sox in April. He only pitched once for them at the MLB level. The 29-year-old southpaw has a 5.60 ERA over 27 1/3 innings in the minors this season. He made his MLB debut with Boston last season and worked to a 5.06 ERA across 26 2/3 frames.

The D-Backs could look into adding a starting pitcher and/or an offensive upgrade before Tuesday, though a high-leverage reliever has seemed their priority for weeks. Miami will certainly remain active on the trade market. Beyond Scott, they’re likely to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. and try to offload some of Bell’s contract. They could field offers on others relievers like Andrew Nardi and Calvin Faucher, starter Trevor Rogers, and outfielders Jesús Sánchez and Bryan De La Cruz. The Fish are in full rebuild mode and don’t have many players who’ll be categorically off the table.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the Diamondbacks were acquiring Puk. Craig Mish of SportsGrid reported the Marlins were acquiring De Los Santos as one of two prospects. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale identified the second prospect as a position player, while Ari Alexander of KPRC-2 was first to report it would be Pintar. Alexander reported the Jacques DFA.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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.

As a reminder, the focus here is pitchers who pitched exclusively or near-exclusively out of the bullpen last season. Someone like the Rays’ Zack Littell or Red Sox’ Kutter Crawford, who moved into the rotation last summer and continued that move this year, isn’t the focus.

Garrett Crochet, LHP, White Sox

Stats at quarter mark: 9 games started, 46 2/3 innings, 4.63 ERA (2.47 SIERA), 34.2 K%, 4.8 BB%, 43.8 GB%

Stats since: 9 GS, 54 2/3 innings, 1.65 ERA (2.27 SIERA), 36.3 K%, 5.2 BB%, 45.5 GB%

At the 25% mark of the season, Crochet sat on a pedestrian ERA but elite K-BB profile. His production had been skewed by a series of three straight rough outings: five runs versus the Reds, seven in Philadelphia and another five in Minnesota.

Those three starts still stand as the worst three of his season. Crochet hasn’t yielded more than three runs in a single outing since that time. He’s not only maintained his elite K-BB profile but improved upon it, slightly upping his strikeout rate while sustaining his exceptional command. No starter in baseball is striking out hitters at a higher rate than Crochet, and only 12 are limiting their walks more effectively.

At last check, Crochet had ace-like rate stats but pedestrian run-prevention numbers overall. That’s no longer the case. The only question as to whether Crochet is a bona fide No. 1 starter is one of durability. All of the pieces are there, but Crochet has never pitched a full season in the rotation. In fact, this year’s combined 101 1/3 innings not only stand as a career-high, they eclipse his combined total of professional innings pitched — majors and minors combined — since being selected in the first round of the 2020 draft.

With two and a half years of team control left, a bottom-of-the-barrel $800K salary and the worst team in baseball behind him, Crochet stands as a clear-cut trade candidate. The Sox reportedly broached the possibility of an extension with him but are now expecting to trade him after contract talks failed to progress. A new team will have to worry about how Crochet will hold up down the stretch, but there’s little doubting that he’s a front-of-the-rotation talent.

Jordan Hicks, RHP, Giants

Stats at quarter mark: 9 GS, 48 innings, 2.44 ERA (3.99 SIERA), 19.9 K%, 8.2 BB%, 56.2 GB%

Stats since: 8 GS, 37 2/3 innings, 4.54 ERA (4.29 SIERA), 22.2 K%, 10.2 BB%, 45.8 GB%

Early on, Hicks was thriving in terms of run-prevention in spite of a pedestrian strikeout rate. He’s picked up the strikeout rate a bit since that time but has seen his command, ground-ball rate and velocity all drop. After averaging 5 1/3 innings through his first nine starts, Hicks is averaging about 4 2/3 innings per outing and has seen his average sinker velocity drop by nearly two miles per hour. Since mid-May, his sinker is averaging 93.5 mph — down from the 95.5 mph at last check and even further from the 100.2 mph Hicks averaged in his time as a reliever.

Hicks has struggled to turn the lineup over multiple times. Opponents own an awful .196/.268/.348 slash when facing him the first time in a game. Unlike many pitchers, who experience a stark drop when facing opponents a third time, Hicks’ troubles begin the second trip through the order. Opponents in those settings carry a .267/.373/.382 slash. He’s only faced a hitter for the third time on a given day 57 times this season, but opponents have batted .283/.333/.434 in that small sample.

Back in May, I noted that opponents had posted an embarrassing .079/.167/.105 slash in the 42 plate appearances Hicks had finished off with a splitter. They’ve fared better against the pitch since that time, though it’d be hard to have performed much worse. And, with opponents still slashing only .160/.244/.272 against the pitch (which Statcast credits with a .270 expected wOBA), that newly implemented offering still has the look of a plus pitch.

Hicks has remained reasonably effective but hasn’t been the roaring success he was through the first quarter of the season. San Francisco signed the 27-year-old flamethrower to a four-year, $44MM deal and did so with an eye toward Hicks starting, so it’s clear this is a multi-year undertaking. Nothing Hicks has done to date suggests he decidedly can’t handle being a starter, but he’s faded from his early-season production, which is perhaps to be expected for a pitcher whose 85 2/3 innings are already a career-high mark.

The manner in which Hicks has begun to fade only further underscores the remarkable nature of Crochet’s performance to date as he navigates uncharted workload territory. That said, Hicks has an overall 3.36 ERA with a nearly average strikeout rate, a manageable walk rate and a plus ground-ball rate. There have been some roadblocks of late, but this year could serve as a launching pad to a better performance in 2025-27, when he’s more accustomed to his current workload.

Reynaldo Lopez, RHP, Braves

Stats at quarter mark: 7 GS, 40 1/3 innings, 1.34 ERA (4.00 SIERA), 25.2 K%, 10.1 BB%, 40.2 GB%

Stats since: 7 GS, 39 innings, 2.08 ERA (3.58 SIERA), 26.1 K%, 7.0 BB%, 32.7 GB%

The Braves have been judicious with Lopez’s start-by-start workload thus far. He hasn’t topped 94 pitches in a single appearance and has only recorded four outs after the sixth inning all season. So far, that level of caution has paid off. Since last check, Lopez hasn’t lost any life of his heater and has actually tacked on 0.4 mph on average, per Statcast.

Atlanta doesn’t often give Lopez the opportunity to turn the lineup over a third time, and the opportunities he’s had haven’t gone well. Lopez has yielded a mid-.500s OPS to opponents the first or second time through the order but has been tagged for a .245/.359/.396 batting line the third time through. It’s not egregious, but it’s far less dominant than his first couple trips through a lineup.

Lopez is still running a plus strikeout rate, and he’s improved his command and his velocity as the season has worn on. As the only member of this list who’s previously worked multiple full seasons as a starter, he might have been the best-equipped to handle this transition, and so far it doesn’t appear he’s slowing down much at all.

Lopez entered the season with a career 71.1% strand rate, and he’s currently stranding 86.3% of his baserunners. His .279 average on balls in play is lower than league average but right in line with his career .281 mark. He’s allowed only 0.45 homers per nine frames, thanks in large part to a paltry 4.7% homer-to-flyball ratio that sits well shy of his career 11.3% mark. There’s some correlation there; it’s easier to strand runners if you’re almost never allowing a ball to clear the outfield fence, after all. In all likelihood, both that HR/FB and strand rate will trend toward his career marks as the season (and, more broadly, his three-year contract) wears on, but the outside-the-box bet on Lopez as a starter looks like one that will pay off for Atlanta.

Jose Soriano, RHP, Angels

Stats at quarter mark: 7 GS, 38 2/3 innings, 3.72 ERA (4.03 SIERA), 20.3 K%, 9.5 BB%, 61.5 GB%

Stats since: 5 GS, 33 2/3 innings, 3.21 ERA (3.97 SIERA), 16.9 K%, 6.2 BB%, 58.6 GB%

Soriano was continuing his sharp start to the season when he was scratched from a mid-June start due to abdominal pain. The Halos discovered an infection in the young righty’s abdomen that required a trip to the injured list and was expected to sideline him a few weeks. That’s thrown a bit of a wrench into his rotation breakout, though there’s no indication it’s a serious issue and the Halos can take solace in the fact that there’s no arm issue at play. And, after pitching just 65 1/3 innings last season, Soriano is already at 72 1/3 frames this year, so perhaps it can serve as a well-timed breather for his right arm.

The 25-year-old Soriano’s first run as a starter in the big leagues this season looked promising through mid-May and continues to do so. Impressively, he hasn’t lost any life on his four-seamer or sinker despite the shift from short relief to starting work. Statcast measured his average four-seamer at 98.9 mph in both 2023 and 2024, while his sinker clocked in at an average of 97.7 mph in 2023 and is actually marginally better in 2024 at 97.8 mph.

That sinker has helped Soriano run up an elite ground-ball rate; his 60.1% grounder rate ranks third among the 145 big league pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched this year, trailing only Framber Valdez (61.4%) and Cristopher Sanchez (60.3%). That uptick in grounder rate over last year’s 51% mark correlates with a huge spike in Soriano’s sinker usage (13.3% in ’23, 40% in ’24). The extra sinker usage has come at the expense of some four-seamers (25.8% in ’23, 17.8% in ’24) and particularly Soriano’s knuckle curve (41.2% in ’23, 27.5% in ’24).

The tweak in repertoire could come down to a pursuit of efficiency as Soriano looks to work deeper into games. The right-hander fanned 30.3% of opponents last season and registered a hearty 14.8% swinging-strike rate but also required 16.6 pitches per inning pitched, on average. In 2024, his strikeout rate is down to 20.3% with a 10.2% swinging-strike rate. But he’s significantly upped his grounder rate and is now averaging just 15.1 pitches per frame. Soriano averaged 6 2/3 innings per start in the five appearances between our last check and this one, so it seems clear he’s placing an emphasis on being able to work deeper into games in his new role. Opponents are hitting .313/.421/.521 in 58 plate appearances when facing him a third time, so the results aren’t there so far, however.

Bryse Wilson, RHP, Brewers

Stats at quarter mark: 11 G (5 GS), 34 innings, 2.65 ERA (4.60 SIERA), 20.4 K%, 10.9 BB%, 39.1 GB%

Stats since: 9 G (4 GS), 44 innings, 5.52 ERA (4.27 SIERA), 17.6 K%, 6.7 BB%, 41.3 GB%

Wilson hasn’t technically “started” each of his past nine appearances, but he’s averaged five innings per outing while working as a starter and bulk reliever (on the heels of an opener). Effectively, the Brewers are using him as a starter — they’re just shielding him from the top-third of some lineups on occasion, when the matchup dictates.

This wasn’t a planned move to a longer role. The former Braves top prospect and Pirates hurler entered the season slated for a second straight season as Milwaukee’s long man, but injuries to Wade Miley, Joe Ross, Robert Gasser and DL Hall combined to not only push Wilson into this rotation-ish role but to keep him there. After pitching 76 2/3 innings of pure long relief in 2023, Wilson is already at 78 frames and counting.

As one would typically expect, Wilson’s fastball has taken a slight dip as he’s stretched out for longer stints. He averaged 94 mph through the season’s first quarter, but several of those earlier appearances were still in short relief. He’s averaging 93.2 mph since mid-May and has seen his strikeout rate drop but also seen his walk rate improve. As he’s been tasked with facing more lefties, Wilson has upped his changeup and cutter usage a bit, doing so at the expense of his four-seamer and curveball.

Wilson has been far too homer-prone this season (1.62 HR/9) and is giving up too much hard contact (45.8%, per Statcast). More so than any pitcher on this list, he’s run into troubles the third time through the order; in 45 such plate appearances, they’ve posted a Herculean .400/.467/.650 slash. Those plate appearances account for just 13.6% of Wilson’s batters faced this season but have resulted in 21.5% of his home runs allowed. Wilson seems best suited for a long relief role or a five-inning start/bulk role, but he’s pitched more than five innings six times this season and is giving Milwaukee some desperately needed innings when their rotation is in tatters.

A.J. Puk, LHP, Marlins

Stats at quarter mark: 4 GS, 13 2/3 innings, 9.22 ERA (7.13 SIERA), 15.6 K%, 22.1 BB%, 31.9 GB%

Stats since: 0  GS, 21 1/3 innings, 2.95 ERA (3.36 SIERA), 21.4 K%, 4.8 BB%, 44.3 GB%

The Marlins quickly pulled the plug on the Puk rotation experiment, and it’s worked out for all parties. The former No. 6 overall pick (A’s, 2016) turned heads as a starter in spring training but was shelled in what currently stand as the only four starts of his big league career (though Puk was a starter both for the University of Florida and in the minor leagues).

It’s unlikely that Puk would’ve continued to struggle quite so substantially had Miami continued using him as a starter, but the left-hander certainly looks more comfortable in the short relief role in which he thrived from 2022-23 (123 innings, 3.51 ERA, 19 saves, 22 holds, 29.4 K%, 6.9 BB%). He’s performing far better in his old role, and he required a three-week stint on the injured list for shoulder fatigue following his early start in the rotation.

There’s no reason to fault the Marlins for trying to stretch out a clearly talented reliever who has a track record in the rotation, but Puk is back in the bullpen and figures to draw attention over the next month from teams seeking left-handed bullpen help. He’s controllable through the 2026 season.

Tyler Alexander, LHP, Rays

Stats at quarter mark: 7 G (5 GS), 39 2/3 innings, 5.45 ERA (4.44 SIERA), 19.1 K%, 6.9 BB%, 30.4 GB%

Stats since: 3 G (1 GS), 17 innings, 7.94 ERA (3.68 SIERA), 20.3 K%, 1.4 BB%, 27.8 GB%

Alexander entered the season in the same type of role Wilson currently holds with the Brewers: occasional starter and frequent bulk reliever behind an opener. He made a handful of solid appearances early on, though the value of those was offset by some particularly rough outings versus the Yankees (six runs in seven innings) and the Royals (eight runs in five innings).

Following our last check-in, Alexander made three appearances before being optioned to Triple-A Durham, where he’s worked quite effectively out of the Bulls’ rotation: five starts, 29 2/3 innings, 3.64 ERA, 24.2% strikeout rate, 2.4% walk rate. That should position him as a depth option in the event of a big league injury and/or trade. Tampa Bay reportedly has considered fielding offers on current members of its big league rotation — Zack Littell and Aaron Civale, most notably. Part of that is due to the looming returns of Shane Baz and Jeffrey Springs, but Alexander gives them another rotation candidate who’s performed well recently in Durham.

The Rays haven’t abandoned the Alexander starting experiment, but for the time being he’s not in their big league rotation plans. Speculatively, that could make Alexander himself a trade option for teams seeking back-of-the-rotation depth, though if the Rays do ultimately move Littell, Civale or a more expensive arm like Zach Eflin, they may not want to deplete the rotation depth much further.

In some instances — e.g. Jordan Hicks, Reynaldo Lopez — the pitchers in question signed lucrative multi-year deals as part of this planned pivot. For others, this role change comes amid their original six seasons of club control and could greatly impact their earnings in arbitration and/or in free agency down the road.

Now that we’re about a quarter of the way through the year, it seems like a good time to check in on how some of these role changes are playing out. Readers should note that this rundown will focus on pitchers who pitched exclusively or near-exclusively out of the bullpen last season. Pitchers like Boston’s Garrett Whitlock (who started 10 games last year and nine in 2022) or Tampa Bay’s Zack Littell (who moved to the rotation last summer and finished out the ’23 campaign as a starter) aren’t the focus here so much as arms who were more strictly confined to short relief recently.

Since so many of these transitions are going to bring about clear workload concerns, we’ll check back in periodically throughout the season. For now, here’s how things are going through about 25% of the schedule.

Jordan Hicks, RHP, Giants

Hicks’ transition from flamethrowing late-inning reliever to … well, flamethrowing starting pitcher has gone seamlessly thus far. It’s only nine starts and 48 innings, but the 28-year-old boasts a 2.44 ERA in his move to the rotation. A career-low 19.9% strikeout rate is a red flag, but Hicks’ 8.2% walk rate is lower than the league average and a career-best mark as well. His 56.2% grounder rate isn’t quite as high as the 60% mark he carried into the season but is still more than 10 percentage points above average.

As one would expect, Hicks’ blazing sinker has lost quite a bit of velocity now that he’s not throwing one max-effort inning at a time. His sinker sat at 100.2 mph last year but is clocking in at 96 mph in 2024. Even with four fewer miles per hour on his primary offering, however, Hicks has more than enough velocity to keep hitters off balance.

Hicks has also fully incorporated the splitter he tinkered with in 2023 into his arsenal this year. After throwing it just 1.6% of the time last season, he’s thrown 22.5% splitters in 2024. Opponents may as well not even bother swinging at the pitch. Hicks has finished off 42 plate appearances with a splitter, and hitters have posted a .079/.167/.105 slash in those instances. Opposing batters have chased the pitch off the plate at more than a 35% clip, and Hicks boasts a huge 42.9% whiff rate on the pitch, per Statcast.

The big question for Hicks, as it is for virtually any pitcher making this transition, is how his arm will hold up once he begins pushing it into uncharted waters. Hicks has never topped 77 2/3 innings in a big league season. That mark came way back in his 2018 rookie showing. The 105 frames Hicks tallied as a minor league starter in 2017 are the most he’s ever pitched in a full season. He’ll be approaching his MLB-high after he makes another four starts or so and will be on the cusp of a new career-high about 10 to 11 starts from now — when there’s still roughly half a season left to play. Hicks wasn’t even especially durable as a reliever, only surpassing 35 appearances in two of his five prior big league seasons. The early returns are outstanding, but the real test will probably come in late June and into July.

Reynaldo Lopez, RHP, Braves

Unlike Hicks, Lopez is no stranger to starting games at the MLB level. He started 73 games for the White Sox from 2018-20 after coming over from the Nationals alongside Lucas Giolito and Dane Dunning in the Adam Eaton trade. The first of those three seasons went well, but Lopez stumbled in 2019-20 and began to transition to the bullpen in 2021.

The shift to a relief role seemed to suit the right-hander well. His already impressive velocity played up even further. Lopez averaged better than 95 mph as a starter in ’18-’20 but saw that number jump to 97.1 mph in 2022 and a massive 98.4 mph in 2023. Over those two seasons, he pitched to a sharp 3.02 earned run average. His rate stats were somewhat uneven, as he showed pristine command (4.3% walk rate) but an only slightly higher-than-average strikeout rate in ’22 before jumping to a huge 29.9% strikeout rate in ’23 … but pairing it with a bloated 12.2% walk rate. Taken together, however, Lopez gave the Sox 131 1/3 innings with that 3.02 ERA, 31 holds, six saves, a 27.4% strikeout rate and an 8.5% walk rate.

When he signed with the Braves for three years and $30MM, that generally fell in line with expectations for what he’d command as a late-inning reliever. However, it quickly became clear that the Braves were going to stretch Lopez back out. There was plenty of skepticism — myself very much included, admittedly — but the experiment has gone better than anyone could’ve imagined.

Thus far, Lopez has not only been the Braves’ best starter but one of the most effective starters in the league. He’s pitched 35 1/3 innings of 1.53 ERA ball. His velocity has dipped back down to his 2018-20 levels, sitting 95.6 mph, but that’s to be expected working out of the rotation. His 25.5% strikeout rate is better than average but not elite. His 9.9% walk rate could stand to come down. But Lopez is throwing more curveballs than ever before (10%), has largely abandoned his changeup and is keeping the ball on the ground at a career-best 41.1% rate. That’s a bit shy of the 42.8% league average but noticeably higher than the 35% clip he posted during his time with the White Sox.

The uptick in grounders is one reason that Lopez is yielding a career-low 0.51 homers per nine innings. The other is a 5.4% homer-to-flyball rate that he almost certainly can’t sustain. That fluky HR/FB and an abnormally high 88.7% strand rate are part of the reason metrics like SIERA (3.87) and xFIP (3.79), which normalize HR/FB, tend to peg him for some regression. Still, even if he’s bound to see his ERA tick up by a couple runs, Lopez has looked great through his first six turns.

Time will tell just how his arm can handle a return to his 2018-19 workloads, but the early results are excellent — and the importance of his breakout is magnified by the loss of ace Spencer Strider to season-ending elbow surgery. Notably, Lopez exited last night’s start with some tightness in his back, but manager Brian Snitker suggested after the game that he’s likely to make his next start.

A.J. Puk, LHP, Marlins

On the other side of the coin, the Marlins’ efforts to move Puk back into a starting role quickly went down in flames. Puk, a former No. 6 overall pick who worked as a starter in the minors, looked excellent this spring. He pitched 13 2/3 innings over four starts and two earned runs with a 23-to-4 K/BB ratio. The transition could hardly have gotten out to a more promising start.

In his first four regular-season starts, Puk also pitched 13 2/3 innings. The similarities stop there. Opponents bludgeoned Puk for 14 earned runs on 19 hits and a stunning 17 walks. He fanned only 12 of his 77 opponents (15.6%).

Miami placed Puk on the injured list on April 20 due to left shoulder fatigue. He returned from the injured list just yesterday. Despite myriad injuries in their rotation, the Fish have already pulled the plug on the rotation experiment for Puk, announcing that he’ll be back in the bullpen following his stay on the injured list. It’s a role he thrived in over the past two seasons, logging a 3.51 ERA, 29.4% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate while piling up 22 saves and 19 holds.

If Puk returns to form as a reliever — he was particularly impressive in ’23, striking out 32.2% of opponents against a 5.4% walk rate — the ill-fated rotation gambit will be little more than a footnote in what hopefully ends up as a strong overall career as a reliever. If Puk’s struggles persist, however, there’ll be plenty of second-guessing the decision to take one of the team’s best relief arms and stretch him out despite a litany of injury troubles that had combined to limit Puk to only 147 2/3 innings in his entire career prior to this season.

Garrett Crochet, LHP, White Sox

Crochet has worked to a pedestrian earned run average on the season due to a bevy of home runs allowed, but the former first-rounder who’s drawn comparisons to Chris Sale since being drafted by the White Sox has turned in elite strikeout and walk numbers. The 4.63 ERA looks unimpressive, but Crochet has fanned more than a third of his opponents (34.2%) against a pristine 4.8% walk rate.

Crochet boasts an excellent 14.5% swinging-strike rate and is averaging 96.9 mph on his heater. That’s a ways from the 100.2 mph he averaged in six innings as a rookie in 2020, but Crochet has had Tommy John surgery since that time and is working in longer stints now as opposed to bullpen work in ’20. This year’s velocity actually slightly exceeds his average velocity from working purely as a reliever in 2022-23.

In terms of workload concern, Crochet is up there with Puk in terms of extreme uncertainty. He entered the season with a total of 73 big league innings since his No. 11 overall selection in 2020 and is already at 46 2/3 innings on the young 2024 campaign. So long as he keeps missing bats and limiting walks anywhere near his current levels, the run-prevention numbers will come down — FIP and SIERA peg him at 3.33 and 2.37, respectively — but it’s anyone’s guess as to how Crochet will hold up. He skipped the minor leagues entirely, so even if you add in his whole minor league body of work, that’d only tack last year’s 12 1/3 rehab innings onto his track record. Going from a total of 85 1/3 professional innings over a four-year period to a full starter’s workload is bound to have some bumps in the road, but so far Crochet looks quite intriguing as a starting pitcher.

Jose Soriano, RHP, Angels

The Angels nearly lost Soriano back in 2020, when the Pirates selected him in the Rule 5 Draft. At the time, Soriano was wrapping up his rehab from 2020 Tommy John surgery and could’ve been stashed in a rebuilding Pittsburgh bullpen upon his reinstatement from the injured list. A setback in his recovery early in the season prompted another wave of imaging and revealed a new tear, however. Soriano underwent a second Tommy John surgery on June 16, 2021. He was eventually returned to the Angels.

Unfortunate as that back-to-back pair of surgeries was, Soriano’s injury troubles allowed the Angels to keep him in the system. They’re now reaping the benefits. The flamethrowing righty made 38 relief appearances last season and pitched to a quality 3.64 ERA with a huge 30.3% strikeout rate — albeit against a troubling 12.4% walk rate. Soriano averaged 98.6 mph on his heater last year and wound up picking up 15 holds, as the then-rookie righty increasingly worked his way into higher-leverage spots.

The Angels announced early in spring training that Soriano would be stretched out as a starter. His ramp-up continued into the regular season. His first two appearances this year came out of the bullpen but both spanned three innings. He’s since moved into the rotation and has looked quite impressive. Through his first seven starts, Soriano touts a 3.58 ERA with an above-average 24.8% strikeout rate and an outstanding 62.8% ground-ball rate. Even though he’s working in longer stints, he’s improved his fastball and is now sitting at 99.3 mph with it. His 12.4% walk rate still needs improvement, but the returns here are quite promising.

Soriano only pitched 65 1/3 innings between the minors and big leagues last year, and he’s already at 38 2/3 frames on the 2024  season. He’s never pitched more than 82 1/3 innings in a professional season. We’ll see how he fares as he pushes past those thresholds, but there’s a lot to like with this rotation move — even though it’s garnered far less attention than some of the others around the game.

Tyler Alexander, LHP, Rays

The Rays obviously have a knack for finding hidden gems and converting unheralded arms into viable starting pitchers — hey there, Zack Littell — and Alexander is an example of their latest efforts to do so. The left-hander has started for the Tigers in the past and functioned in a swingman role, but the Rays picked him up in a low-cost move following a DFA in Detroit with the idea of stretching him out. Since it’s Tampa Bay, not all of Alexander’s “starts” have been, well, actual starts. He’s followed an opener on multiple occasions already, but he’s followed that one- or two-inning table-setter with at least four innings each time out.

Overall, Alexander has made eight appearances and averaged just under five frames per outing (39 2/3 total innings). He’s sitting on a pretty rough 5.45 ERA, thanks in part to a six-run drubbing at the hands of the Yankees last time out (though he did at least complete seven frames in that start, helping to spare the Tampa Bay bullpen). Alexander’s 19.1% strikeout rate is about three percentage points shy of average. His 6.9% walk rate is about two points better than average. However, he’s taken his longstanding status as a fly-ball pitcher to new heights in 2024, inducing grounders at just a 30.4% clip.

Alexander’s 14.5% homer-to-flyball ratio is only a couple percentage points north of average, but because of the sheer volume of fly-balls he’s yielding, he’s still averaging more than two taters per nine frames. Opponents have posted an ugly 11.8% barrel rate against him (ugly for Alexander, that is). If he can’t cut back on the fly-balls and/or start finding a way to avoid the barrel more regularly, it’s going to be hard for Alexander to find sustained success. The Rays don’t convert on every dart-throw — much as it’s fun to joke to the contrary — and so far the Alexander experiment hasn’t paid off.

Bryse Wilson, RHP, Brewers

Wilson’s move to the rotation wasn’t necessarily planned, but injuries up and down the Brewers’ staff forced the issue. Five of his past six outings have been starts and he’s sporting an eye-catching 1.78 ERA in that span. The rest of the numbers in that stretch are less impressive. Wilson has a tepid 17.3% strikeout rate in that stretch but has walked an untenable 13.5% of opponents. Opponents have posted a hefty 45.7% hard-hit rate (95 mph or more) against him during that time. Were it not for a .191 BABIP and 92.2% strand rate, the ERA wouldn’t look nearly as rosy. Metrics like FIP (4.64) and SIERA (5.34) are quite bearish.

Wilson is still scheduled to take the ball on Saturday in Houston, but his recent stretch of run-prevention doesn’t seem sustainable without some improvements in his K-BB profile.

New president of baseball operations Peter Bendix figures to be broadly open to dealing anyone beyond Eury Pérez and Sandy Alcantara, both of whom are rehabbing Tommy John surgeries anyhow. Much of the roster was assembled before he was hired last November, so he probably doesn’t have a ton of attachment to this group.

Bendix also joined Miami after a long stint with the Rays, a front office that was never afraid to move established players as they navigated payroll limitations. Tampa Bay occasionally made key deals at atypical times on the schedule, including trading Austin Meadows just before Opening Day in 2022 and swapping Willy Adames for Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen the previous May.

The Fish are more likely to deal some players than others, of course, so let’s run through a few of the top possibilities:

Trevor Rogers

Rogers was an All-Star and the NL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2021. He was ineffective in 2022 and limited to four starts last season by injury. The 6’5″ southpaw is one of the rare Miami pitchers who hasn’t been impacted by health concerns early this year. Rogers isn’t back to his early-career peak, but he has looked the part of a capable mid-rotation arm through five starts. He owns a 4.10 ERA in 26 1/3 innings.

The former first-rounder’s velocity is sitting around 92 MPH — down from the 94-95 he was pumping as a rookie — and his strikeout rate sits at a personal-low 20.6%. He’s getting ground-balls at a near-52% clip, though, and he’s done a solid job throwing strikes. Even if Rogers might not be the top-end arm he seemed three years ago, he’s an affordable mid-rotation starter who is under arbitration control for two seasons beyond this one. He’s making just $1.53MM this year, as the injuries prevented him from building much of a résumé going into his arb window.

Jesús Luzardo

Entering the season, Luzardo was the left-hander more teams were probably monitoring. He could certainly still be a coveted deadline target, but he’ll need to rebound from a rough couple weeks. Luzardo has been rocked for a 6.58 ERA with elevated walk and home run rates through his first 26 innings. He went on the 15-day injured list late last week with elbow tightness. It’s still not clear how serious that is.

If Luzardo returns to health and looks more like his 2023 self, he’d be one of the top upside plays on the market. He was an upper mid-rotation starter last season, turning in 178 2/3 innings of 3.58 ERA ball. Luzardo’s fastball velocity was sitting in its customary 97 MPH range before he went on the IL and he continued to miss plenty of bats. He and the Fish agreed to a $5.5MM salary to avoid arbitration last winter. Like Rogers, he’s under team control for two more years.

Braxton Garrett

Garrett, 26, was a quietly effective rotation piece a year ago. The control artist turned in his second straight sub-4.00 ERA showing over 159 2/3 frames. He fanned an above-average 23.7% of opponents and kept the ball on the ground nearly half the time batters made contact.

The former #7 overall pick hasn’t pitched in the majors in 2024. He opened the year on the IL with a shoulder impingement. He had a brief setback when he experienced dead arm after a throwing session, but it’s not believed to be serious. He threw three innings in a rehab start last Friday. Garrett is making around the league minimum and will be go through arbitration four times after this season. He doesn’t have eye-popping velocity, but he misses bats with his offspeed stuff and has a career 3.86 ERA with peripherals to match. The Fish should get plenty of calls on him in July if he’s healthy.

Edward Cabrera

Cabrera rounds out the quartet of potentially desirable rotation pieces. He may be the hardest of the group to evaluate. The former top prospect has huge stuff. His fastball sits in the high-90s. Cabrera can miss bats and generate plenty of grounders with all three of his secondary pitches (changeup, curveball, slider). At 26, it’s still not out of the question that he blossoms into a top-of-the-rotation starter.

Yet the Dominican-born righty has never thrown 100 innings in a major league season (although he fell one out shy of that arbitrary cutoff last year). That’s partially because he has a few arm-related injured list stints, including a two-week stay to open this season resulting from a shoulder impingement. He’s also nearly as wild a starter as there is in MLB. Cabrera walked 15.2% of batters faced last year and has issued free passes at a near-14% clip in his big league career.

The Marlins won’t feel obligated to move Cabrera for whatever they can get. He’s under control for four years after this, though he’ll qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player next winter. The Fish considered trade possibilities over the offseason, so he’s unlikely to be off the table, but a team will need to meet a lofty asking price.

Luis Arraez

Of Miami’s hitters, Arraez is the biggest name. A defending two-time batting champ, he’s probably the best pure contact hitter in the sport. His .305 average through his first 129 plate appearances would be the second-lowest of his career. Arraez is going to reach base at a high clip, but he offers minimal power — career-high 10 homers, zero in 2024 — and plays a well below-average second base.

Arraez will still draw interest, but his trade value isn’t as high as one might assume based solely on the batting average. In addition to his defensive limitations, his control window is shrinking. Arraez is playing this season on a $10.6MM salary and will go through the arbitration process once more before getting to free agency. He’d likely earn something in the $13-15MM range next season, which could motivate the Marlins to deal him this summer.

Jazz Chisholm Jr.

Chisholm hasn’t quite developed into the franchise player that he seemed he might become early in his career. He has been a solid regular with flashes beyond that, though. The switch-hitter connected on 19 homers and stole 22 bases in just 97 games last season, albeit with a modest .304 on-base percentage. He has dramatically increased his walk rate in the early going this year, running a .245/.342/.382 slash through his first 117 plate appearances.

Injuries have been a recurring problem. Chisholm missed a good portion of 2022 to a back issue. He lost chunks of the ’23 campaign with toe and oblique woes. If he stays healthy through this season’s first half, Chisholm could be one of the more intriguing trade candidates of deadline season. He has a tantalizing power/speed combination and can play center field, albeit with differing reviews from public metrics on his glove. Chisholm is making $2.65MM this year and has two more seasons of arbitration control.

Lefty Relief Trio

Each of Tanner Scott, A.J. Puk and Andrew Nardi could be attractive left-handed relief options. They’ve all been hit hard in the early going but have high-octane stuff and performed well last season. The Marlins unsuccessfully auditioned Puk in the rotation but will move him back to relief once he recovers from shoulder fatigue.

Nardi is the least well-known of the group, but he’s controllable for four-plus seasons and won’t be eligible for arbitration until 2026. He has a career strikeout rate north of 30% in 83 2/3 innings. Scott is an impending free agent who has worked the ninth inning for Miami over the last couple seasons. He hasn’t been able to find the strike zone this year, a disappointing start after he issued walks at a career-low 7.8% clip in 2023. Scott is playing this season on a $5.7MM salary. Puk is making $1.8MM and will go through arbitration twice more.

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A few others could draw attention, although they’re probably less likely than the players listed above to move. Many teams would love to land Max Meyer, but it’d take a Godfather offer for the Marlins to move him.

Ryan Weathers leads the team in innings thus far. He’s a former top 10 pick who has pushed his average fastball to 96 MPH and is getting plenty of whiffs on his breaking ball. It’s conceivable teams could have interest, but Weathers has a career 5.67 ERA with subpar strikeout and walk numbers. Anthony Bender has returned from Tommy John surgery to post excellent strikeout and walk rates through his first 11 innings. His ERA is atrocious because of an elevated average on balls in play, but that should normalize well before the deadline.

The Marlins aren’t likely to find a taker for any portion of the Avisaíl García contract. That’d also be the case for Josh Bell unless he has a dramatic turnaround at the plate. He’s hitting .176/.270/.287 and playing on a $16.5MM salary. Neither Nick Fortes nor Christian Bethancourt has contributed anything offensively.

The Fish took a $5MM rebound flier on Tim Anderson over the offseason. That was likely with an eye towards a midseason trade, but he’s out to a .223/.270/.255 start after hitting .245/.286/.296 in his final year with the White Sox. He’ll need to perform significantly better to draw any kind of interest. Bryan De La Cruz, Jesús Sánchez and Jake Burger are low-OBP corner bats. They’d each have modest value if the Marlins wanted to deal them.

It’s not necessarily a shock that the Marlins are making this decision since the plan to move Puk to the rotation got off to a horrible start. His first four outings resulted in 14 earned runs allowed over 13 2/3 innings. He struck out 12 opponents but gave out walks to 17 of them before landing on the IL over the weekend due to fatigue in his throwing shoulder.

There was some logic to the plan, as Puk was once a highly-touted prospect in the Athletics’ system who was seen as a future major league starter. However, he required shoulder surgery in 2020 and then also had some other health issues, including a strained left biceps and nerve irritation in his left elbow.

The A’s decided to move Puk to a relief role after those injuries and the initial results were good. In 2022, Puk tossed 66 1/3 innings out of their bullpen with a 3.12 earned run average, striking out 27% of batters faced. They flipped him to the Marlins for JJ Bleday prior to 2023, and Puk continued to have success as a reliever in Miami. His ERA ticked up slightly to 3.97 but his strikeout rate also jumped to 32.2%.

After two years of success as a reliever, it’s understandable why the Marlins thought the time was right for him to see if he could move back to the rotation. From a team standpoint, they had seen their rotation depth thinned out by the trades of Pablo López and Jake Eder, as well as the Tommy John surgery of Sandy Alcántara. Since moving Puk to the rotation, that depth was further thinned by Eury Pérez also requiring Tommy John, while Edward Cabrera and Braxton Garrett battled less-significant injuries.

But the poor results and Puk’s shoulder injury seem to have convinced the Marlins to give up on the experiment, at least for now. He’ll move back to the bullpen when he returns from the IL and will hopefully re-establish himself in that role.

The Marlins can control Puk for two more seasons beyond the current campaign. Given their poor start this season, they are trending towards being sellers at the deadline this summer. Puk could perhaps be made available but the extra years of control also mean that they could decide to hang onto him.

The Miami rotation currently consists of Cabrera, Jesús Luzardo, Trevor Rogers and Ryan Weathers. Tonight’s starter is Sixto Sánchez but he’s unlikely to give the club much length since he’s mostly been pitching single-inning appearances this year and hardly pitched at all in the three previous years due to ongoing shoulder problems.

Schumaker seems open-minded about Sánchez taking the ball again, telling De Nicola it depends on how things go tonight, but Garrett is also nearing a return. Per De Nicola, the lefty is planned for four innings and/or 60 pitches in a Triple-A rehab start on Friday.

Puk just pitched yesterday, and was tagged for seven earned runs over three innings of work in an 8-3 Miami loss to Chicago.  It was the roughest yet of four lackluster starts for Puk, who now has a 9.22 ERA over 13 2/3 innings of work, with an alarming 17 walks over that brief amount of time on the mound.  Manager Skip Schumaker told reporters (including Fish On First’s Isaac Azout) yesterday that the club hasn’t yet considered moving Puk back to the bullpen, though today’s injury news could change the equation considerably.

First and foremost, Puk’s lengthy injury history adds an extra layer of concern to any new health issues, even something as relatively minor as shoulder fatigue.  Puk missed all of the 2018 season and a chunk of 2019 recovering from Tommy John surgery, and then missed the entire 2020 season due to a lingering shoulder problem that eventually required surgery.  Since it wasn’t clear if Puk’s arm would hold up under a starter’s workload, the Athletics used him as a reliever, and the result was a breakout year in 2022.  Oakland traded Puk to the Marlins in the 2022-23 offseason for JJ Bleday, and Puk continued the success last season with more strong work out of Miami’s relief corps.

With Puk now established as a big leaguer, the Marlins decided to see what he could still offer as a starter, and stretched him out this spring with an eye towards putting him into the rotation.  Clearly the experiment hasn’t worked out to date, and once Puk is back from the IL, he could find himself in the relief corps again if Miami has stabilized the rest of its rotation.  Between Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez undergoing Tommy John surgery and season-opening IL stints for Edward Cabrera and Braxton Garrett, the Fish didn’t really have much choice but to keep rolling Puk out there, though Cabrera has now since returned.

Max Meyer pitched well over three starts but was then optioned to Triple-A despite those strong results, as the Marlins are looking to limit his innings in the wake of a Tommy John surgery.  Munoz is making his MLB debut today with a start against the Cubs, and Puk’s injury could mean that Munoz gets a longer look against big league competition.  Tyler could also technically be a starting candidate, though the Marlins used him as a reliever in both of his Triple-A appearances this season.

Tyler has started 60 of his 108 career games in the minors, including starts in 26 of his 27 appearances with the Mariners’ Double-A affiliate in 2023.  With only a 5.60 ERA to show for those 135 innings, it represented a setback for Tyler, who banked 16 1/3 innings of MLB experience with the Angels and Padres in 2021-22.  He had previously pitched well in Double-A ball before running into problems in Triple-A, with a 5.68 ERA over 44 1/3 frames at the top minor league level.  The Marlins signed Tyler to a minor league deal during the offseason, and he’ll give the team some extra depth in the pen at least through today’s twin bill.

Simpson started the year on the 15-day IL due to elbow ulnar neuritis, and his move to the 60-day IL means that he won’t be an option for the big league roster until late May.  He has banked only one minor league appearance this season back on April 6, and between the lack of subsequent action and now this move to the 60-day IL, it remains to be seen when Simpson might be back in action.  The 26-year-old has yet to make his Major League debut, but has been a member of Miami’s organization since he was drafted in the 32nd round in 2019.

Puk will turn 29 in April. He’s never made a big league start but has started 42 games in the minors — most coming early in his tenure. The former No. 6 overall draft pick (2016) moved to the bullpen in 2019 after undergoing Tommy John surgery the year prior. Puk took well to that relief role, debuting in the majors with 11 1/3 innings late in 2019. He held opponents to four runs on ten hits and five walks with 13 strikeouts — good for a 3.18 ERA. He looked to have locked up a spot on the 2020 roster, but Puk experienced shoulder pain the following spring and wound up missing the season due to an eventual debridement surgery.

The 2021 season was a rough one for Puk, though that’s not entirely surprising for a pitcher who’d undergone Tommy John surgery and shoulder surgery within 24 months of each other. He split the year between Triple-A and the big leagues, posting an ERA north of 6.00 in both settings. The 2022 campaign finally brought a breakout for the talented but snakebitten southpaw; he pitched 66 1/3 innings out of the Oakland bullpen and worked to a 3.12 ERA with a 27% strikeout rate, 8.2% walk rate and 43.4% ground-ball rate.

The A’s, by then in the midst of a complete rebuild, traded Puk to the Marlins in exchange for outfielder JJ Bleday — another former top-10 overall pick (No. 4) who’d not yet lived up to the expectations associated with that lofty draft status. It worked out nicely for the Fish. In 56 2/3 frames, Puk logged a 3.97 ERA with far more encouraging secondary marks: 32.2% strikeout rate, 5.4% walk rate, 15.1% swinging-strike rate, 2.66 SIERA. Puk wound up leading the Marlins with 15 saves.

Clearly encouraged by the per-inning strength of those results, the Marlins will now try to maximize Puk’s workload by moving him into a starting role. Much has been made of the Marlins’ enviable pitching depth over the years, but Puk’s move to the rotation is in part due to the fact that Miami’s stash of promising young arms is no longer as deep as it once was.

Sandy Alcantara underwent Tommy John surgery and will miss the entire 2024 season. Pablo Lopez was traded to the Twins in exchange for Luis Arraez. Braxton Garrett is behind schedule in camp due to a shoulder issue and is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day. Top prospects Sixto Sanchez and Max Meyer have been slowed by injuries. Sanchez, in particular, hasn’t pitched since 2020. Another touted arm, Jake Eder, was traded to the White Sox for Jake Burger. Southpaw Trevor Rogers has struggled through injuries and poor results since his second-place finish in the 2021 NL Rookie of the Year voting.

If Puk is able to successfully move back into a starting role, it’d obviously be a boon for the Fish. It’s a move that could reap long-term benefits, too, as Puk is controllable through the 2026 season. The Marlins will presumably be careful with his workload after the lefty pitched just 59 1/3 innings last year between the majors and a brief minor league rehab assignment following a nerve issue in his elbow. But if he can progress to pitching 100-plus innings this year, it’s easier to envision any restrictions being removed for the 2025 campaign.

There’s some risk to the move, of course. Puk has a lengthy injury history and is no guarantee to hold up with a full rotation workload. By moving him to the starting staff, Miami is also notably weakening its relief corps. The Puk transition bodes well for Tanner Scott, who’ll likely spend his entire platform season before free agency as the Marlins’ closer. But beyond Scott, the Fish will rely on a series of arms with short track records and/or notable injury histories. Andrew Nardi, Anthony Bender, JT Chargois and George Soriano all have had big league success but have all yet to establish themselves as consistent, year-to-year performers.

Assuming the Marlins indeed stick with this plan, Puk will slot into the rotation behind Jesus Luzardo, Eury Perez and Edward Cabrera. The aforementioned Rogers and fellow lefty Ryan Weathers are the leading candidates for the fifth spot, Jackson notes, with Rogers a likelier fit than Weathers. Sanchez, once viewed as a rotation building block, is out of minor league options but figures to head to the bullpen if he’s healthy enough to make the roster. Whoever grabs the fifth spot will essentially be a placeholder for Garrett anyhow. That said, given workload concerns for Puk and the general frequency with which pitchers get injured, it’s likely that all of Puk, Rogers, Garrett and Weathers will wind up starting a fair share of games in South Florida this season.

The past few offseasons have seen plenty of rumors surrounding the Miami rotation, as they have had lots of attractive young arms but holes in the lineup that need to be addressed. However, that surplus has been chipped away at quite a bit in the past year. The Fish finally made a significant deal in January when they flipped Pablo López to the Twins for Luis Arráez. They also traded away prospect Jake Eder at the deadline for Jake Burger. Then Sandy Alcántara required Tommy John surgery late in the year, making him unavailable for all of 2024.

That still leaves them with a strong front three of Jesús Luzardo, Eury Pérez and Braxton Garrett, though it gets a bit shakier after that. Trevor Rogers was great in 2021 but struggled the year after and then was limited by a left biceps strain to just four starts in 2023. Edward Cabrera can rack up both strikeouts and ground balls but he also has significant control problems. Ryan Weathers has a career earned run average of 5.88 thus far. Max Meyer missed all of 2023 rehabbing from his own TJS. Sixto Sánchez has been held back by shoulder issues and has thrown one minor league inning over the past three years.

There are some options in there but it’s not quite overflowing with talent the way it was a year ago. Perhaps that’s why the club is considering moving Puk back to the rotation. He came up as a starter but was moved to the bullpen by the Athletics before the Marlins acquired him. He has generally fared well out of the bullpen, posting an ERA of 3.12 with the A’s in 2022 and a mark of 3.97 with the Marlins in 2023.

Puk was once considered a top 100 prospect during his time as a minor leaguer with the A’s, so perhaps the Marlins think there’s more value to be tapped into by stretching him out. However, he’s faced his fair share of health issues in his career, having undergone shoulder surgery in 2020 and then subsequently dealt with a strained left biceps and nerve irritation in his left elbow. But there’s generally no harm in getting stretched out in the spring and then moving into the bullpen, as it’s much easier than doing it the other way around.

Teams are generally willing to listen to all kinds of trade offers, so it doesn’t mean that the Marlins are likely to make a move just because they will pick up the phone. We saw last year that they flipped López and then tried to make up for his loss by signing Johnny Cueto. Though that didn’t work out since Cueto had an injury-marred season, they could try a similar strategy again. But since then, general manager Kim Ng has departed the club and Peter Bendix has been hired as president of baseball operations, perhaps leading to a change in the way the club operates.

A new decision maker can sometimes lead to a roster shakeup, as the new person is less committed to the incumbent players than their predecessor. Perhaps Bendix will have some willingness to move on from someone in this group and maybe that’s why there’s a shift in the strategy with Puk. Then again, it might also be down to the fact that the club is loaded with lefty relievers and the bullpen could be fine without Puk in it.

The Marlins have obvious needs in their lineup, with Bendix admitting that shortstop and catcher are areas where the club is looking to improve. The Marlins generally aren’t big spenders and the free agent options for those positions aren’t amazing, so perhaps the club will earnestly considering trading from their rotation in order to fill those spots. Just about every club in the league is looking for some starting pitching help, so they will undoubtedly be fielding plenty of calls.

Much of that success has been attributable to Miami’s strong showing in one-run games. At 26-10 in such contests, the Marlins have been baseball’s best team by a wide margin. Their .722 winning percentage in one-run contests leads the Brewers (21-10, .677) and Orioles (20-11, .645) and is rather comfortably the best in the game. Heck, as I was writing this, the Marlins won another one-run game, thanks to some late heroics from deadline acquisition Josh Bell and the underrated Bryan De La Cruz.

There are certain traits that make a team likely to compete and succeed in large number of closely contested games. A lineup that struggles to score runs in bulk and is heavily reliant on station-to-station baseball — as if the case in Miami — is bound to play in a lot of close games. That’s been an apt description of the Marlins so far in 2023; they entered play Wednesday 26th in MLB with 465 runs scored and 27th with 106 home runs.

A strong bullpen that’s capable of holding the too-often narrow leads afforded to the pitching staff is also a key factor in mastering one-run victories. Again, that’s been the case in Miami for much of the season. While the Marlins shook up their bullpen prior to the deadline, swapping out Dylan Floro for Jorge Lopez (an exchange of struggling change-of-scenery candidates) and trading a pair of prospects for David Robertson, the Marlins have generally had a solid relief corps in 2023. Or rather, they’ve had a strong top half of a top-heavy bullpen. Adding Robertson to help deepen the group makes the team better, to be sure, but Miami was already had a strong bullpen group thanks in large part to a quartet of left-handers whom they acquired at virtually no cost.

Chief among that group is hard-throwing 29-year-old Tanner Scott. Long one of the most touted arms in the Orioles’ farm system, Scott was traded to Miami alongside righty Cole Sulser just before Opening Day 2022. The O’s deserve plenty of credit for the team they’ve put together, but this swap is probably one that Baltimore GM Mike Elias would like back. The Fish landed Scott and Sulser in a trade that sent a trio of low-level minor leaguers — Kevin Guerrero, Antonio Velez and Yaqui Rivera — to the Orioles. None of that trio ranks among the Orioles’ top 30 prospects at Baseball America, MLB.com or FanGraphs.

Sulser has already departed the Marlins organization — the D-backs claimed him on waivers last November — but Scott has emerged as one of the best lefties in the game. His power arsenal was always tantalizing, but Scott’s lack of command continually proved frustrating for the O’s. That continued into the 2022 season, his first in Miami, but the 2023 campaign has been another story. After logging a 4.31 ERA, 31.1% strikeout rate and ghastly 15.9% walk rate last year, Scott is now touting a 2.80 ERA, a 36.4% strikeout rate and a vastly improved 10% walk rate. Yes, it’s still too many free passes, but he’s improved it as the season has gone on. Over his past 32 frames, Scott has walked only 7% of his opponents.

Scott entered play Wednesday with a mammoth 17.2% swinging-strike rate and 36.2% chase rate — and that’s before he struck out the side against the Reds in this afternoon’s inning of work. There are only three pitchers in baseball who’ve thrown 50-plus innings and have a higher swinging-strike rate. Scott isn’t working in low-leverage mop-up settings, either. He’s piled up 22 holds and a pair of saves, and only four qualified relievers top him in terms of win probability added (WPA). The Fish are paying him a bargain $2.825MM this season and control him through the 2024 season.

Many clubs would be thrilled to simply have one quality southpaw of this caliber, but the Marlins are deeper than any club in MLB when it comes to lefty relievers. Scott might be the biggest name of the bunch, but the Fish are swimming (sorry, sorry) in quality southpaws. Andrew Nardi might be the most anonymous member of the group, but he’s been nothing short of outstanding this season.

A former 16th-round pick by Miami, Nardi had an inauspicious MLB debut in 2022, pitching 14 2/3 innings but allowing 16 runs in that time. Few fans looked at him and saw a breakout candidate, but in 39 2/3 innings this year, he’s sporting a 2.95 ERA, 33.1% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate. He’s been limited by a triceps injury this summer but was reinstated from the IL earlier this month and is back working in a high-leverage capacity. Since picking up his first big league save back on May 7, he’s pitched to a 1.80 ERA with a 36-to-6 K/BB ratio in 25 innings. He’s grabbed eight holds and a pair of saves along the way — and both numbers would be higher had he not spent a month on the injured list in that span.

Nardi’s 14.3% swinging-strike rate is excellent, and his 35% chase rate is even better. Virtually no one can square up the ball against the 24-year-old; he sits in the 99th percentile of big league pitchers in terms of average exit velocity and the 98th percentile in overall hard-hit rate. Nardi doesn’t even have a year of Major League service yet, so the Marlins can control him all the way through the 2028 season, and he won’t even reach arbitration until after the 2025 campaign.

There’s also 32-year-old Steven Okert to consider — a gem unearthed in minor league free agency. The left-hander came to Miami on a minor league deal in the 2020-21 offseason and, at the time, had just 48 1/3 innings of 4.28 ERA ball under his belt — all coming from 2016-18 with the Giants. In three seasons with Miami, Okert has graduated from a generic depth signing to a stalwart member of a talented relief corps. He’s logged 129 1/3 innings with a 2.85 ERA since relocating to South Florida, punching out 30% of his opponents against a 10.6% walk rate.

Again, the walks are a bit too high, but it should be noted that Okert has boosted his strikeout rate to a career-high 33.5% in 2023 while dropping his walk rate to 9% — his lowest mark in three years with the Fish. His velocity has ticked up each season, and the Marlins have scrapped three of his five pitches, turning him solely into a four-seam/slider reliever. Okert pitches more in the middle innings than Scott and Nardi, but he’s still picked up 10 holds. The results are outstanding, and he can be controlled cheaply for three years beyond the current season. Not too shabby for someone signed to a minor league deal three offseasons ago.

Left-hander A.J. Puk might be the most recognizable name of the bunch, thanks to both his lofty draft status (No. 6 overall in 2016) and his inclusion in a reasonably high-profile trade this offseason (sending former No. 4 overall pick JJ Bleday back to Oakland). Puk’s 4.62 ERA is by far the least impressive of the group, but the underlying numbers are far more impressive. He’s fanned 30.9% of his opponents against just a 4.9% walk rate while recording a swinging-strike rate just shy of 15%. Puk had a sub-3.00 ERA himself in early June before a rough patch that saw him allow runs in six of nine appearances. He’s since rebounded with four straight scoreless outings, whiffing five hitters without issuing a walk in 3 1/3 innings.

Puk has been hampered by a .337 average on balls in play and an abnormally low 63.1% strand rate, prompting metric like FIP (3.41) and SIERA (2.66) to cast a far more favorable light on the lefty than his earned run average does. Puk certainly wasn’t flawless in serving as the Marlins’ primary closer — 15-for-21 in save opportunities — and that, coupled with his rough stretch last month, might have nudged Miami to acquire Robertson. That said, lefties who average 96 mph don’t grow on trees, and Puk’s blend of elite strikeout and walk rates signals better days ahead.

In fact, Marlins relievers as a whole are among the best in baseball when it comes to both piling up strikeouts and limiting free passes. Each of the four lefties profiled here rank in the top 10 of all qualified relievers in terms of differential between strikeout rate and walk rate (i.e. K-BB%). The Marlins are sixth in all of baseball as a collective group in that category, and adding Robertson for the final two months of the season should help them out.

There are plenty of reasons for the Marlins’ success this season. Luis Arraez’s surefire batting title, big steps forward from Jesus Luzardo and Braxton Garrett, a dominant debut season from Eury Perez and a rebound effort from Jorge Soler have all helped drive this unlikely playoff push. But heading into the season, few would’ve pegged the Marlins to receive this type of output from their left-handed bullpen corps. Add in the fact that they came to the organization via a minor league deal, a 16th-round pick, and trades sending out three marginal prospects and a former first-rounder who’s still struggling in Oakland — and the core of this bullpen is even more impressive. They’ll all return for the 2024 season at least, and with Robertson helping lead the charge down the stretch in ’23, the Marlins will continue to be dangerous in tightly contested games.

Puk’s last appearance was on May 10, and manager Skip Schumaker told the Herald’s Andre Fernandez and other reporters prior to today’s game that Puk had been dealing with a “dead arm.”  The designation of nerve irritation sheds some new and concerning light on the issue, as while it could be that Puk might be back to normal after 15 days, there is no real timeline for nerve-related injuries.

It’s another troubling injury setback for Puk, as Tommy John surgery cost him all of the 2018 season as a prospect in the Athletics’ farm system, and he didn’t pitch in 2020 due to shoulder problems that eventually required a surgery.  Puk carried a lot of promise as a starter during his way up the minor league ladder, yet his health problems led the A’s to use him only as a reliever.  In his first full MLB season, Puk looked mostly excellent in posting a 3.12 ERA over 66 1/3 relief innings for the A’s in 2022.

That good form has continued into Puk’s first year in Miami, as the Marlins dealt JJ Bleday (another former top prospect) to Oakland for Puk back in February.  Though the Marlins considered using Puk as a starter, they instead opted to use him as their primary closer, with strong results.  Puk has a 3.07 ERA and a wealth of impressive secondary metrics over 14 2/3 innings with the Marlins, including a 29.2% strikeout rate and 4.6% walk rate that are both well above the league average.  Batters haven’t been able to make much hard contact against Puk’s offerings, as his 2.4% barrel rate is among the best in MLB.

Dylan Floro got the save in today’s 3-1 win over the Reds, and he is likely the favorite for ninth-inning work in Puk’s absence given how Floro finished the 2020 season as Miami’s closer.  The Marlins could also take a situational approach to save situations, with any of Floro, Andrew Nardi, Huascar Brazoban, Tanner Scott, or Matt Barnes getting a crack at closer duties based on in-game scenarios.

It’s been a tough couple of days health-wise for the Marlins, as while Garrett Cooper returned from the 10-day IL today, Miami has lost both Jesus Sanchez and now Puk to the injured list.  Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s status is also to be determined, as Schumaker said the center fielder will visit a specialist about a case of turf toe.  Chisholm suffered the injury in yesterday’s game after a collision with the outfield wall in pursuit of a fly ball.

The slate of injuries include three relievers. Left-hander A.J. Puk has some tightness in the adductor muscle of his left leg, fellow lefty Tanner Scott is dealing with slight discomfort in his left biceps, while Tommy Nance has discomfort in his right shoulder. Puk and Scott are playing catch today but Nance will be reevaluated in a couple of days. “I’m not too concerned,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said to Jackson and Mish. “If it was a starter who had to get built up, that’s a whole different story. But the relievers, I think that’s a little easier.”

Puk, just acquired from the A’s a few weeks ago, was once one of  the top prospects in the league but has struggled to stay healthy. Shoulder issues prevented him from making an appearance in 2020 and he struggled in 2021. He bounced back nicely last year, however, posting a 3.12 ERA over 62 appearances.

Scott was acquired from the Orioles a year ago and had a solid season for Miami, despite some control issues. He walked 15.9% of batters faced but struck out 31.1% and got grounders at a 46.3% clip. Nance was claimed off waivers from the Cubs about a year ago and registered a 4.33 ERA in 43 2/3 innings last year. He struck out 29.1% of opponents while walking 10.7%, also getting grounders at a strong 46.4% rate.

There’s also one other hiccup in the club’s bullpen, as Huascar Brazobán has yet to report to camp due to a visa issue. However, the issue has been resolved and Brazobán should be leaving the Dominican Republic for the United States tomorrow. The righty was a nice story last year, making his major league debut at the age of 32. He tossed 32 innings with a 3.09 ERA, 28.4% strikeout rate, 14.9% walk rate and 49.4% ground ball rate.

All in all, it seems like a pile of minor issues scattered throughout the bullpen, but they are situations worth monitoring with only about four weeks until Opening Day.

Leaving aside the bullpen, the club has been connected to free agent Yuli Gurriel multiple times this offseason. The most recent reporting indicated they offered him a $2MM deal at one point but took that offer the table when a week went by without a response. Today, Jackson and Mish report that the club is still willing to bring Gurriel into camp as a non-roster invitee if he’s interested.

The fact that a minor league deal hasn’t yet come to fruition suggests that Gurriel is perhaps still holding out for a major league pact. Garrett Cooper is penciled in as the club’s first baseman but he’s dealt with various injuries in his career and it makes sense that the Fish would look to add some depth behind him. Gurriel was a batting champ as recently as 2021 but he’s now entering his age-39 season and is coming off a rough campaign. He hit just .242/.288/.360 last year for a wRC+ of 85, indicating he was 15% worse than the league average hitter.

If Gurriel continues to linger on the market, the Marlins could potentially contact other first base options. The free agent market still features other bounceback candidates like Miguel Sanó and Mike Moustakas.