Miami finished the first half with a home sweep at the hands of the Guardians in which they scored five runs in three games. They\u2019ve been swept in each of their first three series coming out of the All-Star Breakl. They went 0-6 on a difficult road trip to Milwaukee and Houston. Last weekend was a new low, as they were swept at home by a struggling Wild Card competitor, the Padres.<\/p>\n
The entire lineup has gone cold.\u00a0Griffin Conine<\/a> is their only regular who has hit at an above-average level over the past two weeks. Rookie catcher\u00a0Joe Mack<\/a> has popped three home runs in that stretch but has otherwise only reached base twice. The rest of the offense has been terrible. Only the Blue Jays and Angels have scored fewer runs than Miami\u2019s 25 in the second half.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not going to get any easier to begin this week. They\u2019ll welcome the Phillies to loanDepot Park and face Zack Wheeler<\/a> and Jes\u00fas Luzardo<\/a> in the series opener and finale, respectively. They do have the pitching advantage on Tuesday with Alcantara opposing\u00a0Aaron Nola<\/a>, but they\u2019re going to need to steal at least one game against one of the NL\u2019s best pitchers to finally turn in a winning series.<\/p>\n The 12-game losing streak is the longest in franchise history. It\u2019s tied with the Mets\u2019 April skid for the worst by any team this season. Any divisional hopes are long gone, as they\u2019ve dropped to fourth in the NL East and double-digit games behind Atlanta. They\u2019re still only three games back in the Wild Card picture, but they have five teams to surpass. Two weeks ago, the Marlins were around 50-50 to make the playoffs. The respective odds from FanGraphs<\/a>, Baseball Reference<\/a> and Baseball Prospectus<\/a> now all have them in the 8-12% range to play in October.<\/p>\n Miami will have a chance to build some positive momentum right into the August 3 deadline. On Thursday, they\u2019ll begin a four-game road series against an already bad Mets team that\u2019ll probably begin its own teardown during that series. A 5-2 week against Philly and New York would get the Fish back above .500 and likely within a game or two of the final playoff spot. Even a 4-3 showing might be manageable. Another losing week would probably bury them.<\/p>\n These last few weeks will presumably push the front office away from buying short-term assets. Their playoff odds are too low to give up much prospect capital for rentals. They could poke around for a controllable starting pitcher, but that\u2019s not easy to acquire. The bigger question is whether this will push Miami to pivot to selling \u2014 which would refocus the attention on their ace.<\/p>\n Alcantara is controllable for 2027 via a $21MM club option. Barring injury, that\u2019s an easy one for a team to pick up. That\u2019s true even of a Miami club running MLB\u2019s second-lowest payroll (courtesy of MLBTR\u2019s new payroll tracker<\/a>), which checks in around $83.48MM. Miami doesn\u2019t have anyone on a guaranteed contract for next season. Their biggest commitment is the $10MM they\u2019ll send to the Yankees as a condition of the\u00a0Giancarlo Stanton<\/a> trade.<\/p>\n None of their arbitration-eligible players are making more than $2.81MM this year. Kyle Stowers<\/a>, Otto Lopez<\/a>,\u00a0Xavier Edwards<\/a> and\u00a0Eury P\u00e9rez<\/a> will all qualify for arbitration, so next year\u2019s group is going to be more expensive, but none of them are going to break the bank in their first year of eligibility. They\u2019ll probably all come in below $5MM.<\/p>\n Although Miami wouldn\u2019t buy Alcantara out, that doesn\u2019t foreclose the possibility of a trade. The extra year of control would make him a coveted target for contenders. Alcantara doesn\u2019t have huge swing-and-miss ability anymore, but he leads MLB in innings and has turned in a 4.01 ERA across 22 starts. That includes an excellent 3.29 mark in his past 10 outings, eight of which have been quality starts. He\u2019s a throwback workhorse who\u2019d slot into a playoff rotation for anyone who acquires him.<\/p>\n The two-time All-Star is also one of the best players in franchise history, a clubhouse leader, and a favorite of owner Bruce Sherman. Miami wouldn\u2019t take moving him lightly, but if they don\u2019t expect to work out another extension, his trade value only declines from here as the contractual control dwindles. An extension probably requires an average annual value in the $25-30MM range over three or four years. It\u2019d be easier to see the Marlins doing that if the next CBA includes a cap\/floor system that requires Sherman to dramatically raise payroll. If the Marlins are going to keep their payrolls in the $80-90MM range, an extension probably isn\u2019t happening.<\/p>\n Miami\u2019s deadline would mostly revolve around Alcantara, as they don\u2019t have many other short-term trade pieces. While they probably don\u2019t have any true untouchables, it\u2019d be a surprise if they trade anyone from the P\u00e9rez, Lopez, Stowers, Edwards,\u00a0Jakob Marsee<\/a> group of controllable core pieces (disappointing season for Marsee notwithstanding). Any chance they tried to sell high on\u00a0Max Meyer<\/a> should be dashed by a neck strain that\u2019ll keep him shut down entirely<\/a> beyond the deadline.<\/p>\n Their only impending free agent, closer Pete Fairbanks<\/a>, has an ERA north of 7.00. Maybe another team will take a flier on his still strong velocity and strikeout stuff, but that\u2019d mostly be about salary relief for the Fish. Fairbanks will be due a little over $3.5MM on his $12MM salary after the deadline. They\u2019d get minimal returns for any of\u00a0Calvin Faucher<\/a>,\u00a0John King<\/a> or\u00a0Braxton Garrett<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perhaps they\u2019ll cash in setup man Michael Petersen<\/a>, a journeyman who has a breakout season at age 32. That\u2019d be a similar to 2024, when they flipped<\/a>\u00a0Huascar Brazob\u00e1n<\/a> to the Mets for a mid-level prospect. It would only be worthwhile if the Marlins continue to spiral this week and extinguish any hope for a Wild Card run.<\/p>\n Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baseball\u2019s hottest team in June, the Marlins were flying high as the All-Star Break approached. They pulled as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[92728,148586,17881,99],"class_list":["post-787744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-michael-petersen","tag-pete-fairbanks","tag-sandy-alcantara","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2026-07-18T000621Z_1231934084_MT1USATODAY29403630_RTRMADP_3_MLB-MIAMI-MARLINS-AT-MILWAUKEE-BREWERS-2.jpeg\"\/)
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