Miami Marlins

The Miami Marlins are hoping to pack LoanDepot Park with New York Mets fans when they welcome the Atlanta Braves into town for their regular season series from Oct. 3-5.

With the NL East race coming down to the wire, the Marlins have called on Mets fans to help root against the Braves during their final home stand of the year 😂 pic.twitter.com/FkUTLMRoiK

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) September 27, 2022

The 97-57 Mets hold a one-game lead over the 96-58 Braves for the National League East crown with eight games to go. Both teams are headed to the playoffs, but the winner will earn the National League's No. 2 playoff seed and a bye through the NL Wild Card Round.

The 63-90 Marlins' season has long been over. The team has long struggled to draw fans, to the point where the franchise has only welcomed 2,000,000 or more patrons in a single year three times since its 1993 MLB debut.

Miami has not drawn well this year. The Marlins have the second-lowest home attendance in the league at 11,158 fans per game, according to ESPN.com. However, they draw better when the Mets roll into town, with an average attendance of 15,790 for those games, per Baseball-Reference.

Therefore, give credit for creativity with the Marlins playing out the string at this point.

Of course, South Florida residents and Mets fans can simply decide to stay at home and watch their own team play if they get out-of-market games. The Mets also host the Washington Nationals on Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. The same structure holds for the Marlins-Braves series.

Then again, those same fans can also enjoy some live baseball and hope Atlanta stumbles down the stretch as the Mets try to hold off the Braves for the coveted division crown.

Don Mattingly's tenure as manager of the Miami Marlins is coming to an end.

Per Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Mattingly told the team he will step down at the end of this season with the blessing of Marlins owner Bruce Sherman and general manager Kim Ng.

Heyman noted the decision for Mattingly to leave is considered mutual and he believes it's time for a new voice in the locker room.

Mattingly has been manager of the Marlins since 2016, going 437-583 in seven seasons. He led Miami to the postseason just once, during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign in which the team finished second in the NL East.

The Marlins went on to defeat the Chicago Cubs in the Wild Card Series before falling to the Atlanta Braves.

Since Mattingly took over, the Marlins have been floating around the bottom of the NL East while the Phillies, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves have all taken steps forward to contend for the division title.

Miami's 63-89 record this season is the fourth-worst mark in the NL. The team hasn't won more than 67 games in a 162-game season since 2017.

With a roster that includes a rising star in Jazz Chisholm and the presumptive NL Cy Young favorite Sandy Alcantara, the Marlins could benefit from a new voice in the clubhouse.

That said, Mattingly has done arguably all he can with a team that is stuck in what feels like an everlasting rebuild. The Marlins are a notoriously difficult franchise to manage because ownership tends to keep one of the lowest payrolls in Major League Baseball every year.

Before joining the Marlins, Mattingly served as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2011-15, going 446-363 and making the postseason three times.

Miami Marlins infeilder Jazz Chisholm announced on Wednesday that he would be representing Great Britain at the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

Jazz Chisholm announces on @BallyMarlins that he will play shortstop for Great Britain in the 2023 World Baseball Classic! He will wear number 3 🔥 Can’t wait to watch you play @j_chisholm3

— Jessica Blaylock (@JessBlaylock) September 21, 2022

It will be his first game action since June, when the 24-year-old was sidelined with a stress fracture in his back, an injury that has ended his season.

"I thought I would've been back in like a month or a couple of weeks, honestly, probably two or three weeks," he told reporters last week regarding the injury. "I thought I was going to be back in time for the All-Star Game, until it just didn't go that way. I got the news I had a stress fracture, and that it won't heal properly, and just had to go with that."

Chisholm was voted into the Midsummer Classic as a starter by fans after hitting .254 with 14 homers, 45 RBI, 39 runs, 12 stolen bases and a .860 OPS across 60 games. He was on pace to put together a fantastic season, though it officially came to an end last week.

"We could probably push Jazz to be able to come back and DH or something," Marlins manager Don Mattingly told reporters. "I think the risk/reward on that—he has a stress fracture in his back. It's something you could say, 'Well, it's healed, but is it all the way?' It just doesn't seem to be worth it. I think Jazz would like to play, he would like to have played. I think the organization basically made that decision for him, that we were going to just let this thing go, keep strengthening all year long, so we know going into the winter that he's healthy, he's ready, he's doing everything, he feels great. So again, I think an organizational decision."

It wasn't the only injury Chisholm dealt with this season:

Jazz Chisholm Jr. said he tore his meniscus in his right knee (his sliding knee) in spring training.

So he played the whole season with the injury up until he also had the back injury at the end of June.

Damn.#Marlins

— Jordan McPherson (@J_McPherson1126) September 21, 2022

As for representing Great Britain, Chisholm was born in The Bahamas and is eligible to feature for the country since it was a former British colony. He also represented Great Britain during the World Baseball Classic qualifiers in 2017.

Great Britain qualified for the WBC for the first time ever this past week. And now they'll have a legitimate MLB superstar leading them in that maiden voyage.

As the Los Angeles Dodgers look for potential upgrades prior to Tuesday's trade deadline, Miami Marlins All-Star Garrett Cooper has popped up on their radar.

Per Jon Heyman of the New York Post and MLB Network, the Dodgers "have been looking" at Cooper as a trade option.

Heyman did note teams in the Juan Soto market, including the Dodgers, may wait for a resolution to that situation before moving to other hitters.

Soto is certainly the biggest domino that could fall before the trade deadline. ESPN's Jeff Passan reported Tuesday that "multiple executives" around MLB are unsure of what the Washington Nationals are planning to do.

One executive told Passan that Soto will be dealt because of the Nationals' ownership situation, with the Lerner family, which has owned the franchise since 2006, looking to sell the club.

"The Nationals currently are up for sale, and the notion that new ownership's first move would be to trade a future Hall of Famer in his early prime, the executive said, is problematic. Dealing Soto now, he said, would offer the new owner a clean slate," Passan wrote.

Heyman and Joel Sherman recently reported the St. Louis Cardinals are emerging as a potential front-runner for Soto, but six other teams are also mentioned as possible landing spots.

The Dodgers are among that group because they have a mix of young players and prospects to offer the Nationals, as well as the financial resources to give Soto a long-term contract extension.

Cooper isn't the same caliber of player as Soto, but he could be a positive addition to Los Angeles' lineup if a deal comes together. The 31-year-old is hitting .279/.347/.426 with seven homers and 40 RBI in 84 games this season.

The Dodgers can use an extra bat at designated hitter down the stretch. Edwin Rios is on the 60-day injured list with a hamstring issue. Max Muncy is having a disappointing season with a .612 OPS in 79 games.

Cooper is only making $2.5 million this season and has one more year of team control before being eligible for free agency. He's not a difference-maker like Soto, but the Dodgers already have a loaded roster and only need to make marginal improvements to solidify their standing as the World Series favorite in the National League.

Like with any art form, the rules, limitations and conventions for the art of pitching are constantly being rewritten. All it takes is one guy and one pitch for something that seems impossible in theory to become very much possible in reality.

So it was on June 1 at Coors Field, when a 96 mph changeup suddenly appeared:

Edward Cabrera, Absurd 96mph CHANGEUP. 😳 pic.twitter.com/SJxASS6UOR

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 1, 2022

There have technically—but maybe not actually, given that it's not unheard of for certain pitches to get misclassified—been faster changeups during the 15-year pitch tracking era, but 96 mph is at least the highest velocity ever achieved on a strikeout by a changeup. Heck, two in five fastballs aren't even touching 96 mph in 2022.

Anyone who can throw a pitch like that is clearly worth knowing. So by all means, get to know Edward Cabrera.

Starting with the pedigree stuff first, he's a 24-year-old right-handed pitcher for the Miami Marlins. He made his major league debut on Aug. 25, 2021, yet he's technically still a rookie and No. 62 on B/R's ranking of the top 100 prospects in Major League Baseball right now.

Though his 96 mph changeup is a highlight unto itself, Cabrera has also engaged in a bit of history making in his two starts for the Marlins this season. Both have seen him log six innings while allowing no more than two hits. As noted by Christina De Nicola of MLB.com, he's the first Marlins pitcher to ever begin his season by hitting those marks in two consecutive outings.

Basically, he's been about as dominant as you'd expect of a guy with that kind of pitch in his repertoire. But while these things alone make Cabrera worth watching, they're not all that make him worth rooting for.

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From Passed Up to Throwing Gas

Every baseball prospect is the hero of his own underdog tale to some degree or another, but Cabrera more than most.

Born in Santiago in the Dominican Republic on April 13, 1998, he was 16 years old when he was first eligible to be signed by major league teams during the 2014 international signing window. There were no takers, however, and he settled for a modest $100,000 bonus from the Marlins the following year. Or, for a mere fraction of the multimillion-dollar bonuses that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the other top international prospects got that year.

Cabrera's fastball only touched 91-92 mph at the time he signed, but the Marlins had one reason to dream big on his potential. At 6'4", 185 pounds, he offered a frame from which far greater velocity might eventually flow.

Sure enough, Cabrera was up to 96 mph by the end of 2015 and sitting at 92-93 mph throughout his first season in the minors in 2016. He hit 100 mph for the first time in 2017, a reminder of which is permanently tattooed on his neck.

Cabrera nonetheless took his lumps throughout his first three professional seasons, and particularly in 2018. He pitched to a 4.22 ERA in 22 starts for Single-A Greensboro, finishing with fewer strikeouts (93) than innings pitched (100.1) in spite of his high-octane stuff. Though Baseball America granted that he still had a ceiling as a mid-rotation starter, its report on Cabrera for 2019 hinted at a possible future as a "late-inning, power reliever."

Instead, that turned out to be the year that Cabrera began his ascent in earnest. He kept his velocity up and further honed his secondaries, ultimately benefiting to the tune of a 2.23 ERA and 116 strikeouts over 96.2 innings. He subsequently appeared in top-100 lists for the first time in 2020, and all signs seemed to point to him making his Marlins debut that year.

But then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and his progress was eventually slowed even further by a shoulder injury. And just when he was ready to ramp up for 2021, an inflamed nerve in his biceps sidelined once again in February.

Cabrera resumed his dominance of minor league hitters upon returning in June, posting a 2.93 ERA and whiffing 92 across 61.1 innings at three different levels. On Aug. 23, he finally got the good news that The Show was calling.

Let’s check in on Edward Cabrera’s Sunday Night. pic.twitter.com/I8H4zLCFno

— Miami Marlins (@Marlins) August 23, 2021

Things went great for Cabrera in the majors...at first.

He impressed in his debut against the Washington Nationals, pitching into the seventh inning and allowing three earned runs on four hits and three walks. Yet he failed to last past the fourth inning in any of his next six starts, altogether getting knocked around for a 6.30 ERA with 16 walks and four home runs allowed in just 20 innings.

Cabrera had to come out of his seventh and final start of 2021 with a blister, and still more hurdles appeared in his way after the season ended. The Major League Baseball lockout and a visa issue left him behind schedule when the Marlins opened spring training, and then yet another biceps issue forced him onto the injured list for the start of the minor league season.

Cabrera finally returned to the mound on April 27 and, apart from a six-run dud on May 14, basically picked up where he left off. This performance plus injuries to Jesus Luzardo and Cody Poteet opened the door to his call-up on May 29.

This latest promotion had the potential to be short-lived if Cabrera didn't produce right away, but that's obviously not what's happening.

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The Fastball and Slider Are Good, But This Is All About the Changeup

Even as he was getting humbled by major league hitters, Cabrera at least succeeded in showing off his arm during his cup-of-coffee run with the Marlins last year.

He cranked his fastball up to 100 mph at one point, and hitters basically had no answer for the 98 sliders that he threw. They yielded just two hits in 23 at-bats, 10 of which ended by way of the strikeout.

And now for the part that, provided you didn't skip past the intro, may surprise you: The one pitch of Cabrera's that hitters did handle last year was his changeup. They went 10-for-22 with more home runs (4) than strikeouts (3) against it.

After that, Cabrera would perhaps have been justified in shelving the pitch. Or at the least, relegating it to his No. 3 offering after his fastball and slider. A "show me" pitch, essentially.

Instead, he's done the opposite. At 37.3 percent, the changeup has been Cabrera's most oft-used pitch in 2022. The specifics of this usage also bear little resemblance to those of last season, starting with the average velocity of the pitch:

• 2021: 92.1 mph
• 2022: 93.5 mph

That's a 1.4 mph increase, leading to the highest average speed in a single season for any changeup on record. Between that and its lake sinking action, it makes some sense that it basically is a fastball for Cabrera himself.

“The thing is, I throw it like a fastball,” Cabrera said through an interpreter after his 96 mph changeup went viral, according to Manny Randhawa of MLB.com. “That’s the way it goes. I always throw it as a fastball so it has that kind of [action]."

This goes against the conventional wisdom that there should be substantial velocity differential between a pitcher's fastball and changeup, but two things allow Cabrera to get away with not having that kind of differential.

For one, the late sink on Cabrera's changeup pairs well with the arm-side run that he gets on his four-seamer. Any hitter looking for the latter is liable to swing over the ball if he gets the former instead.

For two, Cabrera isn't making mistakes like the one that he made to Michael Conforto last year:

MICHAEL CONFORTO'S DAY CONTINUES WITH A 2-RUN BLAST! pic.twitter.com/39NOE5m5mo

— SNY (@SNYtv) September 1, 2021

Even right-down-the-middle pitches think that one was too right down the middle. No matter what kind of velocity or movement a pitcher gets on his changeup, he simply can't make it a habit of putting it there.

In 2021, Cabrera did have that habit. In 2022, he does not:

Results-wise, the difference is staggering. The 72 changeups that Cabrera has thrown have produced 17 swings and misses and only 11 balls in play. Of the latter, not a single one crossed the hard-hit threshold of 95 mph.

And thus: one hit in 20 at-bats, with eight strikeouts.

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Cabrera's Place in the Terrifying Marlins Rotation of the Future

Lest anyone think that Cabrera has put himself on a straight path to perennial All-Star nods and Cy Young Award contention, let's pump the brakes a bit.

As his walk rate has only improved from 15.8 percent in 2021 to 12.5 percent this season, control is still something he needs to work on. He also undercuts his fastball velocity by not getting as much extension on his release as a 6'5", 217-pound hurler probably should. His average extension is the same as that of Chad Kuhl, who's two inches shorter.

And yet if a mid-rotation starter is all Cabrera becomes for the Marlins, it might only be because they have better options for the top of their rotation.

Rather than a slight against Cabrera, this is above all a compliment for Sandy Alcantara and Pablo Lopez. Both were excellent in 2021, and now they have a 1.86 ERA between them through their first 23 starts of this season. Alcantara, in particular, is on one heck of a run:

Pitchers with a 5-start span of 40+ IP & an ERA under 0.45, since 2010:

2022 Sandy Alcantara
2015 Jake Arrieta
2015 Clayton Kershaw
2014 Clayton Kershaw
2012 R.A. Dickey
2011 Cliff Lee
2010 Matt Cain

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) June 9, 2022

Apart from Alcantara and Lopez, the Marlins also have two electrifying left-handers in Trevor Rogers and Jesus Luzardo. Rogers was the runner-up in the National League Rookie of the Year voting for 2021, while Luzardo has struck out more than 10 batters per nine innings since coming over from the Oakland Athletics via trade last July.

As talented as Cabrera is, it's also telling that we don't even have him ranked as the best pitching prospect in Miami's system. Or even the second-best, for that matter.

The second-best is right-hander Max Meyer, whose slider was rated by MLB.com's Jim Callis as the best of any prospect coming into the season. The best Marlins prospect is fellow righty Eury Perez, a 6'8", 220-pound dynamo who's whiffed 56 batters in 38 innings for Double-A Pensacola this year.

With this much pitching talent in their midst, the only question the Marlins have to answer going forward is which five they'll want to roll with at any given time. Which is to say that Cabrera will have to continually earn his starting job if he wants to keep it.

It's to his credit, then, that he's pitching like a guy who knows that.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

Having lost 22 of their last 32 games, Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly called a team meeting prior to Tuesday's matchup against the Washington Nationals.

Speaking to reporters about the 90-minute meeting, Mattingly said everyone on the team spoke and there were "a lot of little things that we felt like the group needed to get out in the open."

Mattingly didn't offer specific details about what was discussed, other than saying it wasn't necessarily about wins as losses so much as airing out any issues anyone might have had. He added it wouldn't be a surprise if the Marlins came out flat against the Nationals.

There's been no indication publicly that anything has been going on with the Marlins. They did have an organizational shake-up coming into the season when Derek Jeter sold his 4 percent ownership stake in February.

"The vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead," Jeter said in his statement. "Now is the right time for me to step aside as a new season begins."

Per Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Jeter's decision to leave the Marlins stemmed from chairman Bruce Sherman "reneging on a promise" to spend $10-15 million more on payroll this season.

Miami's payroll of $82.44 million ranks 26th out of 30 MLB teams this season. The front office did spend $89 million in free agency to sign Jorge Soler (three years, $36 million) and Avisail Garcia (four years, $53 million).

The team did show promise at the start of the season with a 12-8 record through 20 games in April. Since May 1, though, the Marlins have gone 10-22 with three losing streaks of at least three games during this span.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. has been one of the breakout stars of the still-young 2022 season. The 24-year-old is hitting .250/.308/.507 through 42 games. Sandy Alcantara (1.81 ERA) and Pablo Lopez (2.18 ERA) have been fantastic at the top of the rotation.

A lack of depth behind that trio of stars is one of the main issues for the Marlins. They are looking to avoid their 12th losing record in the past 13 seasons.

Mattingly is in his seventh season managing the club. The 61-year-old has a 396-524 record in 920 games with the Marlins.

A member of Alex Rodriguez's inner circle is denying reports that the former Major League Baseball superstar is interested in purchasing the Miami Marlins. 

Ron Berkowitz, Rodriguez's publicist, tweeted any rumors of his client wanting to buy the Marlins or any other MLB franchise are "entirely false."

Alex Rodriguez is 100 percent focused on owning the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx. Any report of him having interest in also buying the Miami Marlins or any other MLB team is entirely false.

— Ron Berkowitz (@ronberk1) May 13, 2022

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported on Thursday that Rodriguez would be interested in purchasing the Marlins if the franchise was put up for sale. 

Heyman did note that no one around Marlins majority owner Bruce Sherman thinks he's considering selling the franchise, but "steep losses have many calling to inquire."

Sherman led a group that purchased the Marlins from Jeffrey Loria for $1.2 billion in August 2017. Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan were among the group of investors along with Sherman. 

Jeter announced in February he was selling his stake in the organization and stepping down as CEO. 

Per Joel Sherman of the New York Post, a key factor in Jeter's decision to leave the Marlins was because he believed going into the lockout the team would increase roster spending by $10-15 million this season, but "that strategy evaporated during the lockout."

The Marlins currently have the fifth-lowest payroll in MLB with $81.015 million spent. They haven't ranked higher than 26th in payroll spending since 2018. 

Rodriguez has built an impressive business portfolio since his MLB career ended after the 2016 season. He led a group that attempted to purchase the New York Mets in 2020 before Steve Cohen eventually bought the franchise. 

A-Rod and Marc Lore bought the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA's Minnesota Lynx from Glen Taylor for $1.5 billion in May 2021. 

Forbes estimates the Marlins are valued at $990 million.     

Jorge Soler helped lead the Atlanta Braves to a championship as the World Series MVP, but his time with the team is reportedly coming to an end.

The Miami Marlins agreed to sign the slugger to a three-year, $36 million deal Saturday, per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and ESPN's Jeff Passan.

Atlanta acquired Soler via trade from the Kansas City Royals in July in a move that rejuvenated his season. He slashed .192/.288/.370 with 13 home runs and 37 RBI in 94 games with the Royals in 2021 but hit an impressive .269/.358/.524 with 14 home runs and 33 RBI in 55 games with Atlanta.

The Braves also went from three games under .500 on Aug. 1 to a National League East crown.

While Soler missed time in the playoffs after he was placed on the reserve list after testing positive for COVID-19, he returned and played the role of hero in the Fall Classic victory over the Houston Astros by slashing .300/.391/.800 with three home runs and six RBI in six games.

That his performance came right before his contract was set to expire made it all the better for Soler.

He spent his first three seasons with the Chicago Cubs from 2014 through 2016 and helped them break their championship drought that dated back to 1908. He was also with the Royals from 2017 until they traded him to Atlanta.

It wasn't a massive surprise Soler was so productive down the stretch of the 2021 campaign with Atlanta considering he wasn't far removed from when he led the entire league with 48 home runs to go with 117 RBI in 2019.

Soler also hit .265 that season, so he wasn't entirely home run dependent.

The 2016 and 2021 World Series champion will be 30 years old during the 2022 season for Miami, a team who needed to address the offense this offseason but abstained from splashing out major cash to chase some of the more prominent free agents available.

While 2019 remains something of an outlier compared to the rest of his career, Soler impressed for the Braves, has postseason experience and has always been known for his power. That, along with the fact that he should still theoretically be in his prime, should help him remain productive on this new deal.