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Speaker 1: The show goes on. This is the official show on the fish Stripes podcast channel with me Eli Sussman, the managing editor of fish Stripes, where we cover your Miami Marlins every day in our own way. A happy Juneteenth and a happy Father's Day to everybody as I'm recording this on Sunday nights. Usually these come at the end of a Marlin series, right from Sunday night into Monday morning, but this time still finishing up a series between the Marlins and the Mets in New York. Be sure to keep up with fish Stripes coverage wherever it is that you spend your attention on all the screens that you use and all the social media platforms that you're on, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok YouTube, just find fit Stripes on there. I've been harping on this a little while. YouTube are number one priority right now. Just to get to the milestone of one thousand subscribers, we're within reach. It only takes you a couple of seconds to do so to get content there that you can't get from any of our other other platforms. But of course we have it all wrapped up and packaged and delivered to you in one convenient place on fishstripes dot com. That's the mothership. Please bookmark that and visit us throughout the season and off season all year round. Let's go to fish stripes dot com everything from myself and our ten eleven to twelve contributors. I lose counts at this point. It's been busy. It's always busy over there. Win or lose for the Marlins, it doesn't matter. I think we all had high expectations for Sandy Alcntra this year, how he seems to get better every single season, and at the start of this new contract extension that maybe he would make the leap from being great to being elite, to reach the level where he'd be getting the national international recognition he deserves. No matter what you may have hoped for Sandy this year, as we get pretty deep into this twenty twenty two season, it is evident that he is even better. He is like beyond descriptions. He is one of one in Major League Baseball right now. So most of this episode is going to be about Sandy picking up his latest win on Sunday over the Mets, and I'll be going through each of the last three games of this year is Friday, Saturday, Sunday in the small pod portion, and of course I'll be getting my fish prospects of the week and more on the other side of this break. Stick with us, these crazy MLB schedule makers. They waited sixty plus games into the season to actually have division rivals play against each other. So the first of nineteen games between the Marlins and the Mets, that was Friday night, it was a stinker. Honestly, you know, Paplo Lopez on the mounds. This was one of his worst outings of the year any way you slice it. He fell behind early in this game, Francisco Lindor with a home run that gave the Mets a bit of a cushion in the bottom of that first inning, and the bats really didn't muster much of a fight against him. The only run that the Marlins got during the competitive portion of this game was Brian de la Cruz in the fifth ending, and all that's udd is like, maybe make up for an error that he made back in the first It was ugly. It really turned in the sixth ending. The Mets batted a rounds against Pablo against Tommy Nance in that ending. Ultimately Pablo charged with seven runs, six of them earned in five and a third endings. I'd say he was more competitive than that would suggest. Either way, it blots his ra to two point eighty five and the Marlins lose this game by a final score of a ten to four against the Mets. I guess the Pete Alonso grand slam was the nail in the coffin of this and Pete Alonzo in the relatively short major league career, he's quite a track record now of hitting bombs against the Fish. This is also the first sighting of Jimmy Yakabonus and more about him in just a couple of minutes. He pitched a scoreless ending in this one. During his Marlin's twenty twenty two debut, we got to see leywin Diez, fresh off being called up from Triple A. This was when they put Hayesu's Aguilar and Hayesu Sanchez on the COVID il and as we are talking here at the end of the weekend, it looks like both of those could be actual positive COVID cases that could keep those guys up for a while. Moving on to Saturday, at least the score was a lot closer than this when the Marlins lose three to two. With me in attendance at City Fields. It was a good experience, a good fan experience, I'll say that much deja vu from Friday, with Francisco Lindor hitting another home run relatively early in this game that put the Mets ahead for good over the Marlins. Started by Braxton Garrett, he only goes four innings, and it should be noted that the bullpen did a great job for the Marlins in this one, keeping them in it all the way to the end. It was Dylan Floro, then it was Jimmy yacobonus again with especially nasty armside run on that sinker of his, Richard Bleier, and even lewis Head. We've been harsh on lewis Head because he has been just a mess the past few weeks, but those guys combined to go four scoreless innings in relief of Braxon Garrett John Birdie three more stolen bases to get up to eighteen, tied for the major league lead for a guy that himself missed several weeks due to COVID and spent a part of the season only as a bench player. He's been really good near the top of the Marlins lineup for the past several weeks, and if you haven't noticed, he's been there everyday third basement. During that stretch top of the ninth inning against Edwin Diaz, it just feels inevitable. Unlike for the Marlins. This is the total opposite feeling in this scenario where you feel hopeless in coming back, and the Marlins shockingly scored a legitimate run. That was the phrasing that Isaac and I used at the game against Edwin Diaz, held by a John Birdy, stolen base by clutch Garrett Cooper hit. Ultimately they come up that one run short, and you have to wonder how different it could have been if at borderline pitch to Jazz Chisholm Jr. Which wasn't really borderline, it was inside. It was just a bad misscall by home played umpire. That day, Adam Beck pitched a Jazz called strike three on a pitch that was six. It just on the play. I've never seeing Jazz that animated strike zones. Today for Adam Beck has been terrible, but I really had his point. If Jazz gs gotten run, if that is called correctly, you wonder exactly what Jazz does in that situation. He has been immensely clutched all season long, and in this scenario did not even get a fair shake at hitting against Diez in the ninth ending there. So spirits are pretty low entering Sunday. As we've seen time and time again, Sandy al Contra, he just changes everything about this team when he is on top of his game. We're going through this extended stretch now of a full month and a half where he is seemingly at the top of his game or close to it every single start. So first about the non Sandy stuff. On Sunday. The Marlins ended up winning this one six to two, and again with Francisco Lindor, he was the one that broke up a scoreless tie. They went all the way into the bottom of the sixth without a single run crossing the plate for either team, and it was Lindor driving and startling Marte. He got really worried at that point that that would be the difference in the game. But in the seventh inning, one of the more exhilarating Marlins rallies of the entire season to this point against Chris Bassett and then out of the bullpen Seth Lugo. The Marlins load the bases with one out for Nubi making his major league debut Gerar and Karnasion. He had already made an impact in the game with his throwing arm on an outfield assist and in this scenario, still looking for his first hit. I believe it was a full counts against Lugo. He goes the opposite way for a go ahead, eventual game winning grand slam in his debut. Ow freak two pitch. This one's in the right field. It pretty well, this one's carrying, This one is gone. It's a grand Slam for Gerar and Carnacion, and you can't say that you were shocked by it. This is what Jerar has been doing all year long at Double A and at Triple A, and even prior to the pandemic in twenty nineteen. This is what made people excited about and Karnasion so much in the first place. True power to all fields against anybody. What a day. What a day for him to make the difference in the game in the starting lineup after sitting on the bench the previous couple days. It wasn't clear how Ancharnazion was going to get used during this first cup of coffee in the big leagues, and he took advantage of his moments. Wow back to Sandy, he was the one that kept the Mets off the scoreboard through six innings once he finally had some cushion to work with. Another small run comes across in the seventh, but Sandy buckles down, gets through that ending, gets through the eighth inning. He's at one hundred and six pitches at that point, and they felt it was a comfortable enough cushion to go to Tanner Scott to right himself after that embarrassing blown save walk off loss earlier in the week. And Scott gets into a little bit of drama with a pair of walks, but otherwise shuts the door without any additional runs coming across. What took out with Sandy in this one is how much he used his secondary pitches, especially his changeup. Those are it's every single game. He is adaptable in that way. There are some days where he's really feeling his basketball. The velocity was good in this one. It was pretty much what you normally expect from him, topping out at ninety nine again and again and again, but he used a lot more of his secondary pitches, his change up and is slider than usual. He earned this one, and he has been reproving himself again and again. His ERA for the year actually ticks up to one point seven to two after entering the game at one point six eight. My Fish Prospects of the week going to the minor league side. On the pitching side, I will go with a reliever, Josh Simpson. I believe I've mentioned him on the pott at least once, if not twice. The lefty for Double A Pensacola. He had a hiccup in late May, maybe early June. Outside of that, he's been about as good as any relief pitcher in minor league baseball, certainly in the Marlin system. This past week, four innings, nine strikeouts, thirteen batters faced, one base runner, max pitch swinging a miss curveball, got nervous and it's a one two three eight didting one base runner away from a perfect week pitching high Lever Jennings for Pensacola. If you want to learn all there is to learn about Simpson, check out our guy Alex Carver at Fish Onthefarm dot com. A full article about Simpson coming off his latest very impressive stretch and the Cape and the case being made that he should be up in the big leagues by the end of this year based on the stuff that he has and how consistent he has been for the most part this season. Hitter of the Week in the Marlins organization, I'm going with infielder Hossei Salas. He got off to a slow start, came into this year with a lot of hype, and he's finally over these last couple of weeks, he is absolutely fulfilling the prophecy that he's going to be one of the best prospects in this organization, a top one hundred caliberpe in all of minor league baseball. He's getting really close there, especially what he just did for Jupiter an ops right around eleven hundred this past series with only one strikeout all week. It's actually one strikeout going back to the middle of last week, thirty four played appearances for a switch hitter. To be making that much contact extremely encouraging. And remember he is only nineteen years old and playing at full season ball. If he keeps us up just a few weeks longer, you need to seriously think about promoting him to High A. He has been of late certainly the most standout player at the low A level. And there are really a lot of other honorable mentions I could go to here. This was a nice week for the Marlins farm system. About as good on the individual and team level combined that I can think of all year long, combining it. Honorable mentions on the pitching side, both Pat Monteverde and Zach King they want six scoreless endings apiece, and also in Jupiter, not that far behind Salas in terms of recent performance. Osiris Johnson, former second round pick in twenty eighteen, his offensive performance for most of this year, all of last year, For most of his career, he's been just this hit first player that is not hitting at the full season level when he gets opportunity, finally maybe turning the corner. Over the last week, his average for the year climbed from one ninety seven to two thirty one. That's more respectable, his ops from five point fifty three to six hundred and if he can stick up the middle defensively as a center fielder. Don't give up on Osiris Johnson yet. There are two types of people in the baseball world right now, those who root for sandale Contra every fifth day when he takes the mounds, and those who do not. It's growing, and it's growing, and it's growing exponential this year as he continues this insane stretch, one that has no other like contemporary comparison, one of one. As I said before, nobody else like him right now. A couple of stats from Sarah Langso MLB dot com. She's a researcher over there. Sandy al Contra has gone seven plus innings allowing two earned runs or fewer in eight straight starts. That's the longest such single season streak since Felix Hernandez in twenty fourteen. First time in eight years there's been somebody combining that extended consecutive streak of volume and effectiveness. I'm gonna keep going back to that, that combination volume and effectiveness. That's what Sandy is doing, unlike anybody else in baseball these days. Again from Sarah Langs a total of sixty three and two thirds innings pitch for Sandy over his last eight starts. That's nearly eight innings per start. The last pitcher to the three sixty three plus innings in an eight outing span, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw in twenty sixteen. Yeah, so you have Felix Hernandez, you have Chris Sale, you have Clayton Kershaw, and you have Sandy el Contra, and you have really nobody in between. Nobody in recent years, as we've seen the way that baseball has changed in the way that starting pitchers have not training wheels, I would say, but they they're being pampered, They're being watched very closely. They're being held and treated so delicately that even those maybe with the potential to do what Sandy's been doing, they just don't get the opportunities to do that before. And Sandy is getting those opportunities, and almost every single time he is taking advantage of them and just reinforcing how special he is. Sandy overall is that ninety nine and a third innings pitched this season. Number two is Aaron Nola at eighty nine and two thirds. It's a gap of nine and two thirds between number one and number two, And that's the same as the gap between number two and number thirteen in Major League Baseball in endings pitch. Right now, he is on his own stratosphere, his own planet in terms of the volume that he provides. My favorite thing with him is that this streak of not allowing home runs that has especially been in recent years a critical piece to how teams create offense. They rely more and more on home runs than they ever had before, understanding how good pitching stuff is across the league that just keeps getting better, and for hitters to keep up, they put more of their time and more of their plate appearance focus on hitting the ball out, like not feeling as a lineup that they'll be able to get enough base runners to manufacture runs. Instead, they try to hit it out, and yet nobody's been able to do it against Sandy. In like a month plus, he has faced two hundred and twenty seven straight batters without allowing home run. That goes all the way back to his start on the road against Arizona. It's also fascinating to look at the only players that have hit a home run against Sandy this year. On opening Day, Joey Bart did it. In May first on the Mariners, it was JP Crawford and Julio Rodriguez, and during that Arizona start way back on May eleventh, that was Alec Thomas, So what's that tell you? That tells me none of those players had ever faced Sandy prior to those games where they hit those home runs. Normally we think about the advantage going to the pitcher when there's a lack of familiarity, and then over time that the hitters adjust and the hitters get a good read on you and understand what you're trying to do. And with Sandy, he completely bucks that trend in every way from start to like just overall as a pitcher in his games and also inside games, the way that he performs when he gets deeper into his games, there's just such an insignificant, if not like a nonexistent drop off and performances he gets deeper into his outings since he gets the second and the third and the fourth time through a lineup. It is unheard of for pitchers to work four times through a lineup these days. And during the streak, the last eight starts, he has had five starts where he's pitched to thirty plus batters. There have been five starts where he's worked deep into the fourth time through a lineup. I apologize for all the math that is in here made me difficult to wrap your mind around it. He is just breaking the mold. He is defying all the rules of how starting pitchers are supposed to be utilized in the year twenty twenty two, and it has been majestic to watch. Overall, he leads Major League Baseball in total batters faced and an adjusted er. His adjusted era entering this most recent start it was two forty six, where league average is one hundred, So it's almost two and a half times better than the league average when you adjust for the playing conditions and the ballparks that he's been pitching in. I believe that's gonna go down just a tiny bit coming off this most recent outing, but not a whole lot. And you just cannot do any better than he is doing perfection. You're not gonna pitch perfect games every single outing. This is the realistic closest point that you could get to being a perfect pitcher. When you are providing more volume than everybody else and you're more effective than everybody else, and keep polling to that effectiveness is being impossible to barrel up with. His plus plus fastball velocity is great commands of that pitch that wasn't always there, and the way that both his slider and his changeup have emerged as terrific pitches as well. He's a complete pitcher every sense of the word. We've spent quite a bit of time thinking about exactly how special he is in the history of the Marlins and whether we've seen something like this before. There really isn't much precedent for what he is doing. I mean, if we go back relatively recent history to the late great Jose Fernandez, just to put this into perspective, what Sandy is doing. Jose Fernandez his entire Marlins career, he had six starts where he went at least eight ennings pitched. Sandy this season, not yet halfway through the year, he has six starts of eight plus nings pitch. He has as many of those super long starts already this year as Jose Fernandez had in his entire career. You have to go back to a combination of peak Kevin Brown and peak Dontrell Willis. That's really it. I liked t Kevin Brown in nineteen ninety six. You could check his game logs on Baseball Reference or wherever you prefer. June and July of ninety six. It looked at a lot like what Sandy is doing an era in the low ones during that stretch several complete games, both him and Dontrell, they just come to mind as those guys that are not overly reliant on missing bats. You are just complete enough as pitchers and smart enough on that mound, and in sync enough with who they work with in this game. Jacob Stallings has taken a lot of flak this year for the way that he's performing hitting right at the Mendoza line with virtually no power and with some questionable pitch framing skills. Like it or not, you need to give him credit for catching every single pitch that Sandy has thrown this year. I don't think it's a complete coincidence that were getting the best version of Sandy this year. Kevin Brownish nineteen ninety six, d train look at August and September of two thousand and five, very similar story where he's just working so deep into those games with limited runs allowed in many cases scoreless outings. Kevin Brown in ninety six, he finished second in nl CY Young Award voting. Dontrell Willis in two thousand and five finished seconds in nl CY Young Award voting. If you revisit both of those campaigns, especially d Train in OH five, there is flimsy case, I would say for the pitchers that actually won the awards this year. Both Brown and Willis were plenty deserving in those seasons, and naturally the way that Sandy has pitched, how consistently he has been doing exactly what I've already told you that he's been doing this year, there's been cy young hype for him. At the very least, you had to have him in the top two of the National League. I think the only other pitcher maybe in the conversation is the one who has a slightly lower basic era than Sandy does. That's Joe Musgrove. But the difference in volume is pretty stark. It's about twenty innings difference in a workload already to this point the season between Alcntra and Musgrove. I think any rational person coming off this game seeing now the way that he's done it against such a variety of opponents as well, this being the first time he's on opportunity to face the Mets, perhaps the best lineup that he has pitched against this year, but he's also pitched against the Braves multiple times he's pitched on the road against the Padres, and he's faced the Phillies, and his last start against the Philly is that's a red hot lineup that he did basically the same thing in that game that he did against the Mets. In fact, he could have remember the controversy. That feels like an eternity ago, but that was just the beginning of this past week. When they pulled him out of that eighth inning instead of giving him opportunity to finish that and maintain a Marlins lead, you can begin dreaming about Sandy being in National League VP contention. That's a rare stratosphere for a pitcher to be in. Of course, in the American League last year show hal Tani won as both a pitcher and as a DH. He needed to do both of those at a very high level in order to win that award. Other than him, you have to go, geez, how far back do you have to go to find a pitcher MVP in either league? It would be Clayton Kershaw in twenty fourteen. That's the most recent one. Yeah, it's been eight years since the peak of Clayton Kershaw and around at that time, justin Verlander a couple of years before. It is extraordinarily rare for somebody to do that. I think the stars are aligning for Sandy to have a strong case of that. If you look at the National League, it's not quite as loaded on the individual level as the a L is. There's been so much noise around what Aaron Judge is doing on his home run pace. With Mike Trout returning to Mike Trout levels after of course missing time due to injuries, that's a super intriguing race on the American League side. On the NL, going by Baseball Reference wins above replacement, the most valuable player to this point in the season entering Sunday was Manny Machado, who unfortunately went down with I think a sprained ankle here on Sunday. They went through X rays, they came back negative. He'll be back this year. Still not even totally sure if he's going to go on the injured list, but we will find out for sure pretty soon exactly what's going to go on with him. He's the type of player he's always had immense talents. It would not be shocking at all if Machado got some MVP love, especially playing for a team that has been without Fernando Tatist all season long, for a team that is obviously winning more games than the Marlins are to this point. If we assume that Machada is going to miss a little bit of time, that's going to put Paul Goldschmidt perhaps in the front runner position. Ould Schmidt has had an amazing career and this year is to this point on pace to be as good as he's ever been for the Cardinals. He is right around the league leaders in not only batting average, but also on base and in slugging. It's hard for a first baseman to be on pace for eight wins above replacement, but that's what he is doing. Actually, he's kind of close to nine wins above replacement at his current pace. From how he's performing with the Cardinals. He's a sensational player. He's also an older player. He is going to be by the end of the season thirty five years old. The last time a player of that age one an MVP in either league, it was justin More No way back in two thousand and six. Now that's the name from the past. He won an the American League while a member of the Twins, and I remember that year even that was a little bit controversial. It was not an easy win for more no year otherwise, the MVP is a young man's game, and so while I would not doubt Goldschmid's talent, I do wonder exactly whether physically he's going to be in a position to maintain these immense numbers to continue with a weighted runs created plus that's nearly two hundred, nearly double the league average. Physically, I don't know if he's going to hold up even if he plays almost every game, will fatigue set in and bring some of those numbers down to numbers that are just more indicative of his career norms as he is at a stage of his career that normally is post peak. I'm not going to count him out, but I'm saying that even he has some flaws as a candidate. Outside of those two in the National League, Tommy Edmond in terms of war is right there as well. Gold Schmith's teammates, and if you're surprised by that, I think everybody is that is heavily boosted by his defensive value that, even though perhaps analytically gets valued at that kind of level when you're truly the best of the best at your position. I think historically the voters don't necessarily feel the same way to think that Tommy Edmond and his sub eight hundred ops and his pace for about seventeen home runs, to think that he is really going to be taking seriously as an MVP candidate, I think we can all agree that's not something to worry about. Paul Goulds made is somebody on his own team that is going to be grabbing a higher percentage of those votes if it does ultimately come down to that. What Sandy is doing just to crystallize this case. For Sandy, he's stepping up. He is doing the exact same thing no matter what, every time he takes the mounds at a brilliant level for a team that would be broken without him, absolutely shattered without him. This rotation is it's him and Pablo is very good, and then it is just a bunch of question marks due to injury and due to just immaturity of these pictures not yet being the full version of themselves at everybody else outside of him, and even with somebody like Pablo does not providing the kind of endings it has put so much pressure on this bullpen, pressure that this bullpen has not been able to deal with this year. They have faltered again and again in those situations. The only piece of tape keeping this thing together is the fact that Sandy provides so many innings, so many quality innings, every time he takes the mounds. It allows the relievers to rest, It allows, of course, the team to win. They've won seven of his last eight starts, and it takes some of the pressure off the other pictures when it's their turn to come up, that if you're just coming off a win, can exhale a little more. By he's saving the bullpen, he's just uplifting the morale of the team. The fact that almost every time he takes them mount, they feel they can win, no matter how undermanned this team is on paper right now, especially in games against superior teams like the Braves and like the Mets, the fact that he's beaten both of them recently speaks to the unique ability that he has as one man to elevate the performance of his entire team. Is it going to be enough to keep this team around in the playoff race all season long? You know how I feel about that? I do not ultimately feel like he's gonna make that much of a difference, just because it would be so incredible to do so given the lack of available talent right now on this team due to injuries. But if he does do that, that would help his case, and even if not, it's just the difference between him and everybody else in the league. There's nobody providing his level of volume, and there's nobody else in the league league adjusted, park adjusted that is as effective as he is. When you combine those two and you see how he is just controlling the game in a way that shouldn't even be possible. The way that he keeps the ball in the ballpark, and the way that he pitches around jams again and again and again, the way that he gets stronger as the game goes on. He has a case. I think he could be the one that breaks that drought of pitchers not winning the MVP Award. So he's on pace for jeez, more than two hundred and thirty innings. I think he's gonna do it. I think he's gonna be in that conversation all season long, during a time, especially in the National League, where there just is not very much brilliant starting pitching, moving into an era where people prioritize building deep pitching staffs and building complimentary pitching staffs. More so than about any individual player, he is that one individual that still grabs the spotlight, absolutely succeeds every time he's put under that spotlight, doing it in a way that we've rarely seen in Marlin's history, and doing it in a way that is unrivaled by anybody else across Major League Baseball. On the next episode of the official show, I am going to be starting a series every Thursday where I'm going to dedicate those Thursday shows between now through the end of July on the trade market, in particular players on the Marlins who I feel are trade candidates. The plan is on Thursday to begin by focusing on the bullpen, the few pitchers in this Marlins bullpen that actually have positive trade value and may have some significant appeal on the market. I'll be joined by several of my other staffers on that show. It's going to be a group conversation on each of those Thursday episodes right here exactly where you're listening to the show right now under the same official show title. On the same podcast channel. Thank you to everybody who listens and supports the show. All your feedback is much appreciated as well. I've been elas Susman here on the Fish Strips podcast. I'll talk to you again soon. Go fish
Speaker 1: The show goes on. This is the official show on the fish Stripes podcast channel with me Eli Sussman, the managing editor of fish Stripes, where we cover your Miami Marlins every day in our own way. A happy Juneteenth and a happy Father's Day to everybody as I'm recording this on Sunday nights. Usually these come at the end of a Marlin series, right from Sunday night into Monday morning, but this time still finishing up a series between the Marlins and the Mets in New York. Be sure to keep up with fish Stripes coverage wherever it is that you spend your attention on all the screens that you use and all the social media platforms that you're on, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok YouTube, just find fit Stripes on there. I've been harping on this a little while. YouTube are number one priority right now. Just to get to the milestone of one thousand subscribers, we're within reach. It only takes you a couple of seconds to do so to get content there that you can't get from any of our other other platforms. But of course we have it all wrapped up and packaged and delivered to you in one convenient place on fishstripes dot com. That's the mothership. Please bookmark that and visit us throughout the season and off season all year round. Let's go to fish stripes dot com everything from myself and our ten eleven to twelve contributors. I lose counts at this point. It's been busy. It's always busy over there. Win or lose for the Marlins, it doesn't matter. I think we all had high expectations for Sandy Alcntra this year, how he seems to get better every single season, and at the start of this new contract extension that maybe he would make the leap from being great to being elite, to reach the level where he'd be getting the national international recognition he deserves. No matter what you may have hoped for Sandy this year, as we get pretty deep into this twenty twenty two season, it is evident that he is even better. He is like beyond descriptions. He is one of one in Major League Baseball right now. So most of this episode is going to be about Sandy picking up his latest win on Sunday over the Mets, and I'll be going through each of the last three games of this year is Friday, Saturday, Sunday in the small pod portion, and of course I'll be getting my fish prospects of the week and more on the other side of this break. Stick with us, these crazy MLB schedule makers. They waited sixty plus games into the season to actually have division rivals play against each other. So the first of nineteen games between the Marlins and the Mets, that was Friday night, it was a stinker. Honestly, you know, Paplo Lopez on the mounds. This was one of his worst outings of the year any way you slice it. He fell behind early in this game, Francisco Lindor with a home run that gave the Mets a bit of a cushion in the bottom of that first inning, and the bats really didn't muster much of a fight against him. The only run that the Marlins got during the competitive portion of this game was Brian de la Cruz in the fifth ending, and all that's udd is like, maybe make up for an error that he made back in the first It was ugly. It really turned in the sixth ending. The Mets batted a rounds against Pablo against Tommy Nance in that ending. Ultimately Pablo charged with seven runs, six of them earned in five and a third endings. I'd say he was more competitive than that would suggest. Either way, it blots his ra to two point eighty five and the Marlins lose this game by a final score of a ten to four against the Mets. I guess the Pete Alonso grand slam was the nail in the coffin of this and Pete Alonzo in the relatively short major league career, he's quite a track record now of hitting bombs against the Fish. This is also the first sighting of Jimmy Yakabonus and more about him in just a couple of minutes. He pitched a scoreless ending in this one. During his Marlin's twenty twenty two debut, we got to see leywin Diez, fresh off being called up from Triple A. This was when they put Hayesu's Aguilar and Hayesu Sanchez on the COVID il and as we are talking here at the end of the weekend, it looks like both of those could be actual positive COVID cases that could keep those guys up for a while. Moving on to Saturday, at least the score was a lot closer than this when the Marlins lose three to two. With me in attendance at City Fields. It was a good experience, a good fan experience, I'll say that much deja vu from Friday, with Francisco Lindor hitting another home run relatively early in this game that put the Mets ahead for good over the Marlins. Started by Braxton Garrett, he only goes four innings, and it should be noted that the bullpen did a great job for the Marlins in this one, keeping them in it all the way to the end. It was Dylan Floro, then it was Jimmy yacobonus again with especially nasty armside run on that sinker of his, Richard Bleier, and even lewis Head. We've been harsh on lewis Head because he has been just a mess the past few weeks, but those guys combined to go four scoreless innings in relief of Braxon Garrett John Birdie three more stolen bases to get up to eighteen, tied for the major league lead for a guy that himself missed several weeks due to COVID and spent a part of the season only as a bench player. He's been really good near the top of the Marlins lineup for the past several weeks, and if you haven't noticed, he's been there everyday third basement. During that stretch top of the ninth inning against Edwin Diaz, it just feels inevitable. Unlike for the Marlins. This is the total opposite feeling in this scenario where you feel hopeless in coming back, and the Marlins shockingly scored a legitimate run. That was the phrasing that Isaac and I used at the game against Edwin Diaz, held by a John Birdy, stolen base by clutch Garrett Cooper hit. Ultimately they come up that one run short, and you have to wonder how different it could have been if at borderline pitch to Jazz Chisholm Jr. Which wasn't really borderline, it was inside. It was just a bad misscall by home played umpire. That day, Adam Beck pitched a Jazz called strike three on a pitch that was six. It just on the play. I've never seeing Jazz that animated strike zones. Today for Adam Beck has been terrible, but I really had his point. If Jazz gs gotten run, if that is called correctly, you wonder exactly what Jazz does in that situation. He has been immensely clutched all season long, and in this scenario did not even get a fair shake at hitting against Diez in the ninth ending there. So spirits are pretty low entering Sunday. As we've seen time and time again, Sandy al Contra, he just changes everything about this team when he is on top of his game. We're going through this extended stretch now of a full month and a half where he is seemingly at the top of his game or close to it every single start. So first about the non Sandy stuff. On Sunday. The Marlins ended up winning this one six to two, and again with Francisco Lindor, he was the one that broke up a scoreless tie. They went all the way into the bottom of the sixth without a single run crossing the plate for either team, and it was Lindor driving and startling Marte. He got really worried at that point that that would be the difference in the game. But in the seventh inning, one of the more exhilarating Marlins rallies of the entire season to this point against Chris Bassett and then out of the bullpen Seth Lugo. The Marlins load the bases with one out for Nubi making his major league debut Gerar and Karnasion. He had already made an impact in the game with his throwing arm on an outfield assist and in this scenario, still looking for his first hit. I believe it was a full counts against Lugo. He goes the opposite way for a go ahead, eventual game winning grand slam in his debut. Ow freak two pitch. This one's in the right field. It pretty well, this one's carrying, This one is gone. It's a grand Slam for Gerar and Carnacion, and you can't say that you were shocked by it. This is what Jerar has been doing all year long at Double A and at Triple A, and even prior to the pandemic in twenty nineteen. This is what made people excited about and Karnasion so much in the first place. True power to all fields against anybody. What a day. What a day for him to make the difference in the game in the starting lineup after sitting on the bench the previous couple days. It wasn't clear how Ancharnazion was going to get used during this first cup of coffee in the big leagues, and he took advantage of his moments. Wow back to Sandy, he was the one that kept the Mets off the scoreboard through six innings once he finally had some cushion to work with. Another small run comes across in the seventh, but Sandy buckles down, gets through that ending, gets through the eighth inning. He's at one hundred and six pitches at that point, and they felt it was a comfortable enough cushion to go to Tanner Scott to right himself after that embarrassing blown save walk off loss earlier in the week. And Scott gets into a little bit of drama with a pair of walks, but otherwise shuts the door without any additional runs coming across. What took out with Sandy in this one is how much he used his secondary pitches, especially his changeup. Those are it's every single game. He is adaptable in that way. There are some days where he's really feeling his basketball. The velocity was good in this one. It was pretty much what you normally expect from him, topping out at ninety nine again and again and again, but he used a lot more of his secondary pitches, his change up and is slider than usual. He earned this one, and he has been reproving himself again and again. His ERA for the year actually ticks up to one point seven to two after entering the game at one point six eight. My Fish Prospects of the week going to the minor league side. On the pitching side, I will go with a reliever, Josh Simpson. I believe I've mentioned him on the pott at least once, if not twice. The lefty for Double A Pensacola. He had a hiccup in late May, maybe early June. Outside of that, he's been about as good as any relief pitcher in minor league baseball, certainly in the Marlin system. This past week, four innings, nine strikeouts, thirteen batters faced, one base runner, max pitch swinging a miss curveball, got nervous and it's a one two three eight didting one base runner away from a perfect week pitching high Lever Jennings for Pensacola. If you want to learn all there is to learn about Simpson, check out our guy Alex Carver at Fish Onthefarm dot com. A full article about Simpson coming off his latest very impressive stretch and the Cape and the case being made that he should be up in the big leagues by the end of this year based on the stuff that he has and how consistent he has been for the most part this season. Hitter of the Week in the Marlins organization, I'm going with infielder Hossei Salas. He got off to a slow start, came into this year with a lot of hype, and he's finally over these last couple of weeks, he is absolutely fulfilling the prophecy that he's going to be one of the best prospects in this organization, a top one hundred caliberpe in all of minor league baseball. He's getting really close there, especially what he just did for Jupiter an ops right around eleven hundred this past series with only one strikeout all week. It's actually one strikeout going back to the middle of last week, thirty four played appearances for a switch hitter. To be making that much contact extremely encouraging. And remember he is only nineteen years old and playing at full season ball. If he keeps us up just a few weeks longer, you need to seriously think about promoting him to High A. He has been of late certainly the most standout player at the low A level. And there are really a lot of other honorable mentions I could go to here. This was a nice week for the Marlins farm system. About as good on the individual and team level combined that I can think of all year long, combining it. Honorable mentions on the pitching side, both Pat Monteverde and Zach King they want six scoreless endings apiece, and also in Jupiter, not that far behind Salas in terms of recent performance. Osiris Johnson, former second round pick in twenty eighteen, his offensive performance for most of this year, all of last year, For most of his career, he's been just this hit first player that is not hitting at the full season level when he gets opportunity, finally maybe turning the corner. Over the last week, his average for the year climbed from one ninety seven to two thirty one. That's more respectable, his ops from five point fifty three to six hundred and if he can stick up the middle defensively as a center fielder. Don't give up on Osiris Johnson yet. There are two types of people in the baseball world right now, those who root for sandale Contra every fifth day when he takes the mounds, and those who do not. It's growing, and it's growing, and it's growing exponential this year as he continues this insane stretch, one that has no other like contemporary comparison, one of one. As I said before, nobody else like him right now. A couple of stats from Sarah Langso MLB dot com. She's a researcher over there. Sandy al Contra has gone seven plus innings allowing two earned runs or fewer in eight straight starts. That's the longest such single season streak since Felix Hernandez in twenty fourteen. First time in eight years there's been somebody combining that extended consecutive streak of volume and effectiveness. I'm gonna keep going back to that, that combination volume and effectiveness. That's what Sandy is doing, unlike anybody else in baseball these days. Again from Sarah Langs a total of sixty three and two thirds innings pitch for Sandy over his last eight starts. That's nearly eight innings per start. The last pitcher to the three sixty three plus innings in an eight outing span, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw in twenty sixteen. Yeah, so you have Felix Hernandez, you have Chris Sale, you have Clayton Kershaw, and you have Sandy el Contra, and you have really nobody in between. Nobody in recent years, as we've seen the way that baseball has changed in the way that starting pitchers have not training wheels, I would say, but they they're being pampered, They're being watched very closely. They're being held and treated so delicately that even those maybe with the potential to do what Sandy's been doing, they just don't get the opportunities to do that before. And Sandy is getting those opportunities, and almost every single time he is taking advantage of them and just reinforcing how special he is. Sandy overall is that ninety nine and a third innings pitched this season. Number two is Aaron Nola at eighty nine and two thirds. It's a gap of nine and two thirds between number one and number two, And that's the same as the gap between number two and number thirteen in Major League Baseball in endings pitch. Right now, he is on his own stratosphere, his own planet in terms of the volume that he provides. My favorite thing with him is that this streak of not allowing home runs that has especially been in recent years a critical piece to how teams create offense. They rely more and more on home runs than they ever had before, understanding how good pitching stuff is across the league that just keeps getting better, and for hitters to keep up, they put more of their time and more of their plate appearance focus on hitting the ball out, like not feeling as a lineup that they'll be able to get enough base runners to manufacture runs. Instead, they try to hit it out, and yet nobody's been able to do it against Sandy. In like a month plus, he has faced two hundred and twenty seven straight batters without allowing home run. That goes all the way back to his start on the road against Arizona. It's also fascinating to look at the only players that have hit a home run against Sandy this year. On opening Day, Joey Bart did it. In May first on the Mariners, it was JP Crawford and Julio Rodriguez, and during that Arizona start way back on May eleventh, that was Alec Thomas, So what's that tell you? That tells me none of those players had ever faced Sandy prior to those games where they hit those home runs. Normally we think about the advantage going to the pitcher when there's a lack of familiarity, and then over time that the hitters adjust and the hitters get a good read on you and understand what you're trying to do. And with Sandy, he completely bucks that trend in every way from start to like just overall as a pitcher in his games and also inside games, the way that he performs when he gets deeper into his games, there's just such an insignificant, if not like a nonexistent drop off and performances he gets deeper into his outings since he gets the second and the third and the fourth time through a lineup. It is unheard of for pitchers to work four times through a lineup these days. And during the streak, the last eight starts, he has had five starts where he's pitched to thirty plus batters. There have been five starts where he's worked deep into the fourth time through a lineup. I apologize for all the math that is in here made me difficult to wrap your mind around it. He is just breaking the mold. He is defying all the rules of how starting pitchers are supposed to be utilized in the year twenty twenty two, and it has been majestic to watch. Overall, he leads Major League Baseball in total batters faced and an adjusted er. His adjusted era entering this most recent start it was two forty six, where league average is one hundred, So it's almost two and a half times better than the league average when you adjust for the playing conditions and the ballparks that he's been pitching in. I believe that's gonna go down just a tiny bit coming off this most recent outing, but not a whole lot. And you just cannot do any better than he is doing perfection. You're not gonna pitch perfect games every single outing. This is the realistic closest point that you could get to being a perfect pitcher. When you are providing more volume than everybody else and you're more effective than everybody else, and keep polling to that effectiveness is being impossible to barrel up with. His plus plus fastball velocity is great commands of that pitch that wasn't always there, and the way that both his slider and his changeup have emerged as terrific pitches as well. He's a complete pitcher every sense of the word. We've spent quite a bit of time thinking about exactly how special he is in the history of the Marlins and whether we've seen something like this before. There really isn't much precedent for what he is doing. I mean, if we go back relatively recent history to the late great Jose Fernandez, just to put this into perspective, what Sandy is doing. Jose Fernandez his entire Marlins career, he had six starts where he went at least eight ennings pitched. Sandy this season, not yet halfway through the year, he has six starts of eight plus nings pitch. He has as many of those super long starts already this year as Jose Fernandez had in his entire career. You have to go back to a combination of peak Kevin Brown and peak Dontrell Willis. That's really it. I liked t Kevin Brown in nineteen ninety six. You could check his game logs on Baseball Reference or wherever you prefer. June and July of ninety six. It looked at a lot like what Sandy is doing an era in the low ones during that stretch several complete games, both him and Dontrell, they just come to mind as those guys that are not overly reliant on missing bats. You are just complete enough as pitchers and smart enough on that mound, and in sync enough with who they work with in this game. Jacob Stallings has taken a lot of flak this year for the way that he's performing hitting right at the Mendoza line with virtually no power and with some questionable pitch framing skills. Like it or not, you need to give him credit for catching every single pitch that Sandy has thrown this year. I don't think it's a complete coincidence that were getting the best version of Sandy this year. Kevin Brownish nineteen ninety six, d train look at August and September of two thousand and five, very similar story where he's just working so deep into those games with limited runs allowed in many cases scoreless outings. Kevin Brown in ninety six, he finished second in nl CY Young Award voting. Dontrell Willis in two thousand and five finished seconds in nl CY Young Award voting. If you revisit both of those campaigns, especially d Train in OH five, there is flimsy case, I would say for the pitchers that actually won the awards this year. Both Brown and Willis were plenty deserving in those seasons, and naturally the way that Sandy has pitched, how consistently he has been doing exactly what I've already told you that he's been doing this year, there's been cy young hype for him. At the very least, you had to have him in the top two of the National League. I think the only other pitcher maybe in the conversation is the one who has a slightly lower basic era than Sandy does. That's Joe Musgrove. But the difference in volume is pretty stark. It's about twenty innings difference in a workload already to this point the season between Alcntra and Musgrove. I think any rational person coming off this game seeing now the way that he's done it against such a variety of opponents as well, this being the first time he's on opportunity to face the Mets, perhaps the best lineup that he has pitched against this year, but he's also pitched against the Braves multiple times he's pitched on the road against the Padres, and he's faced the Phillies, and his last start against the Philly is that's a red hot lineup that he did basically the same thing in that game that he did against the Mets. In fact, he could have remember the controversy. That feels like an eternity ago, but that was just the beginning of this past week. When they pulled him out of that eighth inning instead of giving him opportunity to finish that and maintain a Marlins lead, you can begin dreaming about Sandy being in National League VP contention. That's a rare stratosphere for a pitcher to be in. Of course, in the American League last year show hal Tani won as both a pitcher and as a DH. He needed to do both of those at a very high level in order to win that award. Other than him, you have to go, geez, how far back do you have to go to find a pitcher MVP in either league? It would be Clayton Kershaw in twenty fourteen. That's the most recent one. Yeah, it's been eight years since the peak of Clayton Kershaw and around at that time, justin Verlander a couple of years before. It is extraordinarily rare for somebody to do that. I think the stars are aligning for Sandy to have a strong case of that. If you look at the National League, it's not quite as loaded on the individual level as the a L is. There's been so much noise around what Aaron Judge is doing on his home run pace. With Mike Trout returning to Mike Trout levels after of course missing time due to injuries, that's a super intriguing race on the American League side. On the NL, going by Baseball Reference wins above replacement, the most valuable player to this point in the season entering Sunday was Manny Machado, who unfortunately went down with I think a sprained ankle here on Sunday. They went through X rays, they came back negative. He'll be back this year. Still not even totally sure if he's going to go on the injured list, but we will find out for sure pretty soon exactly what's going to go on with him. He's the type of player he's always had immense talents. It would not be shocking at all if Machado got some MVP love, especially playing for a team that has been without Fernando Tatist all season long, for a team that is obviously winning more games than the Marlins are to this point. If we assume that Machada is going to miss a little bit of time, that's going to put Paul Goldschmidt perhaps in the front runner position. Ould Schmidt has had an amazing career and this year is to this point on pace to be as good as he's ever been for the Cardinals. He is right around the league leaders in not only batting average, but also on base and in slugging. It's hard for a first baseman to be on pace for eight wins above replacement, but that's what he is doing. Actually, he's kind of close to nine wins above replacement at his current pace. From how he's performing with the Cardinals. He's a sensational player. He's also an older player. He is going to be by the end of the season thirty five years old. The last time a player of that age one an MVP in either league, it was justin More No way back in two thousand and six. Now that's the name from the past. He won an the American League while a member of the Twins, and I remember that year even that was a little bit controversial. It was not an easy win for more no year otherwise, the MVP is a young man's game, and so while I would not doubt Goldschmid's talent, I do wonder exactly whether physically he's going to be in a position to maintain these immense numbers to continue with a weighted runs created plus that's nearly two hundred, nearly double the league average. Physically, I don't know if he's going to hold up even if he plays almost every game, will fatigue set in and bring some of those numbers down to numbers that are just more indicative of his career norms as he is at a stage of his career that normally is post peak. I'm not going to count him out, but I'm saying that even he has some flaws as a candidate. Outside of those two in the National League, Tommy Edmond in terms of war is right there as well. Gold Schmith's teammates, and if you're surprised by that, I think everybody is that is heavily boosted by his defensive value that, even though perhaps analytically gets valued at that kind of level when you're truly the best of the best at your position. I think historically the voters don't necessarily feel the same way to think that Tommy Edmond and his sub eight hundred ops and his pace for about seventeen home runs, to think that he is really going to be taking seriously as an MVP candidate, I think we can all agree that's not something to worry about. Paul Goulds made is somebody on his own team that is going to be grabbing a higher percentage of those votes if it does ultimately come down to that. What Sandy is doing just to crystallize this case. For Sandy, he's stepping up. He is doing the exact same thing no matter what, every time he takes the mounds at a brilliant level for a team that would be broken without him, absolutely shattered without him. This rotation is it's him and Pablo is very good, and then it is just a bunch of question marks due to injury and due to just immaturity of these pictures not yet being the full version of themselves at everybody else outside of him, and even with somebody like Pablo does not providing the kind of endings it has put so much pressure on this bullpen, pressure that this bullpen has not been able to deal with this year. They have faltered again and again in those situations. The only piece of tape keeping this thing together is the fact that Sandy provides so many innings, so many quality innings, every time he takes the mounds. It allows the relievers to rest, It allows, of course, the team to win. They've won seven of his last eight starts, and it takes some of the pressure off the other pictures when it's their turn to come up, that if you're just coming off a win, can exhale a little more. By he's saving the bullpen, he's just uplifting the morale of the team. The fact that almost every time he takes them mount, they feel they can win, no matter how undermanned this team is on paper right now, especially in games against superior teams like the Braves and like the Mets, the fact that he's beaten both of them recently speaks to the unique ability that he has as one man to elevate the performance of his entire team. Is it going to be enough to keep this team around in the playoff race all season long? You know how I feel about that? I do not ultimately feel like he's gonna make that much of a difference, just because it would be so incredible to do so given the lack of available talent right now on this team due to injuries. But if he does do that, that would help his case, and even if not, it's just the difference between him and everybody else in the league. There's nobody providing his level of volume, and there's nobody else in the league league adjusted, park adjusted that is as effective as he is. When you combine those two and you see how he is just controlling the game in a way that shouldn't even be possible. The way that he keeps the ball in the ballpark, and the way that he pitches around jams again and again and again, the way that he gets stronger as the game goes on. He has a case. I think he could be the one that breaks that drought of pitchers not winning the MVP Award. So he's on pace for jeez, more than two hundred and thirty innings. I think he's gonna do it. I think he's gonna be in that conversation all season long, during a time, especially in the National League, where there just is not very much brilliant starting pitching, moving into an era where people prioritize building deep pitching staffs and building complimentary pitching staffs. More so than about any individual player, he is that one individual that still grabs the spotlight, absolutely succeeds every time he's put under that spotlight, doing it in a way that we've rarely seen in Marlin's history, and doing it in a way that is unrivaled by anybody else across Major League Baseball. On the next episode of the official show, I am going to be starting a series every Thursday where I'm going to dedicate those Thursday shows between now through the end of July on the trade market, in particular players on the Marlins who I feel are trade candidates. The plan is on Thursday to begin by focusing on the bullpen, the few pitchers in this Marlins bullpen that actually have positive trade value and may have some significant appeal on the market. I'll be joined by several of my other staffers on that show. It's going to be a group conversation on each of those Thursday episodes right here exactly where you're listening to the show right now under the same official show title. On the same podcast channel. Thank you to everybody who listens and supports the show. All your feedback is much appreciated as well. I've been elas Susman here on the Fish Strips podcast. I'll talk to you again soon. Go fish
