For three summers the Miami Marlins were a place other teams went shopping. That is not the plan this year. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Miami is likely to add before the August 3 deadline and intends to keep right-hander Sandy Alcantara, with the club’s stated targets being third base, rotation depth and the bullpen.
The logic starts with the standings. Miami is 52-46, five games behind Atlanta in the National League East and inside the wild card picture. That is a materially different position than the one the front office has operated from since 2023, and it changes what an Alcantara trade would mean. Moving him now would be selling from a contending roster to improve a future the team is already arriving at.
Alcantara’s season supports the decision without gushing over it. He is 10-5 with a 3.89 ERA and 107 strikeouts in 136 2/3 innings, a 1.22 WHIP attached. That is a good starter rather than the 2022 Cy Young version, and the innings total is the most valuable line on the page for a club that intends to play in October. Friday night in Milwaukee he threw six innings and gave up one earned run on three hits with seven strikeouts, and Miami still lost 2-1.
That loss was the fourth in a row, and it is the honest complication in all of this. A team planning to buy has scored a total that thin four straight nights. Rosenthal’s reporting describes the intent; the next two weeks of baseball will determine whether the front office holds to it. If Miami is still sliding at the end of July, the calls about Alcantara will come regardless of what the club prefers.
Behind him the rotation is the reason to believe the plan is serious. Max Meyer made the All-Star team and Eury Pérez is healthy, which gives Miami a top three it can start in a short series. The stated shopping list — a back-end starter, a third baseman, relief help — is the list of a team trying to protect that group rather than replace it.
Griffin Conine supplied the lone Miami run Friday with a home run, and Otto Lopez had two of the club’s seven hits.
For fantasy purposes, the reporting is good news for Alcantara owners in redraft leagues: no move means no uncertainty about his second-half role or park. He stays a every-start arm with modest ratio upside. If Miami does add a back-end starter as described, it likely costs a fringe roster arm rather than affecting anyone currently startable, so no roster action is needed yet.
