The Miami Marlins have been playing chicken with the rest of the league regarding a potential trade of pitcher Sandy Alcantara.
It’s now looking like Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix may have to postpone the game until 2026.
Signed as an international free agent by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2013, Alcantara would be part of what is widely considered the Cardinals’ worst transaction of the 21st Century. On Dec. 14, 2017, the Cardinals sent Alcantara along with right-handed pitcher Zac Gallen, outfielder Magneuris Sierra and left-handed pitcher Daniel Castano to the Marlins for two mostly mediocre seasons of outfielder Marcell Ozuna.
Meanwhile, Alcantara went on to become one of the top young starting pitchers in baseball, and in 2022, he was the unanimous winner of the NL Cy Young Award after going 14–9 with a 2.28 ERA and leading all pitchers with a Wins Above Replacement mark of 8.0.
The 2023 season saw a regression for the right-hander, who went 7-12 with a 4.14 ERA. In early September of that year, Alcantara was placed on the injured list for the first time in his career with what was originally diagnosed as a right forearm flexor strain, but he would undergo Tommy John surgery in October and missed the entire 2024 season.
While Alcantara rehabbed in 2024, the Marlins were busy trading away pretty much any player of significant value, and the popular consensus was that Alcantara, the team’s most prized piece, would be made available as soon as he proved to be healthy. That appeared to be the case during spring training, as Alcantara gave up just nine hits and no earned runs in 12.1 innings, with 10 strikeouts and three walks. Alcantara reached triple digits with his 4-seam fastball several times throughout the spring, something he had been able to do just three times in 2023, and after a solid start in the season opener, the hype train had officially left the station.
Alcantara would be the No. 1 trade target in 2025.
The prognostications came fast and furious, and had Miami decided to trade Alcantara in March or April, there’s no telling how lucrative the return could have been. One proposal had Alcantara going to the Mets for the top two prospects in their system, infielder Jett Williams and pitcher Brandon Sproat. A similar idea floated the Yankees acquiring Alcantara for a package that included their top two prospects, outfielders George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones. Another wild suggestion opined that the Cubs could get Alcantara for a quartet of players including prospects No. 2 (pitcher Cade Horton), No. 4 (catcher Moisés Ballesteros) and No. 5 (outfielder Kevin Alcantara).
But two months and 10 starts into the season, Alcantara has not looked like the pitcher that could put contending teams over the top in their efforts to win the World Series. After a 7-4 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Friday, Alcantara is 2-7 with an 8.04 ERA, and he has 40 strikeouts and 25 walks in 47 innings.
Unless Alcantara does a full reversal over the next month or two and starts to closely resemble the 2022 version, MLB analysts such as Jon Heyman of the New York Post are predicting that a trade this season “looks iffy” at best. With Alcantara’s contract paying him $17.3 million this year and next as well as a $21M club option for 2027, it seems likely that the Marlins will hold onto their hurler for the rest of the season in hopes that he can rebuild his trade value.
Zac Gallen Has 'Frustrating' Start to 2025
Zac Gallen, the other regretful piece from the Ozuna trade, has had a rough start to the 2025 season.
After three consecutive seasons of double-digit wins and sub-.400 ERAs, including a 2023 campaign in which he went 17-9 with a 3.47 ERA and finished third in the Cy Young voting, Gallen is 3-6 with a 5.25 ERA after 11 starts. In 61.2 innings, Gallen has given up 55 hits and 29 walks with 63 strikeouts.
The low point may have come on May 17, as Gallen gave up eight hits, including four homers, and six runs in 5.0 innings of a home game against the lowly Colorado Rockies. Although he didn’t take the loss, as the Diamondbacks bullpen allowed the Rockies to escape with a 14-12 win, Gallen acknowledged after the game that he did not do a good job in support of an Arizona offense that had plated 11 runs through the first five innings.
“It’s just frustrating,” he said.
“Bad pitches, just messed up.”
Gallen felt like he had turned a corner earlier in May, with consecutive outings against the New York Mets during which he allowed just two hits and one run.
“I feel like we took a step forward, but tonight, it was just two steps back,” he said.
“I can’t put a finger on it really, what it was. Just the fastball, it didn’t really have the crispness like it’s had the last few. But yeah, all around, just pretty frustrating.”
Magneuris Sierra Finds Success in Mexican League
As for Magneuris Sierra, who was the higher-rated prospect at the time of the deal for Ozuna, he played 211 games for the Marlins between 2018 and 2021, batting just .230, and he spent the 2022 season with the Los Angeles Angels, batting .165 in 45 games.
Sierra signed a minor league contract with the Atlanta Braves in January of 2023 but never appeared for the Braves, slashing .218/.293/.295 in 61 games for the Triple–A Gwinnett Stripers. He played 16 games in spring of 2024 with the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, an independent league, and in mid-May, his contract was purchased by the Acereros de Monclova of the Mexican League. After posting a slash line of .321/.361/.468 in 61 appearances for Monclova, he resigned with the team and is currently batting .417, which is ranked fourth in the league.