2025 ZiPS Projections: Miami Marlins

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Miami Marlins.

Batters

Building a good offensive team on the cheap is something that can be done, but it’s definitely not anything the Marlins have ever been able to do consistently. In the franchise’s more than 30 years of existence, it has had a wRC+ of at least 100 exactly twice, in 2007 and 2017. The Marlins did come close during their two championship seasons (wRC+ of 99 in both 1997 and 2003), but putting together a great lineup from within just has not been in the organization’s DNA.

That’s not likely to change in 2025. In Miami’s defense, its projected lineup – with some optimism in the health department – isn’t truly dreadful anywhere. There’s a real lack of zero-point-somethings on the depth chart graphic below, which is a nice thing. But if there’s a real lack of zeroes, there’s also a critical shortage of twos and threes, let alone the fours and fives that drive teams to division titles and playoff spots.

It’s also troubling that the brighter spots in the projections are not the players the Marlins have actually developed. They traded with the Rays for Xavier Edwards, a former first-round pick by the Padres. Jonah Bride came from the A’s, Connor Norby from the Orioles, Jesús Sánchez from the Cardinals, and Jake Burger from the White Sox. Defensive-minded minor league catcher Joe Mack is the only one of Miami’s top 10 projected position players that the organization developed in any meaningful way.

Now, getting quality players from other teams isn’t a bad thing, but it’s hard to build mainly on trades. After all, you have to give players of value to get those players of value, so unless you’re absolutely blitzing the other side in trades, like a 10-year-old trading baseball cards with a five-year-old sibling, you’re mostly rearranging value in an efficient way rather than adding value.

These players acquired in trades, few with any plausible superstar upside, would ideally complement a foundation of homegrown talent. But since the departure of the Giancarlo Stanton/Marcell Ozuna/Christian Yelich outfield troika, that foundation has not been there, and that won’t change any time soon, either. ZiPS projects Agustin Ramirez, who also was not developed by the team, to be a 2-3 WAR player for several years at his peak, but outside of him, there’s just not much there.

If this were a team like the Rangers or Braves, I’d say “remember, this is an early offseason projection.” But not so with the Marlins. Sure, they may sign a couple of 34-year-old players who peaked in the 2010s to one-year, $8 million contracts or something like that, but they won’t actually make the lineup better. There’s almost no chance that the Marlins sign real difference makers.

Pitchers

For as bad as they are with their offense, the Marlins are quite good at developing pitchers. As a result, they generally turn to their pitchers to compensate for the underwhelming offenses they put together.

Sandy Alcantara returns to the top of the rotation, but considering he’s coming back from Tommy John surgery, I wouldn’t quite expect him to pitch as many innings as Depth Charts projects (189).

After Alcantara, the Marlins have plenty of other talented pitchers, many of whom have had significant injury problems of their own. Six of the top seven starters project to be about league average or better than that. The seventh, Max Meyer, has a solid projected upside. The question, of course, is health, and when I actually run the seasonal projections, a lot of those pitchers are projected to have innings totals, on average, in the low triple digits.

Even with losses such as Tanner Scott, the Marlins’ bullpen projects to be solid, though it remains to be seen how many leads their relievers will actually get to protect. Anthony Bender, Andrew Nardi, and Jesus Tinoco in particular get strong projections, but you have to go a ways down the depth chart to find relievers whose projected ERA+ is far below 100. Also, how does someone named Andrew Nardi not have the Nard Dog nickname?

Should the Marlins have better luck with the health of the pitching staff, they could get just enough from their offense to squeeze into the playoffs. For that to happen, though, they’d probably need other teams to underperform so they could secure a wild card spot despite having a relatively low win total. That’s how Miami made the playoffs in 2023 and 2020. As far as team goals go, it’s a rather depressing one, but until the Marlins get better at drafting and developing position players or decide to spend more in free agency, this is the organization’s best case scenario.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on Bluesky.