Is Sandy Alcantara Coming Around?

To say the last two-plus years haven’t gone the way Sandy Alcantara had hoped would be a massive understatement. Coming off winning the NL Cy Young award in 2022, his numbers dipped the following season, and he was shut down that September with a flexor strain that required Tommy John surgery in October. He returned this spring with his velocity and movement intact, but his performance to start to the season was rough; he ended April with an 8.31 ERA. The buzz about the Marlins trading Alcantara, a seemingly inevitable outcome for a franchise that is run like a glorified farm affiliate to the rest of baseball, died down temporarily. Sure, things have gone better for the ace recently, but his ERA is still inflated at 7.01, albeit with a relatively sunny 4.55 FIP. Has he done enough to fetch a high price if the Marlins trade him in the coming weeks?

My colleague Michael Baumann wrote about Alcantara back at the start of May, focusing on the righty’s poor April. One of the most concerning aspects of that dreadful start was his 14% walk rate, or 5.9 free passes per nine innings. It wasn’t so much an issue of control — Alcantara’s zone percentage was similar to past seasons — but one of command. You can see the contrast between Alcantara’s best seasons and April in botCmd (PitchingBot) and Location+ (Stuff+).

The velocity and shape of his pitches might have been there, but the repertoire estimation tools saw the problem. And the good news is that as Alcantara has made more and more healthy starts, these numbers have trended in a positive direction. Taking these same numbers, but instead looking at Alcantara’s five-start moving averages, shows his gradual but steady progress toward righting the ship.

Two of the best indicators of future walk rate, outside of the actual walk rate, are first-strike percentage and out-of-zone swing percentage. Generally, if there’s a mismatch between a pitcher’s walk rate and these numbers, that walk rate isn’t as stable as you’d expect.

Using the zStats built into ZiPS also lends credence to something being very off in April and May for Alcantara. Ahead of his scheduled start tonight, he has allowed 35 walks in 2025, but from the plate discipline data, zBB would expect him to have allowed only 24. Almost the entire discrepancy is based on his performance in April and May, with his walk data since looking far more typical. Alcantara usually isn’t someone whose results differ from what zBB projects; coming into the 2025 season, zBB estimated 277 walks for his career compared to the 273 he’d actually allowed.

If the lack of command early on was creating some weird numbers in Alcantara’s profile, I’m hypothesizing that there’s another real contributing factor to his early woes: Caution. In fact, it makes sense that a pitcher coming off a serious injury might take a more conservative approach than he would have otherwise. Alcantara was regularly falling behind in the count, at below 60% in each of his first three starts. And when falling behind, it’s a natural inclination to go with the safe, bog-standard four-seamer. Problem is, the vanilla fastball has never been a successful flavor for Alcantara. He threw his fastball nearly a third of the time when behind in April and May, mostly in hittable locations, and batters slugged .864 against it.

Since the start of June, this usage has changed, by an amount that I’m confident couldn’t have happened by accident. His four-seamer usage when behind in the count has dropped from 29% over the first two months to below 10% since then. By contrast, his slider usage when behind in the count increased from 12% across April and May to 31% in June and July. He seems to be trusting his stuff again.

While Alcantara’s outlook still is less sunny than it was before the season, none of the projection systems housed here have been terribly alarmed by the number of runs he’s allowed, with all the computers agreeing that he would be a worthy pickup if he’s traded before the end of the month. What may be lacking in 2025 flash is arguably more than compensated for by a team-friendly contract. Alcantara’s potential new employer would also have his services next season on a very reasonable one-year, $17.3 million contract with an option for the same figure in 2027. He’s not truly a short-term rental, as are most of the pitchers expected to be available, and that can be tempting for a team that still plans on contending next year and wants value in return for good prospects. The ZiPS projections for Alcantara see a pitcher whom teams should be happy to have.

Even if Alcantara never returns to his 2022 form, there just aren’t many other options likely to be available at the deadline who can perform at the level of these projections. The White Sox already traded their desirable veteran starters at last year’s deadline and during the offseason, and considering the Rockies haven’t dealt their starters at previous deadlines, we shouldn’t expect them to trade Germán Márquez or Kyle Freeland this time around. The Nationals have Michael Soroka to trade, but he doesn’t offer the upside of Alcantara. Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs are both under contract with the Athletics through the end of next season, which might be appealing for contending clubs, but their mediocre performance this year could suppress their trade value. If the A’s hope to make a Wild Card push in 2026, they could choose to keep the two pitchers to fill out their rotation next year, especially if the prospect packages offered in return are light. Anything you hear about the Pirates possibly trading Paul Skenes is almost certainly fan fiction. Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen, and Zach Eflin have value, but they are free agents this offseason. Besides, the Diamondbacks might still be in contention at the end of the month and decide to hold on to Kelly and Gallen.

Is Sandy Alcantara the pitcher he was when he unanimously won the Cy Young award over Max Fried? No, but he’s likely a lot better than he’s shown at times this season, and he is slowly and steadily getting back to where he needs to be.