Get Excited: The Miami Marlins 2021 Opening Day Starting Lineup

1 of 4

With the 2019 Major League Baseball (regular) season firmly in our collective rear-view mirror, fans from across the country set their sights on the future of their respective teams.

For some of those teams, eight to be exact, the future is happening right now, and each of them have visions of hoisting the World Series Trophy this year. Seven of those teams are wrong. One thing that they have in common with the 20 non-playoff teams, along with the Milwaukee Brewers and the Oakland Athletics, is that there will be more baseball to play soon enough. The Miami Marlins are no different.

Four-and-a-half months does not seem like a particularly long time, but for some, waiting for spring baseball can seem like an eternity. Since “wait ’til next year” became a yearly mantra for long-suffering Brooklyn Dodgers fans, every team but one has come up short, in every season.

The Miami Marlins have twice avoided the old colloquialism, but have somehow dodged a winning record for nigh-on a decade at last count. For the Miami Marlins in particular, eyeing next season has become a pastime of its own. With all this in mind, it’s only natural that we would want to prognosticate what this team will look like in the future.

A caveat: This article is not taking into consideration the hazards and prizes of free agency, but is concentrating instead on home-grown talent – that is – players currently in the Miami Marlins system at one level or another.

First Base

The Miami Marlins currently 12th ranked organizational prospect is recently acquired first baseman Lewin Diaz. The 6’4″ power-hitting lefty is just what the doctor ordered for the Miami Marlins. He’s also relatively patient at the plate, whiffing in only a fifth of his at bats.

In the just-concluded 2019 campaign, Diaz spent the lion’s share at the double-A level, first with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos in the Twins organization, then for the Jumbo Shrimp. Between those two and his time in high-A this year, he connected on 27 homers, more than double his previous high. There’s no reason to think that he can’t continue to progress in 2020 with the Wichita triple-A club.

Second Base

Isan Diaz had a rude awakening in his first look at the major league level over the last two months of the 2019 season with the Miami Marlins. A .173 average and 59 K’s in just over 200 plate appearances, to go with five homers and 23 RBI. Diaz’ short look was about 0.7 Wins Below Replacement. He also committed nine errors in 48 games for a .952 fielding percentage, hardly the stuff of legend.

But Diaz is a quick study. His triple-A footprint from 2018 to 2019 reveals a sharp learning curve that saw his slashline progress from .204/.281/.358 (in 36 games) to .305/.395/.578 over a 102 game sample. There’s no reason to think that his lousy first look means a repeat of the Lewis Brinson experiment. Diaz’ specific history shows that he’s a good bet to buckle down and figure this thing out.

Third Base

Brian Anderson will enter the 2021 season as the fourth-season incumbent at third base, and may be coming off his first all-star campaign. He led the Miami Marlins in Wins Above Replacement in 2019, with a mark of 3.8 despite missing the last quarter of the season with a broken hand. His production pace at the time of the injury suggests that this is a 5.0 WAR guy we have at the hot corner. Added bonus, he was the team’s best right fielder as well.

Shortstop

Jazz Chisholm can win the starting slot at short before 2021, but it’s far more likely he spends next year between Double- and Triple-A. With both Osiris Johnson and Nasim Nunez still marinading in the minors, Chisholm has a real chance to make the position his in the meantime. The Marlins current fourth-overall prospect, Chisholm, has serious tools. According to the MLB Pipeline:

There is little question Chisholm can stay at shortstop, with good hands and actions to go along with a strong arm and a knack for making highlight-reel plays on a nightly basis. Those loud tools on both sides of the ball in turn give him an exceptional ceiling as a big league shortstop, but he’ll need to tighten up his overall game along the way.

Bench Depth

Garrett Cooper is a great change-of-pace from Lewin Diaz, and can also play both corner outfield positions. Miguel Rojas has always been a strong ace-in-the-hole, and can ably fill in at any of the four infield positions in a pinch. No slouch in the field either, Rojas can boast above average advanced metrics at each spot.

Left Field

J.J. Bleday handled high-A pitching just fine after getting chosen fourth overall in the 2019 MLB Entry Draft, and will handle double-A even more fine next season. Bleday will make it impossible for Miami Marlins management to do anything but put him in left for 2021 Opening Day.

Right Field

Along with Chisholm and Diaz, Jesus Sanchez will prove that the future-vision of Jeter and company wasn’t just a shot in the dark. A full third of the 2021 Opening Day starting unit will be the result of the 2019 trade deadline acquisitions. The loss of Zac Gallen, Trevor Richards, Nick Anderson, Chris Vallimont, and Sergio Romo hurt at the time, but as we’ll come to inspect in tomorrow’s piece, the Miami Marlins aren’t hurting for pitching depth.

Currently the third ranked prospect in Miami’s system, and one-of-seven in the MLB top 100 overall, Sanchez is still just 21-years-old. According to the Pipeline:

He (Sanchez) has a fluid swing and an innate ability to impact the baseball from the left side of the plate, and there are few within the organization who consistently hit the ball as hard as Sanchez. Scouts expect him to tap into more power as he gets stronger and learns how to lift the ball more consistently, but he will need to tone down his aggressiveness and become more selective along the way.

Center Field

Nearly forgotten in the shuffle of high-impact minor league acquisitions, Monte Harrison may prove to be the crown jewel of the Christian Yelich deal yet. Likely the best “pure” athlete in the Miami Marlins system, Harrison turned down a full-ride scholarship to play football in Nebraska to play baseball professionally in the Brewers system.

After coming over, Harrison led the minors with 215 strikeouts in 2018. He cut that free swinging rate down in 2019, but still whiffed about a third of the time. So yes, he strikes out as much as Brinson, but we can’t judge one player on the merits (or lack of merits) of another. Harrison remains the best bet in the organization to one day be a 30-30 player.

Fourth (and Fifth) Outfielder

Magneuris Sierra‘s performance in 2019 grew by leaps and bounds over his 2018 showing. Both at the plate and in the field were his advances plainly evident to anyone watching. Brian Miller could turn into the 20’s version of Brett Butler. Totally devoid of power, Miller may one day be a .300 hitter in the majors, and the dude can run. He’s stolen an average of 30 bases over the last two seasons, while getting caught about a quarter of the time.

Catcher

Jorge Alfaro will still be the starting catcher for the Miami Marlins in 2021. His unique combination of pop-time (1.92) and raw power (18 HR, 57 RBI in 130 games) is only eclipsed by one guy in the major leagues at this moment, and he used to be a Miami Marlin too.

Nick Fortes and/or Will Banfield should be ready to back up Alfaro by this time. Neither hit very well in 2019, but both are plus-plus defensive stalwarts who will be able to continue the Miami Marlins legacy of excellent defensive catching. And lets face it, Bryan Holaday‘s adventures notwithstanding, you’re not really looking to your backup catcher to hit very much. So, who are these guys catching on Opening Day?

Starting Pitcher

Now that’s a good question. The smart money is on Sixto Sanchez, the top overall prospect in the Miami Marlins organization. For those of you counting, by the way, that makes five of the starting nine Miami’s current top five prospects.

Sanchez had a decent 8-4 record and a 2.53 ERA for the Jumbo Shrimp in 2019, but that doesn’t really do justice to just how good he was at the level. This guy has a plus curve, a plus change, and two plus-plus fastballs, a two-seamer and a four-seamer (h/t to MLB Pipeline).

More from Marlins News

And as alluded to earlier, the Miami Marlins aren’t really hurting as far as pitching depth goes. If Sanchez isn’t ready for some reason, or injury strikes, Sandy Alcantara may very well at that time be the team’s number two starter. Other possibilities include Edward Cabrera, Trevor Rogers, Braxton Garrett, Pablo Lopez, and Caleb Smith.

I know, I know, we still have 2020 to play through, and a lot can happen. The team can keep playing the shell game until the cows come home, or, they could surprise everyone, probably Jeter included, and wind up in a pennant chase. Hey, don’t @ me, stranger things have happened!

But whatever happens, I’ll be there to go mad about it, I am a Maniac, after all.

Thanks for reading. Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and subscribe to our daily newsletter to keep up with the Miami Marlins.

Next. Three Things the Marlins Need to Consider. dark

Home / Marlins News