Marlins All-Time Pitching Staff: The Best of the Best

The Florida and Miami Marlins have had a total of 331 players throw at least one pitch at the major league level through their 27 season history.

In choosing the best of the best, I had to set an innings threshold. One-hundred seemed like a nice, round number for these purposes, and gave me a pool of 115 Marlins pitchers from which to draw. Which statistic though, is the most sensible by which to rank them from best to worst?

Strikeouts per nine innings? That seems short sighted, and getting a ton of strikeouts doesn’t necessarily make someone a great pitcher unless his WHIP is correspondingly low. Walks and hits per inning pitched? That’s pretty good, but doesn’t really indicate if someone is truly a clutch pitcher.

The ERA+ metric seems appropriate for our purposes here, in that it measures which pitcher was good where it counted – keeping runs off the board. Now, we have to figure out what constitutes a “pitching staff.”

In 1993, when the Marlins started play, a conventional major league team had five starters and five relievers. Over time, that number grew to five starters and eight relievers, where it stands today. Here at the dawn of the new major league 26-man roster, it’s been further explained that teams need to carry no more than 13 pitchers, so five and eight will remain the status quo for the foreseeable future.

This method returned a pitching staff that had a lot of notable exceptions, not to mention the rotation I landed with had two “swing” pitchers, who were primarily relievers. One of those two was good enough in the end to remain on as a bullpen option, but swingman Luis Aquino was cut off the bottom. In reaching for the fifth starter, I also had to drop Kyle Barraclough off the list.

I think the group of 13 pitchers remaining would be able to keep the Marlins in contention every year. Here’s the rotation first.

With a collected ERA+ of 176, RHP Kevin Brown led all Marlins with the minimum 100 innings pitched threshold set on the previous page. An All Star in both seasons for the Marlins, he finished second in the National League Cy Young Award vote in 1996 and helped the club claim their first World Series Championship in 1997.

Brown was 17-11 in 1996, and led the majors with a 0.944 WHIP, a 1.89 ERA, three shutouts, 0.3 HR/9, and a 215 ERA+. In 1997, he started five games in the playoffs, going 2-2 including victories against the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series in Game 1 and the series-clinching Game 6. The Marlins are set at number one with a 31-year-old Brown in the prime of his career.

And let’s not forget that Jose Fernandez wasn’t no slouch either, with a four-year total ERA+ of 150. The right-hander out of Santa Clara, Cuba won the N.L. Rookie of the Year Award after he went 12-6 with a 2.19 ERA and a major league-best 5.8 H/9 allowed in 2013. He also pitched in the All Star game and finished third in the NL Cy Young voting. Despite that, the 187 strikeouts he racked up in 172 2/3 innings gave him what would remain a career-low 9.7 K/9.

Limited to 19 starts through 2014 and 2015 due to Tommy John Surgery, Fernandez nevertheless went 10-3 with a 2.71 ERA and 149 K’s in 116 1/3 innings. 2016 would see his triumphant return to the rotation. All signs pointed to Fernandez having something even a little more extra than he had previously displayed, with a 12.5 K/9 representing 253 whiffs in 182 1/3 innings and his second All Star appearance. Fernandez’ career and life were cut short on September 25th of that year, on the worst day in Marlins history.

RHP Bryan Morris came via trade from the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 1st, 2014, and ended up allowing three earned runs in 40 1/3 innings for Miami.

Although that proved unsustainable, he was still good for a solid 2.30 ERA in 121 1/3 innings from then through the 2016 campaign. He was 9-5 with one save and 96 K’s versus 48 walks, with a 1.343 WHIP and a 166 ERA+.

LHP Dan Jennings spent the first three seasons of his now-eight-season MLB career with the Marlins, going 3-6 with a 2.43 ERA in exactly 100 innings of work. He struck out 84 and totaled a 1.460 WHIP with a 160 ERA+.

In 2004, Armando Benitez‘ lone season as the Marlins closer, he saved an N.L.-high 47 games and made his second consecutive all-star appearance. He left as he came in, through free agency following the season. He returned in trade from the Giants in 2007 and was used in middle relief. Overall he was 4-7 for the Marlins, with 101 K’s in 102 2/3 innings, a 1.062 WHIP, and a 155 ERA+.

Never a closer, middle-relief specialist Brian Sanches surrendered only 145 hits in 181 2/3 innings in three seasons with the Marlins. He was 10-5 with a 2.92 ERA, 158 strikeouts, a 1.288 WHIP, and a 141 ERA+.

A.J. Ramos was the Marlins closer from 2015 through mid-2017 and saved 92 contests. In 325 appearances in total, he was 15-16 with a 2.78 ERA and 379 K’s in 327 1/3 innings, a 1.228 WHIP, and a 139 ERA+.

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Miami’s closer from 2012 until his eventual replacement by Ramos, Steve Cishek was 17-20 with a 2.86 ERA in 284 games for the Marlins. He posted a 1.222 WHIP, a 137 ERA+, and struck out 312 in 289 2/3 innings.

Maybe not as well known as the others in this iteration of the Marlins bullpen, Rick Helling arrived from the Texas Rangers in mid-1996, went back to them in mid-1997, and joined the Marlins post-deadline 2003 from the Baltimore Orioles. He surrendered only 86 hits in 120 innings for the Marlins over parts of those three seasons, striking out 91 and going 5-7 with a 3.30 ERA, a 1.217 WHIP, and a 124 ERA+.

Robb Nen was a 1993 trade-deadline acquisition from the Rangers, and stayed on with the Marlins through their first World Series Championship. He was 20-16 with a 3.41 ERA in 269 games, with a team-record 108 saves. He struck out 328 in 314 frames, posting a 1.283 WHIP and a 122 ERA+.