How is the trade deadline affecting the Miami Marlins part 1

The MLB trade deadline is in full swing and the Miami Marlins are in the middle of the “chaos”. As I already covered before, The Fish have some potential trade pieces to dangle and some potential destinations are already known. How do the latest moves affect The Fish? Let’s take a look at what is happening…

The Miami Marlins are affected by the ongoing trade deadline frenzy of moves.

The starting pitching market has taken some notable hits as the Detroit Tigers have reportedly pulled ace Tarik Skubal from the trade market. The Los Angeles Angels also don’t seem particularly motivated to move starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard, this means  that the Pittsburgh Pirates’ José Quintana may be the only competition to the Miami Marlins for trading ace Pablo López in the coming hours. Well, there’s also Cincinnati’s Tyler Mahle, but he has a 4.40 ERA/3.60 FIP.

As I linked early in this post, the Minnesota Twins are especially motivated to acquire a top of the rotation starter. This means that they match up well with the Miami Marlins for Pablo Lopez. It makes sense to look at what kind of returns other aces brought their former teams so far at the trade deadline.

You can take a look here at what the Oakland Athletics received from the New York Yankees for ace Frankie Montas, and what the Cincinnati Reds received for their ace Luis Castillo from the Seattle Mariners. It’s obvious that the Miami Marlins should be expecting at least one elite prospect and a couple more of a team’s upper echelon prospects. Asking for two top prospects and a mid-tier one along with a “lottery ticket” type should be the basic guideline for a Pablo López trade.

The last few games made it clear that the Miami Marlins need hitting help pretty badly, so perhaps trading Pablo López isn’t the worst idea if our other starting pitchers can carry the workload and if Pablo can’t be persuaded to accept a reasonable contract extension.

The Luis Castillo trade revealed a very appealing return and I can easily see Kim Ng looking for a similar one for Pablo López. With higher demand and less options for other teams, the Miami Marlins may be in good position to receive a great return.