Miami Marlins Best To Wear Jersey Number Series No. 22: Sandy Alcantara

If nothing else, Miami Marlins fans have a chance to enjoy some history in the making in 2026.

That's what's on tap for Sandy Alcantara this season, with just about every pitch he throws in his assault on the franchise record books. It's an event worth celebrating even if he somehow wasn't the best to wear this particular Marlins jersey, but he's easily the man of the hour here at No. 22 in Marlin Maniac's Best To Wear The Miami Marlins Jersey Number Series. For the second and last time in this run, the answer to the Best To Wear It question is a current Marlin. And speaking of second, that's probably the unit of time it took you to deduce what was coming at this particular number.

Because make no mistake, Sandy Alcantara remains the face of the Miami Marlins franchise.

As mentioned at the top, Alcantara is already Top 5 on the Marlins WAR leaderboard, with a tally of 20.7 coming into 2026. It's only Giancarlo Stanton, Hanley Ramirez, Josh Johnson, and Luis Castillo he's looking up at- quite the achievement for him since coming over from the Cardinals in what is generally regarded as the greatest trade in franchise history. That deal saw the Marlins turn Marcell Ozuna into Alcantara and the Zac Gallen trade tree that includes Jazz Chisholm and Agustin Ramirez, among others. However, even if it had been just Alcantara coming over, it's impossible to call the trade anything but a massive success for Miami, even if he never threw another pitch in a Marlins uniform.

Aside from WAR, Sandy is comfortably in the Top 5 in every Marlins pitching category of note. Foremost among those at the moment is strikeouts, where his 921 career Ks for Miami leave him just 81 strikeouts shy of overtaking Ricky Nolasco for the franchise lead. A full season of an All-Star caliber Alcantara leading a competitive Marlins team could easily see him take over every pitching leaderboard save for wins. While we at Marlin Maniac love obscure pub trivia as much as the next baseball fan, having someone supplant Nolasco on those lists ranks high on our wish list.

As for the best of the rest at No. 22? Let's start with the technical answer/honorable mention winners- both Alex Gonzalez and Devon White spent a year in the jersey. We'll give the edge to White here as he did so while helping the Marlins win a World Series in 1997, whereas Gonzalez just did so for his 1998 MLB debut. Still, have to call it out when a Marlins World Series champion wore it, which is the only reason we'll point out that Brian Banks sported it in 2003, and spend time remembering that Al Leiter did come back to the team in 2005 in order to shave a WAR point off his Marlins legacy.

The actual answer for the next best WAR tally in the No. 22 jersey though, and that is the standard this series is going with, goes to a player precious few of you will remember: Matt Lindstrom. His Marlins career WAR score of 1.6 allows him to narrowly edge out original Marlin and current Braves skipper Walt Weiss, White, and Carter Capps, among a handful of other solid relief pitchers. Like we said, we do love obscure pub trivia.

To that end, we'll catch you next time at No. 21. It's not as iconic of an answer as one of the greatest Marlins of all time in Sandy...but it's close.