A Miami Marlins ace's future with the team upon his return

There's a major return coming next season. I'm of course talking about Miami Marlins ace and 2022 NL Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara. Sandy's Beach is going to be re-opened and hopefully the Cy Young version will be back. Eury Perez is also coming back by the way, but we'll talk about him another time. There's some doubt about his long-term future however.

Sandy Alcantara is on his way back to the Miami Marlins next season.

There's quite a few fans on social media, who believe that Sandy Alcantara will not finish his extension with the Miami Marlins. Sandy is under contract for both the 2025 and 2026 seasons at $17.3 million and then there's a team option on him for $21 million for the 2027 season. This essentially locks him up for three seasons through his age 31 season. It's pretty much expected that The Fish will not pay market value for him upon him hitting free agency.

Peter Bendix is expected to emulate the Tampa Bay Rays system, which usually calls for trading the highest paid players. Of course there's some issues here... first of all, Sandy will be coming back from Tommy John Surgery. This means that he won't get that many innings in the 2025 season, but will probably have a more typical inning count for the 2026 season.

Is it possible that The Fish trade Sandy before he gets a pay raise? Well, it's highly unlikely if not impossible before next season. Teams don't know how he'll do right after surgery and will probably consider growing pains as well. If Sandy is to be traded, he would first have to prove that he's back to his old self.

There's more though... I fully expect The Fish to be trying to compete next season. I also don't see how Peter Bendix wouldn't worry about a potential public relations hit. There's no way that the fans will be OK with the returning ace being traded soon after his return. Will it happen before his team option is picked up? I like to think that no, but realistically it could be a possibility.