It's time for the Miami Marlins to stop with needless experiments

The Fish need to stop making mistakes that don't help the team

Neil Raymond

Sixto Sanchez / Kevin C. Cox/GettyImages

It appears that the Miami Marlins didn't learn anything from the failed A.J. Puk starting pitching experiment. Another mistake took place on Wednesday night. This one involving another reliever converted to starter in Sixto Sanchez. Well technically he's a starter turned reliever turned starter. Anyway, it's time for The Fish to stop with these experiments.

The Miami Marlins need to stop with risky pitching experiments.

I don't mean to keep putting A.J. Puk down, but he has a Major League leading 4 losses. He has a 9.22 ERA/6.30 FIP, with 7.9 K/9 and 11.2 BB/9. He also has an abysmal -0.7 WAR in 4 games and 13.2 innings pitched. He hasn't been effective at all and is now on the injured list due to shoulder fatigue.

There was never any reason to try him out as a starting pitcher. I understand that he wanted to be one, but the chances of him succeeding were never that high to begin with. This was a giant waste of time and now Puk is back in the bullpen. The bullpen has been terrible this season and would've been significantly better if he was involved. He had a 3.97 ERA/3.59 FIP, with 12.4 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9, in 58 games and 56.2 innings pitched.

The latest already failed experiment is being done with another oft-injured pitcher. This time it's Sixto Sanchez. After his poor start on Wednesday, he now has a 7.20 ERA/5.06 FIP, with 5.4 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 in 8 games and 10.0 innings pitched. He gave up 3 runs and 5 hits in 2.2 innings pitched in last night's 4-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves. The fact that we don't hear about him getting any more starts this season is alarming.

It's pretty clear to me that the Miami Marlins are taking this season to see what the team has. This means doing some experiments such as the ones already done with A.J. Puk and Sixto Sanchez. I hope there are no more experiments and that The Fish leaned from these failed ones. It makes no sense to risk pitcher's arms in this way.

Neil Raymond

Neil Raymond has been a lifelong Miami Marlins fan, with the 2003 playoff run being one of his favorite childhood memories. Neil has been called a "walking encyclopedia" for his knowledge of MLB statistics and the sport's history. He follows every game and actually invented his own statistic for player value on his side project BaseballAnalyzed.com. Writing for Fansided's Marlin Maniac since 2022, he also loves Fantasy Baseball and as such is an FSWA member. Neil also loves to travel, read and follow "Futbol" teams: Germany, Argentina, Greece, Inter Miami, Bayern Munich and NYC FC.