Miami Marlins hitter may have turned his career around

It has been a busy time for the Miami Marlins these days. Besides all of the roster moves, we saw the beginning of a new superstar with Connor Norby continuing his red-hot production with a two home run game on Sunday. The topic at hand is catcher Nick Fortes, who may be turning his career around.

Miami Marlins catcher Nick Fortes may be turning his career around.

Nick Fortes once looked like he was going to fill the catcher position for the Miami Marlins for the long-term. The brief 2021 sample from him really made for some exciting potential. He batted .290/.353/.677, with 4 home runs and 7 RBI in 14 games and 31 AB. It was a very small sample size, but as you can see the results were very good. He also had a 91.3 Exit Velocity, which is still a career-high.

Fortes went downhill from there. In his follow-up in 2022, he batted .230/.304/.392, with 9 home runs and 24 RBI in 72 games and 217 AB. This was disappointing, but it was still not a full season's worth of playing time. There was still hope that he would get better as time would go on.

The 2023 season saw Nick Fortes bat an even worse .204/.263/.299, with 6 home runs and 26 RBI in 108 games and 294 AB. At this point, it really looked like he was on his way out and in fact was a non-tender candidate. This season he has a .236/.264/.323 batting line, with 3 home runs and 25 RBI in 95 games and 263 AB.

The splits however...he batted an abysmal .185/.211/.255 in the first half. He's currently batting (as of Monday) .354/.379/.481 in the second half. I don't know if he can keep this up, but this certainly makes him worth giving a shot to next season.

Nick Fortes said this about this:

"It's kind of just staying up the middle, I guess, trying to stay to center field. Then if I catch a little deep, it goes to right. If I catch it up front, it goes to left. And just trying to stick with that, not trying to do too much. Sometimes you fall into the trap of trying to get big, and that's when you start missing balls. So just trying to stay within myself and just get barrels to the big part.”

Let's hope that he can help the Miami Marlins next season. He's under arbitration control through the 2028 season.