Ryan Weathers Returns As Either Building Block Or Trade Chip For Miami Marlins

Thanks to Ryan Weathers, the Miami Marlins won a game Wednesday night.

Yet staving off the sweep might have been the least consequential of the wins the Marlins just racked up with Weathers' strong return to the mound.

For starters...Miami has just been left hanging far too often by their starters? Prior to tonight, a Marlins starting pitcher last earned the win in April- nearly three weeks ago. Weathers' return is a breath of fresh air for a group that has featured a struggling Sandy Alcantara, a slumping Max Meyer, and a revolving door of inconsistency behind them. It was only a 5 IP, 5 K performance, but it felt like a complete game shutout given how the start of this season has gone for the Fish. The rotation suddenly feels significantly deeper, and that's even without Eury Perez, who could return as early as June.

The emergence of Weathers was one of the few bright spots of the 2024 campaign, so even the ridiculously small one game sample size fans now have in 2025 feels like validation that the Marlins really have something here in the 25-year-old lefty.

Which begs the question: just what do the Marlins do with him going forward?

On the one hand, he's a hard throwing left hander that can hit 99 mph on the radar gun that isn't a free agent until 2029. That's the kind of player you build around. He's not even arbitration eligible until 2026. Which means even the Miami Marlins of the world can afford to wait for the rest of the team to get good around him.

On the other hand...well he's a hard throwing left hander that can hit 99 mph on the radar gun with a bunch of club control. You'd be tempted to trade that as soon as possible before the arm explodes even if you are a contender, which the Miami Marlins very much are not.

Health has been an issue for Weathers for years. There's also the little matter of him having been terrible for the bulk of his career, roughly 200 bad innings to the less than 100 good innings. Negative regression could be just as likely a story as the one of the young pitcher who figured things out with a change of scenery. That last story is the one Miami Marlins fans have been telling themselves for a year now. But is it the one rival GMs believe? More importantly, is it the one that Marlins President Peter Bendix believes?

Still too early to tell there, though I would say the consensus view is trending towards the glass half full view of what Weathers has been doing since leaving San Diego.

Around this time last year, I was making the case that Weathers and Braxton Garrett should be virtually untouchable for the Marlins in trade talks due to their staggering cheapness relative to the cost of consistent big league starting pitching on the free agent market. Garrett quickly proceeded to get hurt, and then hurt some more. Even then, I stuck to my guns on Weathers being a keeper, despite Garrett's situation making for an excellent case to sell high on suddenly good pitchers.

Unfortunately, there has been one significant change since then:

The Marlins ran out of attractive trade chips.

Last year, Miami was able to trade Luis Arraez, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Tanner Scott, and what felt like 20 other players. This offseason, they were able to trade Jake Burger and Jesus Luzardo. Now, I'm not saying all of those moves were good ideas, or the right way to run an MLB franchise. Yet, there's no denying the fact that a team that loses as much as the 2024 Marlins did, and the 2025 Marlins will do, should consider trading something to desperate contenders if an overpay is in the offing.

The only problem is all of the Marlins seemingly expendable and/or expensive veterans have struggled. Alcantara is still every writer's favorite trade candidate, but that's just as much out of a belief that money alone will drive Miami to deal him then it is that teams are smart enough to give the former Cy Young winner the benefit of the doubt on still having dominant stuff in him.

There are probably many teams that do believe that. But Miami would certainly still be selling quite low on their ace, and that's not something Bendix has typically done. As for the rest? Jesus Sanchez, Cal Quantrill, the bulk of the bullpen? Pickings are slim when it comes to the potential for a needle-moving deal.

Or at least they were until Weathers took the mound Wednesday night.

Weathers could be a building a block of the next Miami Marlins playoff team. Then again, he might have just become Miami's biggest bargaining chip heading into the MLB trade deadline.