Two Prospects That Could Provide the Marlins with a Spark for a Struggling Matt Mervis

If you're a fan of the Miami Marlins, you're probably pretty sick of Matt Mervis right about now.

The question is, does the Marlins front office feel the same way?

Baseball does tend to even out after all. So from a certain point of view, all we've really learned about Mervis is that he might only end up hitting 24 HRs as opposed to that 48 HR pace he was on when he cranked his 7th blast of the season on April 23rd. Of course, what is of much more concern is being homerless, as that point represents a batting average that has dropped to an anemic .178 mark following Saturday's game.

Being bad at one of those things is fine. Being bad at both? Different story. With a roster not built to contend now, Peter Bendix can afford to be patient. Yet as the team closes in on a month since Mervis' last moon shot, even the Marlins' patience could be running out.

What would that look like if the team were to opt for a change? Furthermore, just how incentivized are they to do so?

The popular answer amongst Marlins fans, for years, would be Troy Johnston. All he's done across a six-year minor league career is hit for a .285/.373/.463 slash line, and is presently going .273/.357/.491 for AAA Jacksonville in 2025. Yet for reasons that have often defied logic, the organization would seem to hate him.

That doesn't feel like a hyperbole. He was actually left unprotected for the Rule 5 draft after hitting .303 with 26 HRs across AA and AAA in 2023. The only thing crazier than that is the fact that nobody took him, and here he remains in AAA, waiting on his wish to be an MLB player. Closing in on 28 years of age, he's actually older than Mervis, and could be heading for the same "AAAA" future Mervis seems ticketed for.

The only things Mervis really has going for him over Johnston here is momentous power when pitchers make the mistake of hitting his bat, and the fact that he has technically proven he can occasionally be good against big league pitching.

Still, .178 is .178, and the gap has never been this wide between Johnston's potential and what Miami's current first baseman is currently doing in the bigs. So the chance of a call up could be more real than it has ever been before.

Miami’s Long-Term Plan Hits a Snag with De Los Santos on IL

What could complicate matters is the current status of AAA Jacksonville's other first baseman, the one that is supposed to be Miami's first baseman of the future. Or at worst, their Matt Mervis of the future: Deyvision De Los Santos. Thus far in 2025, he has not earned a promotion, even if his play had started to improve of late. Unfortunately for him, he just went on the IL with an injured quad. So far this year, Jacksonville has ceded all their first base playing time to either De Los Santos or Johnston, with the exception of three Jacob Berry appearances.

So on the one hand, Johnston just became almost indispensable to Jacksonville fielding a lineup. On the other, Mervis just got a chance to make at least seven consecutive starts before needing to turn things back over to De Los Santos. Plenty of time to get his timing back if he deserves to be back in Miami.

Then again, thanks to that lack of Rule 5 draft interest, there is proof that no MLB team has much interest in Johnston. But some desperate club could be dumb enough to trade for Mervis this summer if he goes on another homer binge at the right time. Which will only happen if he does it in Miami and not Jacksonville.

That last bit, a team trading for him, I don't find particularly likely. In fact, I'm pretty much on record amongst the Marlins online community as saying the combination of his power and his near total lack of tradeability would make him the Marlins home run leader this season. Yet not likely isn't zero, and it's probably a big factor in his getting as many chances as he has to this point.

Once again, this is not a team trying to chase down the Mets and the Phillies. Riding Mervis into the ground to preserve service time of better prospects while also giving a player with recent prospect pedigree a full season look, no matter how ugly it gets, is certainly in the cards.

However, that's not what you want to hear about Mr. 178 average. So in closing, here's one final glimmer of hope.

What could ultimately swing things for a Mervis demotion has nothing to do with other first basemen at all, but rather a returning middle infielder. Per Daniel Alvarez-Montes, Otto Lopez is back in Miami, and could rejoin the team at any point.

If Miami carves out a roster space based strictly on role, then either Graham Pauley or Ronny Simon would look to be the odd man out.

But if the Marlins cast someone aside based on performance? There's really only one option when it comes to making that decision.

That'd be the first baseman batting .178 and dropping.