5 Trends That Should Help the Marlins Contend in 2027
The Marlins couldn't quite get above .500 in 2026, but they are continuing to trend in the right direction.
We have now seen another major league season come and go. Unfortunately for Miami Marlins fans, they will not be watching the team in the postseason.
Despite failing to eclipse a .500 record for a third consecutive season, this was a team that has continued to improve on the promise they displayed to their fans last season.
For another year in a row, they proved to be the scrappy team that other teams did not want to play near the end of the season, fighting for a playoff spot. It’s because of that continued progression that we have seen trends that could be fruitful for the Marlins’ future success.
As any new owner would do, Bruce Sherman has been promising to build a winner in Miami ever since he bought the team back in 2017.
Despite the same promise being made at the opening press conference at the beginning of spring training each season, aside from the shortened 2020 season, the Marlins have only finished about .500 once, in the 2023 season when they got swept by the Phillies in the Wild Card series.
However, as I stated, this season continued to provide promise, at the very least, that the Sherman-led Marlins era is trending in the right direction.
Year-by-Year Improvement
I just referenced the 2023 season, which is relevant because it was just before Bruce Sherman hired Peter Bendix as the president of baseball operations. I have been both a critic and a defender of the Bendix era because I believe building a sustainable winner takes time.
Have all of his moves proved right? No.
Have all of his moves been losses? Also, no.
The Marlins have someone at the helm who is willing to take strategic risks. While the lack of full-on aggression may leave the fans in Miami skeptical of just how good Bendix is at his job, his approach has likely preserved the Marlins’ future sustainable success more than it has hindered an immediate result.
We saw Bendix make his first, and so far only, managerial hire with the hiring of Clayton McCullough in November of 2024. The hiring of a first-time manager at the time scratched a lot of heads, but it has proven to be a positive since he took the job. A perfect example of this would be the team’s record over the past two seasons combined.
The Marlins may not be a “storied” franchise, but two World Series titles are relevant. In order to make the playoffs, you have to have regular season success and, per the post above, McCullough has had just that.
The post was made on Thursday, September 24, three days prior to the last game of the regular season, and the Marlins had already achieved the feat of winning more games in a two-season span than they ever had in the history of their franchise.
This is significant, in my opinion, given the fact that Miami has had far more talent on their rosters in previous seasons compared to the team that has been put out on the field the past two years.
While this first point may not seem as relevant to many who follow the sport, we can all agree that positive trends are attractive no matter how you may look at things.
If this were a trend you picked up on while monitoring the stock market, the Miami Marlins would be a stock you would be looking to buy.
Strong Core in the Rotation
Much is always said about the depth in the Marlins’ pitching department. Year after year, many in the sport continue to tout how good this team has been at identifying, drafting, and developing pitching talent, and they never seem to fall short of the lofty expectations placed on them to perform at a high level.
The issue always seems to boil down to health.
Sandy Alcantara and Eury Pérez have missed time due to elbow surgeries, Max Meyer seems to have a lengthy stint on the injured list each season that ultimately shuts him down, Robby Snelling made his long-anticipated debut before suffering an elbow injury of his own, and, before being traded away, Ryan Weathers and Edward Cabrera were also bouncing on and off the IL throughout each year.
Despite all of that, the Marlins rotation has held strong with players seemingly unknown to many baseball fans.
Arms like Janson Junk, Ryan Gusto, and Tyler Phillips, who occupied three-fifths of the Marlins’ rotation to end the year, were all cast aside by other teams who didn’t see them as valuable enough assets to keep around.
Bringing this back to the team’s ability to identify and develop, the Marlins brought them in at low cost, and there they were, giving the team valuable innings late into the season.
The biggest plus when it comes to this is that each of them is still young. Alcantara is the elder statesman of the group at the prime age of 31, which is just absurd considering how long he has been pitching, and the core is still under team control for multiple seasons. Sandy is the only one with just one year left on his current deal.
While the game has surely become offense-driven over the years, the need for young, controllable, and successful starting pitching is big if a team wants to be in it throughout the entirety of the postseason.
Emergence of Core Players on Offense
I mentioned before that the Marlins had far more talented rosters in the past. At this point, everyone is aware that the team rostered players like Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, and J.T. Realmuto at one time. Two of them are MVP Award winners, one was once regarded as one of the best catchers in all of baseball, and the other was an All-Star and a 30+ home run threat year in and year out.
Compare that to the core the Marlins currently have, and it’s hard to see how they have been able to be as successful as they have been over the past two years.
They went from the names above to a multi-time DFA’d player in Otto Lopez, a frequent flyer from Baltimore to Norfolk in Kyle Stowers, a prospect famously belittled by Blake Snell on a live stream in Xavier Edwards, a competitive balance pick in 2021 who looks to be one of the best young catchers in the game today in Joe Mack, and a legacy player in Griffin Conine.
That list doesn’t even include players like Jakob Marsee, Heriberto Hernández, and Javier Sanoja, who I have written individual articles about multiple times over the past couple of seasons.
Peter Bendix has done an incredible job of finding diamonds in the rough through the waiver wire, under-the-radar trades, and minor league free agency to put together this competitive team down in Miami. Once the pocketbooks start to, hopefully, open, the Marlins should start to see the fruit of their labor pay off.
Financial Flexibility
The Marlins came into 2026 with the second-lowest payroll in all of baseball, with only $82,164,600 allocated to players on their roster, “bested” by only the Cleveland Guardians.
A payroll as small as this, as evidenced by the Guardians each year, is only going to take you so far. If you want to win a championship, a team owner is eventually going to have to truly open up their pockets and spend when the time comes. The bargain-bin shopping has to stop at some point.
That point is now.
The trend before this showed the young core the Marlins have in place to build around a star. Not just an All-Star, but a true star in today’s game.
The Marlins have the means to make that sort of move through free agency or even the trade market. Either way they choose to do it, the means to pay up is going to be at the forefront to keep a player of that caliber around.
Promises are great to make, but if Bruce Sherman’s Marlins continue to underperform and fail to reach their own expectations, it’ll be at the fault of the front office for being frugal about dishing out money and expanding their payroll.
Strong Wave of Top-End Prospect Talent on the Periphery
For those prospect heads out there, you know what I am talking about when I say that the farm system is about to pump out its next wave of positive contributors to the major league level who are going to help this organization take that next step towards sustainable contention.
Per the latest update of Just Baseball’s Top 100 Prospects, the Marlins have six players on the list. Headlined by Thomas White in the No. 27 spot, Aiva Arquette (34), Robby Snelling (40), Cam Cannarella (52), Karson Milbrandt (70), and Jacob Lombard (94) also found their names on the update.
Each of the names mentioned above is expected to make a positive impact on the big league club when their time comes. This was an organization that found its farm system ranked toward the bottom of the league for years before finally hitting the reset button and utilizing a new approach to scout and develop in the minors.
Even if you look past the six names mentioned, there are guys like Dillon Lewis, Dillon Head, Kemp Alderman, Brandon Compton, Echedry Vargas, and Max Williams making noise of their own.
This system is not the system of the past, when it was devoid of talent. This new development staff has made incredible strides in developing the organizational depth to the level that it is at, and fans should soon begin to see their hard work shine on the field at loanDepot Park.
The Future Truly Is Bright
I will continue to bang the drum on how the Marlins are on the precipice of becoming a team that is continuously finding itself in the nucleus of playoff contenders in the National League. The pieces are all in place for them to truly make the leap that they are destined to make with all that has been done to this point.
This offseason is going to be one to pay close attention to in more ways than one. With the inevitable lockout looming over the league, it will be hard to gauge the true approach this team is looking to take without knowing where the season stands and just how many games we are, unfortunately, going to miss in 2027.
Once things have settled and teams are gearing up to make moves towards building their roster, then we will be able to judge just how serious this ownership is about constructing a winner in Miami. This article highlighted all the positives they have going for them, but the button needs to be pressed to commit.
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Written by
Cristian has been at Just Baseball since 2021, when he first started writing about prospects. He spent eight years working in Major League Baseball with the…