Eury Perez Is Finally Flashing His Frontline Potential for the Marlins

The year is 2021, and there is a right-handed pitcher standing at 6 feet, 8 inches and making waves down in the Dominican Summer League.

While the DSL is no stranger to having young fireballers “letting it eat” on the mound, the Miami Marlins seemed to have found someone a little different than the average arm going out and emptying the tank on every throw, solely trying to light up the radar gun.

It was evident that 18-year-old Eury Pérez was going to be something different, and each stop throughout the minor leagues only made that appear more evident.

Throughout his five-year minor league career, Eury posted a 2.89 ERA across 218 innings pitched, striking out 304 hitters along the way. His maturity proved to be far advanced, leading to his eventual promotion to the big league club at just 20 years old.

Even in his debut, we were witnessing something incredibly special. In his first 19-game sample at the major league level, he posted a 3.15 ERA across 91.1 innings. The youngster struck out 10.6 hitters per nine innings, pitched to a 149 ERA+, and accumulated 2.7 bWAR in that small sample size.

Marlins fans were getting excited, and rightfully so, for what Eury was going to bring to the team. There were consistent comparisons to the impact that José Fernández once provided when he made his debut. Though the emotions weren’t as transparent, the talent was surely next level.

There was really only one thing that could derail the scorching start to his career, and unfortunately, that happened.

Eury underwent Tommy John surgery and was forced to sit out the entirety of the 2024 season. Then, once he returned to the mound in 2025, there was clearly rust he had to shake off after the long layoff.

The velocity seemed to be there as if it never left, but it was the command that became shaky, as he had trouble consistently finding the strike zone.

The 95.1 innings he pitched in his first season back rightfully left question marks as to whether Eury Pérez would be able to achieve the lofty expectations placed on him to become the next ace of the Miami Marlins.

Then there was the start of the 2026 season, which had 90% of baseball fans jumping off the future ace ship and ready to write Eury off completely.

In his first 10 starts, he was getting hit incredibly hard. Aside from his curveball, which opponents were hitting at a .333 clip, each pitch he was throwing had an opposing slugging percentage over .430. The highest opponents’ slugging percentage came against his sweeper, which sat at .615.

In his first 52.1 innings, his ERA was sitting at 5.33, along with a 5.18 FIP, and he had allowed 10 home runs across those 10 starts.

Now, here we sit at the end of August, and Eury has already eclipsed his career high in innings pitched.

Through 23 starts so far, his 127.2 innings have produced a 3.17 ERA, a 124 ERA+, and a 3.67 FIP. What makes it interesting is that he is doing this while still struggling with his walks, pitching to a career-worst 2.6 strikeout-to-walk rate this season.

Where he has been able to improve, and a big reason why many have gone back to seeing him as a future top arm in the league, is because he started throwing a sinker.

The uptick in usage, which was confirmed by him, helped him get his confidence back on the mound. It wasn’t just that, though. Eury admitted that he was allowing the noise to get to him, and it prevented him from having fun on the mound.

Thankfully for us, he has gotten back to enjoying the game again.

Since the start of the second half, Eury has pitched to a 1.80 ERA across 65 innings in 11 starts. He is only striking out nine hitters per nine innings, but he has lowered his HR/9 marker all the way down to 0.28. With the implementation of the sinker, he has upped his groundball rate to a tick over 45% and has seen his strand rate skyrocket to over 80%.

Remember the insane slugging percentages I mentioned previously against his entire pitching repertoire? Well, ever since he began to consistently throw that sinker, he has seen dramatic dips in opponents’ slugging against every pitch.

The .615 slugging percentage against his sweeper has fallen all the way down near .100. The emergence of this pitch has also made his four-seam fastball that much more effective. We are also now seeing an in-zone whiff rate right under 25% during this span.

The walk rate continues to be higher than what we would like, but like the rest of the elevated numbers we were seeing early on in the season, he has been able to make tangible improvements in this area.

Curious as to just how drastic the change in pitch usage has been between 2025 and 2026? Look at the differences below:

Just look at these two graphics and tell me I’m wrong when I say that the sinker practically did not exist prior to this season. I would actually bet that the 1% shown in 2025 was just a bad tag on a pitch that simply showed a flash of sinker movement in its profile.

Either way, as baseball fans, this is such a sight for sore eyes.

The emergence of this future ace is surely exciting for a young Marlins team that, despite currently having another ace in Sandy Alcantara in its starting rotation, has the true future of this team’s pitching staff currently slotted into the No. 2 spot in the rotation.

The bounce-back from the 23-year-old right-hander continues to prove the maturity we witnessed throughout his quick rise through the minor leagues. This version of Eury Pérez is what we all hoped he would become when he was first spotted down in the Dominican Republic and signed by the Marlins.

Eury is not only the future ace of this team, but one of the best young arms in all of baseball.