The Miami Marlins are very unlucky and are underperforming

It‘s no secret that the Miami Marlins are not doing too good right now and need upgrades. The Fish are sitting at 19-26, 11 games out of first and 5.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot. Is this our actual talent level? Is this team just not that good? Let’s find out…

The Miami Marlins may be very unlucky this season.

The Miami Marlins should be at 24-21 Pythagorean W-L record, while the NL East leading New York Mets should be at 30-19. The Atlanta Braves should be 23-25 and the Philadelphia Phillies 24-24. The San Francisco Giants should be at 25-21 as they hold the final NL Wild Card spot. The Fish should be 6 games out in the division and one game out of the final WC spot.

We already established that the Miami Marlins have elite pitching. One starting pitcher is underperforming however, I‘m of course talking about Trevor Rogers, who has a 5.23 ERA, but a 4.24 xFIP. FanGraphs expects him to have a 3.77 ERA going forward.

RF Avisaíl García has a .276 BABIP and is expected by FanGraphs to improve from his .207/.237/.297 batting line to .250/.308/.405 for the rest of the season. It’s not ideal but is still an improvement.

LF Jorge Soler has been improving already, but more is in order. He only has a .232 BABIP and is batting .205/.299/.423. FanGraphs expects him to improve as well. He’s actually on pace to match his monster 2019 season with the Kansas City Royals, when he batted .265/.354/.569. He had a .294 BABIP that season. The Miami Marlins do have one great middle of the order bat and it’s him.

RP Anthony Bender should improve as well. He has a 4.50 ERA, but a 3.57 xFIP. Fangraphs expects a 3.56 ERA for him rest of season. Bender has the stuff to be a shutdown reliever and has flashed that potential repeatedly.

RP Dylan Floro can still be a force in the Miami Marlins bullpen. He’s been terrible this season, but is also just recently back from an injury and hasn’t pitched much this season (short sample size in other words). He had a 2.81 ERA/FIP last season and can improve as well.

The season is still not even close to its half-way point. It’s way too early to throw in the proverbial towel. The Miami Marlins should be a lot better as our 24-21 Pythagorean W-L record indicates.