NEWSLETTER
Well this stinks. The partial UCL tear that Marlins ace Sandy Alcántara was trying to pitch through at the end of the year, which wound up seeing him leave a rehab start early, has turned into a surgery situation.
Alcántara announced the news himself on Instagram:
The surgery’s normal recovery timeline will mean that Alcántara, the 2022 Cy Young winner, will miss the entire 2024 season.
Alcántara, 28, has pitched to one of the heaviest workloads in Major League Baseball over the last five seasons, but I’m not sure we can say for sure that’s the reason for the UCL injury any more than it could have been injured at some point anyway. Pitching inherently comes with risks to the various body levers, and maybe stricter innings limits would have helped, maybe they wouldn’t have. It’s really an individual thing, at some level. But we know, generally speaking, higher pitch counts and deeper outings can create additional risk factors across a large enough population of players.
Alcántara is signed through 2026, with a team option for 2027, so he’ll still be able to come back for multiple seasons with the Marlins.
In the meantime, though, you can expect this to ratchet up the Marlins’ desire to add a starting pitcher in the offseason. The market is going to be well-stocked with starters, though the Marlins have historically tended to go shorter-term/back-of-the-rotation.
Also, if you’d hoped the Marlins would trade an arbitration-eligible starter like Jesus Luzardo, I’d say those chances just went way down.
