Sandy Alcantara’s Injury Means a Rockier Highway for the Marlins Rotation

Just in case Max Scherzer’s season-ending damage wasn’t sufficient pitcher-specific tragedy for the week, baseball’s deities have handed down a story of woe to a different of the sport’s high pitchers. Sandy Alcantara, final 12 months’s NL Cy Young award winner, could miss the rest of the season as properly. While you may argue that teammate Jesús Luzardo has surpassed Alcantara as a top-of-the-rotation weapon, Alcantara’s historical past as one of many NL’s high workhorses makes his absence extraordinarily ill-timed for the Marlins, who’re at present preventing for his or her playoff lives towards the Diamondbacks, Reds, and Giants.

Alcantara first landed on the IL a couple of week in the past after experiencing discomfort in his forearm. Baseball individuals take forearm ache as significantly because the denizens of Middle-earth regard inscribed poems on mysterious rings, so Alcantara was shut down for additional analysis. While he felt wholesome sufficient to play catch on Wednesday, an MRI revealed that his forearm pressure stems from a sprained UCL. While the worst-case state of affairs — particularly, a Tommy John surgical procedure that might price him the remainder of this season and sure all of 2024 — doesn’t seem like the instant plan of action, his 2023 standing stays unsure. When requested particularly about Alcantara’s return, Marlins supervisor Skip Schumaker prevented being too bullish on the prospects of getting him again this 12 months, saying, “I don’t know. I can’t say yes. I can’t say no. I’ve just gotta be positive. I just gotta keep telling myself day by day and try to take advantage of the opportunity.”

I wouldn’t essentially characterize Alcantara as having a tough season — I believe one thing like Alek Manoah’s disastrous 2023 higher suits that invoice — however I can’t deny that it’s been a bit disappointing in comparison with his 2022. This 12 months, Alcantara has posted his highest ERA as a Marlin, in addition to his highest house run allowed price and lowest strikeout price. He’s been hit tougher than ordinary, so none of those numbers are pure flukes. But whereas Statcast’s xERA isn’t comfortable about his season, ZiPS sees him as have a 3.60 zFIP, reflecting that the declines in his strikeout price don’t fairly match the smaller declines seen in his plate self-discipline knowledge. It can be exhausting to say he’s been an ace this 12 months, however the truth that Alcantara is ready to eat so many innings has stored his worth robust, and he was doubtless headed for his third-straight season of 200 innings and no less than 3 WAR. The Marlins have a younger rotation and lots of of their pitchers have important damage histories. That makes it further good to have one among baseball’s dwindling variety of pitchers who can casually go seven innings most nights.

In shedding Scherzer, ZiPS estimated that the Rangers misplaced two share factors within the playoff race and 0.4 share factors in World Series likelihood. ZiPS likes Alcantara barely higher as a pitcher and feels extra assured concerning the substitute choices in Texas, so the impression on Miami’s destiny is a skosh bigger. First, I ran ZiPS assuming that Alcantara would miss the remainder of the season:

If we ignore the Padres, who’re on the verge of rounding to zero, the Marlins have the hardest highway of any of the Wild Card contenders with out Alcantara. Now, let’s assume the Marlins get a type of aforementioned Tolkienian rings, use its little-known energy to heal elbow and forearm issues, and get Alcantara again into the rotation when he’s eligible on Tuesday:

In a really tight race, getting Alcantara again for a pair begins remains to be sufficient to snag the Marlins almost 4 share factors of playoff likelihood, about twice what a wholesome Scherzer would have accomplished for the Rangers. And as importantly, having him for the playoffs would change the highest of the rotation sufficient to offer Miami a a lot better probability of constructing a deep postseason run.

Naturally, the worst-case state of affairs would have a major impact on Alcantara’s long-term outlook:

While the percentages nonetheless favor Alcantara returning, if worst got here to worst, there can be a variety of considerations. Would Alcantara’s changeup nonetheless be as devastating if he got here again with a 95 mph fastball as a substitute of a 98 mph one? Would the lack of a whole 12 months scale back the probabilities of him lastly discovering the strikeout upside of his stable stuff, as Nathan Eovaldi ultimately did? What are the probabilities he might return and nonetheless be one of many few pitchers who’s a very good guess to throw 200 innings?

Thankfully, we’re not but on the level the place now we have to reply these questions. Mason Miller suffered an UCL sprain in May, however has been capable of come again with conservative remedy due to the A’s displaying an abundance of warning when it comes to hurrying him again. But if Alcantara’s 2023 is certainly over, the Marlins face a more durable path to the playoffs, definitely a more durable one than when each ZiPS and the FanGraphs playoff odds had them with an over 70% probability of constructing the playoffs again in July.