"We have put ourselves in a position based on the improvement we made in 2025," Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said, per The Athletic. "We think we can put together a really exciting team for 2026 and also continue our quest to build a foundation of talent at all levels that will allow us to stay good for a long period of time."
The Marlins' 2025 season marked a step forward. The rebuilding Miami club finished just four games under .500, thanks largely to a 56-50 record from June 1 onward. The Fish went 14-11 in September and won 13 of their final 17 contests. A fair portion of those wins came against last-place teams in Washington and Colorado, but Miami also won series against the Tigers and Mets, swept the Rangers and won a pair of games against the Phillies during that blistering finish.
All in all, you can't call the 2025 Miami Marlins anything less than a roaring success. The 2024 model of the Marlins went 62-100, and then proceeded to deal away their most productive offensive player in the offseason. To finish seventeen games better at 79-83 just a year later, and to do so without a ton of splashy free agent signings or promotions of generational prospects, is remarkable.
However...there is the small matter of Coors Field to deal with. Playing in Colorado is baseball's great equalizer, with the only predictable thing about pitching there being how completely unpredictable the effects of altitude will be on a particular pitcher's stuff. Seeing as how the strength of the Miami Marlins is their starting pitching, the playing field could be leveled considerably this week.
With just two weeks to go in the 2025 MLB season, the Miami Marlins can still do it all. Savor that fact for a moment, Marlins fans. It's mid-September, possibly late September by the time you are reading this, and your favorite baseball team hasn't been eliminated from anything. They can still have a winning season. They can still make the playoffs! That's certainly a far cry from what most fans predicted coming into this 2025 season, myself included. What a time to be alive! The rebuild is well underway, and ahead of schedule.
After Wenceel Pérez's RBI double put Detroit ahead in the top of the 11th, López started the bottom half with an infield single that advanced automatic runner Joey Wiemer. Heriberto Hernández's RBI fielder's choice scored Wiemer before Johnston drove a slider from Rafael Montero (1-2) over the wall in right-center. It was Johnston's first career multi-homer game. Josh Simpson (3-2) got the last two outs in the top of the 11th for the win.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: "Toy Cannon" is the coolest nickname in Miami Marlins history. Coolest, and the most apt. For Cody Ross was exactly that, an explosive, seemingly secret weapon for the Marlins. Long before cousin Trevor Rogers toed the rubber for the Miami, the team's original Pride of Carlsbad patrolled the outfield from 2006 to 2010- sometimes as a fourth outfielder type, sometimes as locked in starter.
While the Miami Marlins rebuild might be finished sooner than expected, the Marlins remain far from a finished product. If you wanted to tell the story of the 2025 Miami Marlins in a single sentence, the above would get the job done. If you want to think of them as a homework assignment, "shows promise but needs improvement" is what will get scrawled across the top in red ink. Which is hardly an insult.
There were definitely plenty of fireworks in this most recent showdown between the Miami Marlins and the New York Mets. Pete Alonso continued his Marlin killing ways. Juan Soto continued being Juan Soto. Marlins manager Clayton McCullough continued to make puzzling pitching moves. Jakob Marsee continued to look like a star in the making. Agustin Ramirez continued to look like a guy that really, really shouldn't play catcher. In other words, plenty of potential storylines.
Enter Carlos Santana, recently released by the Cleveland Guardians. The former All-Star and Gold Glove winner has certainly lost a step offensively, but the defense is still very much there. That Gold Glove came as recently as 2024, after all, and he's been very good again defensively this year. Even with a dip in power and a paltry .225 BA, he can still be relied upon to work a walk when he needs to.
The team dropped the schedule on Twitter early Tuesday afternoon, with a pretty fun, and interesting, hype video. As for the full schedule, you can start s crolling through that here. The video though? A nostalgia filled romp down memory lane that was everything a Marlins fan over thirty (also known as the bulk of season ticket buyers) could want. Yet it also contained a few key breadcrumbs that Marlins fans of all ages should be thinking about between now and Opening Day 2026.
The Braves have claimed right-hander Cal Quantrill off waivers from the Marlins, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. It was reported earlier this week that the Fish had put the righty on waivers in an attempt to dump his salary. It appears their division rival has helped them out in that regard. Atlanta has open 40-man space but would need to
