Miami Marlins trade for All-Star Starling Marte. Caleb Smith, Jonathan Villar gone
The Miami Marlins have made their trade deadline splash as they continue their playoff push in this shortened 2020 MLB season.
The Marlins, about an hour before Monday’s 4 p.m. deadline, agreed to obtain Arizona Diamondbacks All-Star outfielder Starling Marte in exchange for starting pitcher Caleb Smith, Humberto Mejia and Julio Frias.
The team also traded Jonathan Villar to the Toronto Blue Jays and will receive outfielder prospect Griffin Conine (the son of Mr. Marlin Jeff Conine) in return. Villar started Miami’s 5-3 win against the New York Mets at Citi Field and was removed in the sixth inning.
Frias and Conine are both officially listed as players to be named later because they respectively were not part of the Marlins’ and Blue Jays’ 60-man player pools. Teams are only allowed to formally announce trades of players inside their player pools during the 2020 season.
What the Marlins get in Marte
Marte, 31, is a career .288 hitter with 110 home runs and 434 RBI since making his MLB debut in 2012. He is hitting .311 this year with two home runs, 14 RBI and five stolen bases over 122 at-bats heading into Monday.
It provides the Marlins another veteran bat for the rest of this season to help shore up an offense that has been erratic at best this year.
He was an All-Star in 2016, won Gold Glove Awards in both 2015 and 2016 and has stolen at least 30 bases in five of his eight big-league seasons.
Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill said he views Marte as “a middle-of-the-order bat ... to help us get where we want to go, and that’s into the playoffs.”
“We know in this process, we’ve always tried to be mindful and protective of our inventory,” Hill said, “but also when we see an opportunity to improve this club, we wanted to take advantage of that.”
Marte is owed about $1.2 million over the rest of the regular season and has a $12.5 million club option for the 2021 season.
“I don’t think you give up what we gave up if this is a 30-day rental,” Hill said. “... Knowing we have control over him for this year and next made a lot of sense.”
Giving up controllable pitchers
That resulted in the Marlins dipping into their stockpile of controllable starting pitching in an attempt to fortify their roster as they continue their playoff push in this shortened 2020 MLB season. Miami is 15-15 after beating the Mets on Monday and are in second place in the National League East behind the Atlanta Braves, which would put them into a playoff spot for this season. The top two teams in each division and then the next two best teams in each league qualify for the postseason this year.
The headliner of the group was Smith, the 29-year-old lefty. He has a career 15-18 record in 54 games (47 starts) with a 4.64 ERA and 277 strikeouts to 109 walks in 252 1/3 innings and is under team control through the 2023 season.
He, along with Mejia, became expendable because of the Marlins’ starting pitching depth throughout the organization.
The rotation right now includes Sandy Alcantara, top prospect Sixto Sanchez, Pablo Lopez, Elieser Hernandez and Trevor Rogers (No. 9 prospect in the organization). Seven of the top 12 prospects in the Marlins’ organization are starting pitchers.
Jose Urena could also be nearing a return and can be part of the starting rotation or used out of the bullpen.
Smith opened 2020 as the Marlins’ No. 2 starter behind All-Star Sandy Alcantara to begin the season, but only made one start.
He threw three innings of one-run ball on July 25 against the Philadelphia Phillies before becoming one of the 18 Marlins players to test positive for COVID-19.
Smith remains on the COVID-19 Related injured list but has been working at the Marlins’ alternate training site in Jupiter for the past two weeks to get back up to full strength.
In 2019, the 6-2, 205-pound lefty went 10-11 with a 4.52 ERA over 28 starts. He recorded 168 strikeouts in 153 1/3 innings and had a 1.23 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitch). His 27.9-percent swing-and-miss rate ranked 20th among all starting pitchers who threw at least 1,250 pitches and fifth among lefties.
Mejia made three starts for the Marlins this year, going 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA with 11 strikeouts over 10 innings. Prior to this season, he never pitched above Class A Advanced.
Villar departs
Villar’s tenure with the Marlins, meanwhile, lasted just 30 games. The Marlins acquired him in an offseason trade from the Baltimore Orioles. Villar is slated to become a free agent after this season, making the Marlins’ move with him one to plan for the future.
The 29-year-old switch-hitter entered Monday leading MLB with nine stolen bases while also sporting a .272 batting average with two home runs, four doubles, nine RBI, 10 walks and 10 runs scored. He was primarily the Marlins’ leadoff hitter to start the season. Defensively, Villar is primarily a middle infielder but Miami also experimented with him in center field.
Marlins manager Don Mattingly received the news in the fifth inning Monday that Villar needed to be taken out of the game. Villar’s final play for the Marlins: a back-peddling, almost flailing grab on a popup in right-center field for the final out of the fifth.
“Hey, great play,” Mattingly said he told Villar in the dugout, “but we have to take you out. Something must be going on.”
Miami’s offense rallied for four runs off Mets ace Jacob deGrom in the sixth to clinch the win.
More quick hits
▪ The Marlins tried to trade for bullpen help but were not able to do so. Miami’s bullpen was hit hard by the COVID-19 outbreak but key pieces in Yimi Garcia and Alex Vesia have returned and the team has gotten good performances from James Hoyt, Josh A. Smith and Richard Bleier in addition to Brad Boxberger and Brandon Kintzler.
▪ Second baseman Isan Diaz, who opted out of the season on Aug. 1, has returned to Jupiter and applied for reinstatement.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 3:24 PM.
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