Marlins promote top catching prospect Joe Mack, send Ramirez to Triple A
The Marlins are promoting one of the top catching prospects in baseball, hoping that Joe Mack can boost a position that has been substandard defensively and allowed 42 stolen bases in 45 attempts.
Meanwhile, the Marlins are sending catcher Agustin Ramirez to Triple A after an uneven first five weeks in which his power declined, his defense remained poor and base running errors frustrated the team.
The decision was made, but not announced, after Ramirez went 0 for 4 as a designated hitter during the Marlins’ 7-2 loss to the Phillies on Sunday at loanDepot Park.
MLB.com rates Mack the fifth-best catching prospect in MLB and the 54th best prospect overall.
Drafted 31st overall out of an East Amherst, NY, high school in 2021, Mack is hitting .244 at Triple A Jacksonville (.388 on base percentage) with three homers and nine RBI in 24 games. He has thrown out 11 of 38 attempted base-stealers and has a 30 percent minor-league success rate.
The left-handed hitting Mack, 23, has a career .239 batting average and .335 on base percentage, with 60 homers and 198 RBI in 445 minor league games. He hit 21 homers and drove in 58 runs at Double A and Triple A last season.
MLB.com’s scouting report on him:
“Mack batted just .217/.324/.303 in his first three pro seasons. He turned his career around in 2024 by deciding to hunt fastballs early in counts, which helped him total 45 homers in the past two years. He’s also one of the better defensive catcher prospects in the game and led Jacksonville to International League and Triple-A National Championship titles in 2025.
“Mack is somewhat of a one-dimensional hitter but as long as he’s tapping into his plus raw power from the left side of the plate and providing quality defense, that’s fine. He has an extremely aggressive approach as he looks to drive balls in the air to his pull side, and he chases a lot of pitches out of the zone. That mindset allows him to punish fastballs (1.074 OPS in 2025) but leaves him vulnerable to other types of offerings (.636 OPS).
“A basketball and volleyball player in high school, Mack is more athletic than most catchers and can flash average speed once he gets going. Improved focus has helped him translate his soft hands into solid receiving and framing skills, and his agility help him block balls in the dirt. He has plus arm strength and a quick release, regularly recording sub-1.9-second pop times and throwing out 33 percent of basestealers last year.”
The Marlins had hoped Ramirez -- the key player acquired in the 2024 Jazz Chisholm trade with the Yankees -- would improve defensively at catcher, believing he has more value playing at least part of the time there instead of exclusively as a DH.
But significant improvement hasn’t happened. He has thrown out only two of 20 base-runners, after throwing out just 8 of 91 last season.
A year after permitting an MLB-high 191 steals, the Marlins again have allowed the most steals in baseball. Liam Hicks started at catcher Sunday and allowed a stolen base by Justin Crawford, the 24th successful steal in 25 attempts against Hicks.
Ramirez has four errors in 139 innings behind the plate, which puts him on a worse pace than last year, when he had an NL-leading 10 errors in 605 innings at catcher. He has three passed balls, an improvement over last season, when he led the National League with 19.
“He needs to get better behind the plate,” manager Clayton McCullough said Friday. “He’s committed to that and we are committed to continue to work with him. As long as he keeps doing that, that’s all you can ask for from a player.”
Offensively, he’s getting on base more (.318 compared with .287 last season) and his batting average is down a whisker, from .231 to .230).
More significantly, his doubles have declined dramatically (from 33 last year -- which was 10th in the NL -- to five this year). So has his power; he has two home runs in 129 plate appearances compared to 21 in 585 last season.
This story was originally published May 3, 2026 at 6:06 PM.
