In the same week that we learned that the Miami Marlins were promoting 20-year-old pitching phenom Eury Pérez to the majors, another former star pitching prospect’s return to the mound for the Fish got pushed back once again.
According to MLB.com, RHP Sixto Sánchez “played catch without discomfort on May 8,” but that only came after the hard-throwing righty experienced “slight shoulder soreness” in an extended Spring Training outing on April 26.
The shoulder area is noteworthy because Sánchez had procedures on his right shoulder in both July of 2021 and October of 2022. There’s no evidence that another surgery on his shoulder will be needed, but the fragility of the 6-foot, 234-pound righty is part of what made the Philadelphia Phillies willing to trade him in February of 2020, despite comparisons to Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez. Of course, acquiring J.T. Realmuto in his prime was never going to be cheap.
With that said, there appeared to be a legitimate debate after the 2020 season about whether the Marlins or Phillies would ultimately win the deal. Sánchez was electric in his first seven MLB starts, posting a 3.46 ERA and 1.0 WAR, per FanGraphs. Meanwhile, for as impressive as Realmuto had been across his first two seasons with the Phillies, he was set to become a free agent and there was serious uncertainty about whether he would return to the Phillies.
But Realmuto would eventually re-sign with the Phillies on a five-year/$115.5 million deal, and since that deal began in the 2021 season, Relamuto is tied with Nolan Arenado and Dansby Swanson for the 14th-highest WAR among all position players.
Sánchez offered a glimpse into his potential of being a No. 1 starter in 2020, but he then missed the entirety of the 2021 and 2022 seasons. And Barry Jackson and Craig Mish of The Miami Herald now report that “while the Marlins still hold out hope that he could pitch in minor league games in August or September, the organization is no longer counting on him in their long-term plans.”
Still only 24, it’s entirely possible that Sánchez gets healthy and still goes on to have a productive MLB career. But given that Realmuto appears on a path to cementing himself as the best catcher in franchise history, it’s hard to conclude anything other than that the Phillies won the trade by a landslide.
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