Sandy Alcantara's future in Miami: Can he rediscover his Cy Young form?

JUPITER, Fla. — The baseball tumbles from the top shelf of Sandy Alcantara’s locker, clattering past batting gloves and wristbands before landing softly in his right hand. In that instant, the 30-year-old Miami Marlins right-hander isn’t thinking about the 5.36 ERA that followed his 2024 return from Tommy John surgery, or the first-half 7.22 ERA that had evaluators wondering whether the 2022 National League Cy Young Award winner would ever again resemble an ace. He is thinking about the grip he wants to show a visitor: index and middle fingers spread just wide enough to turn this particular baseball into a sweeper, the pitch he believes will nudge him back toward dominance.

Every spring, pitchers tinker. Most experiments fade by May. When the tinkerer is a former Cy Young winner who still throws 98 mph and once logged 228 2/3 innings in a season, the experiment commands attention.

“The great ones are always looking for ways to stay ahead,” manager Clayton McCullough said.

Inside the Marlins’ clubhouse, optimism is audible. Club officials point to Alcantara’s post-All-Star-break line—3.33 ERA in the second half—as proof the rust accumulated while he rehabbed in real time has finally been scraped away. A mid-summer trip home to Puerto Rico, he said, “made me feel like a brand-new pitcher.”

“We are going to see the real, true, ace-level version of Sandy,” president of baseball operations Peter Bendix declared.

The pathway back may run through a single new wrinkle. Alcantara’s changeup and sinker both bore toward the gloves of right-handed hitters; the sweeper, cultivated over two offseasons with pitching coach Daniel Moskos, darts the opposite way. It does not need to be unhittable to be effective—one extra strikeout a night, one extra hesitation in the batter’s box, would justify the hours of grip refinement.

“I’ve been working on that pitch for years,” Alcantara said. “It’s going to be a great pitch for me this season.”

Whether that pitch, and the sharper command that accompanied last year’s second half, is enough to lift Miami into October remains uncertain. FanGraphs projects only a 7 percent playoff probability for a roster that traded away Edward Cabrera and Ryan Weathers for prospects yet still expects to hover around .500. Alcantara, entering his ninth season with the only organization he has known, believes the math is overly pessimistic.

“Oh, we’re there,” he said of the club’s proximity to contention. “We are there.”

The Marlins have Alcantara under contract for $17.3 million in 2026 and hold a $21 million club option for 2027. Those figures dwarf every other salary on the payroll except reliever Peter Fairbanks, underscoring both Alcantara’s importance and the club’s limited short-term spending. By market standards, the price is modest; 37-year-old Chris Bassitt will earn $18.5 million from Baltimore this year.

Alcantaria’s first spring outing offered a reminder that progress is rarely linear: the lone home run he allowed came on the sweeper. He shrugged afterward, noting he still must “trust” the pitch. Trust, like command, can take time.

So long as the baseball stays in his hand—and the sweeper stays in his arsenal—the Marlins believe the pitcher who once carried them to two postseason appearances still resides somewhere between the top shelf and the mound.