Marlins Trade Return Flawed by Lack of Ceiling and Failure to Address Needs

The Miami Marlins shipped out two-time batting champ Luis Arraez for a four-prospect package. But did they actually get better?

Miami Marlins second baseman Luis Arraez was traded to the San Diego Padres just minutes before last night's game in Oakland against the Athletics was slated to begin. / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

The Miami Marlins are officially kicking off the rebuild. 

Last night, the team agreed in principle to a deal to send two-time batting champ Luis Arraez to the San Diego Padres for a four-prospect package. The deal, which was contingent on medical and league approval, was officially announced by the team this morning. 

But if there’s anything that the baseball world loves to do, it’s evaluate trades, and the reviews aren’t too kind to the Marlins.

In exchange for Arraez, the Marlins received four players: OF Dylan Head, 1B Nathan Martorella, OF Jakob Marsee, and lefty reliever Woo-Suk Go. Here’s the problem: None of them are expected to be that good. 

Headliner: Dylan Head

Head has the highest ceiling of the four prospects moved in the deal. A first-round pick in last year’s draft, he was San Diego’s #6 prospect in their system (per MLB Pipeline) at the time the deal went through. But he’s also the riskiest of the four - only nineteen until October, Head’s currently struggling to acclimate to full-season ball, batting only .237 through his first 21 games in Single-A Lake Elsinore. The game’s littered with uber-athletic prep outfielders who didn’t pan out, and Head could potentially wind up in that same group after three or four years. 

He’s got some things to love - he was one of the fastest players in the Padres organization at the time of the trade, with the consensus being somewhere between a 70 and 80 grade on the 20-80 scouting scale. That speed helps him be a plus defender in center field, and his above-average arm strength backstops the entire defensive package. 

But there are questions about his power ceiling, both from a frame and a results perspective. Graded at a future 40 for power, notes from MLB Pipeline and others point out both his high ground ball rate (>50% post-draft) as well as the lack of overall exit velocity. The likeliest outcome - not a certainty, but where he projects as of now - is a speedy, defensively-oriented centerfielder with stolen base ability but a 12-15 homer ceiling. 

ETA: 2026 or 2027

Complimentary piece: Jakob Marsee

Marsee’s the closest pro-ready piece of the four prospects in the trade; he’s currently playing in Double-A, although he had a slow start to his season. He’s coming off of a MVP campaign in the Arizona Fall League last season, however, where he batted .391/.509/.707 against the usually subpar pitching out in the desert last October, but is currently only .177/.336/.318 through his first 24 games in AA San Antonio. 

Listed as the #9 prospect in San Diego’s system, he’s the most likely to be a major league contributor, but not expected to be a star. A capable but not spectacular centerfielder, his patient approach and lack of overall exit velocity mean he portrays best as either a high on-base average centerfielder or a defensively versatile lefty-hitting fourth outfielder for a contender. 

Let’s not misunderstand this here: that’s valuable. But if it’s the 2nd-best piece in your deal, did you make that good of a deal? Marsee’s more “stabilizing the floor” than “raising the ceiling”, and that’s arguably not what Miami needed to do in selling off major league pieces. 

ETA: Late 2024 or 2025

Complimentary piece: Nathan Martorella

There are some first basemen who break the mold of “defensively-limited slugger” - Jake Cronenworth of the Padres finished last season with 10 homers in 127 games, while Nathaniel Lowe of the Texas Rangers has finished with under 20 homers in two of his last three seasons for the defending World Series champs. 

The difference in both of them and Martorella is that they can hit more homers - both men have 20+ homer seasons, with Cronenworth hitting 21 in 2021 and Lowe hitting 27 in 2022 - and they’re both good defensively at first base. 

Martorella doesn’t profile to have much power or play a good first base. He has 24 career homers in 188 minor league games after being drafted in the 5th round out of Cal in 2022. He’s also spent time in the outfield, with San Diego looking for ways to get him on the field. 

There’s things to like here - he can hit, with a career .269 batting average and making contact at a 76% rate last season - but a contact-hitting, defensively limited first baseman isn’t a particularly valuable profile in baseball for a reason. Some of this is launch angles issues, as he had a 45% ground ball rate last season, but a lot of it’s just a lack of bat speed and power in the frame.   

There’s a major league role for a guy like this, especially because he’s not bad against same-side pitching (.268 against lefties last season), but most contenders typically won’t trade power and defense for contact ability from their first baseman. He’s probably an average to slightly below-average major leaguer, with a lower ceiling because of the lack of pop. 

ETA: Late 2025

Dart throw: reliever Woo-Suk Go

Signed as an international free agent after a spectacular early career in the KBO, where he led all closers over the last five seasons in saves (139) and ERA (2.39), Go has struggled to acclimate to MLB and was optioned to AA at the end of spring training. 

Featuring a 92-94 mph fastball, he’s on a two-year, $4.5M contract signed with San Diego this offseason. There’s a mutual option covering the 2026 season, as well, although those are usually not picked up by both parties - either the player thinks they could get more on the open market or the team thinks the player isn’t worth the salary. 

I’m not sure what to think here - the reports were that his cutter was excellent in Korea, giving him a strong 1-2 punch, although his fastball featured higher velocity in the KBO (averaged 95, reportedly touched 98) than what we’ve seen so far stateside. He struggled with control in Korea, having a walk rate greater than 10% in four of his seven KBO seasons. 

So far in San Antonio, he has a 4.38 ERA in his first 12.1 innings, allowing seven runs (six earned) on fourteen hits. He’s struck out fifteen and walked only four, having yet to allow a homer. I’d imagine he could be up as soon as this summer if he figures it out in Miami’s farm system. 

Final verdict on the trade

Here’s the issue with the trade: Miami gave up a two-time batting champ with almost two full years of contractural control for, assuming everything pans out, a dynamic speed and defense centerfielder in three or four years, a 4th outfielder, a rotational first baseman without any pop, and a closer with average or slightly above-average velocity. 

The problem with the trade package that general manager Peter Bendix got back in the deal is it doesn’t address any of Miami’s longstanding roster construction issues, namely power and defense. 

Miami hit a below-average 166 homers last season and then watched Jorge Soler’s 36 homers walk out the door in free agency, never making any sort of signing to replace his production. The Marlins only made the postseason last year on the strength of an absurd overperformance in one-run games (33-14), fueling an 84-78 record. The run differential from last season, minus-57, was more in line with what you’d see from a team that would be expected to go 75-87. 

And we’ve seen that lack of run-scoring hurt this team in 2024, with a run differential of -61 that is third-worst in MLB. Correspondingly, Miami’s 9-25 record is third-worst in MLB, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies (8-24, -74) and the Chicago White Sox (6-26, -87). 

But there’s more than one way to improve a run differential - scoring runs is important, but preventing runs can help keep your balllclub in games, especially when the strength of your organization has historically been starting pitching. Defensively, this isn’t a strong roster, and none of these players (with the exception of potentially Head) look to be anything better than average at best with the glove. 

This trade may have stabilized the floor - I’d argue that it didn’t raise the floor, but it prevented it from falling even further - but it didn’t actually raise the ceiling of the team’s potential, even if all four players hit their 90% percentile outcomes (which is a valid question, given Miami’s historic struggles developing position players in recent years). 

Was that worth it? Time will tell, but it looks like a hard “no” from here.