One of the most prominent trade-related storylines of this MLB season was that of Sandy Alcántara, a former Cy Young Award winner making his return from Tommy John surgery with the rebuilding Miami Marlins. 

The Marlins held onto Alcántara last offseason after he missed all of 2024, and planned to use the first half of 2025 to showcase his health before sending him off at the deadline. Some rust was to be expected, but the degree to which Alcántara struggled changed the calculus. The right-hander carried a 6.36 ERA into the deadline, prompting an understandable skepticism among trade partners about his ability to contribute down the stretch. With teams unwilling to meet the Marlins’ asking price, Alcántara kept his residence in Miami for a few more months.

Since then, Alcántara’s results have continued to trend in the right direction. In 10 starts post-deadline, his ERA was 3.70, with an improved 3.88 FIP to go with it. His strikeout and walk rates returned to levels much more in line with his career norms, underscoring the return of the bat-missing abilities and command that were absent at the start of the campaign. 

With that return to form should come a return to the headlines this offseason, and the list of suitors could reach nearly half the league. But what can Marlins President of Baseball Operations Peter Bendix reasonably expect in return for his ace pitcher?

 

Comparable deals

With $38 million left on his contract ($17 million in 2026 plus a $21 million club option for 2027, which our model assumes will be exercised), Alcántara’s surplus value comes in at a modest $10.1 million by our model’s estimation. Put another way, if Alcantara were a free agent right now, we estimate he’d be worth $48.1M on the market for a two-year deal (roughly a $24M AAV). That seems about right to us, given that he’s not a slam-dunk ace anymore (his Baseball Savant page shows a lot of blue, suggesting that he still hasn’t totally returned to his former form).

Comparable trades for a pitcher of Alcántara’s stature are difficult to come by, but for the last offseason trade of a top-line starter exceeding 6 years of service time and with more than one year left on his contract, you have to go back to the Yu Darvish trade to the Padres after the 2020 season. Although Darvish was in peak form in the shortened season, he was 34 with three years and $62 million left on his contract. 

Traded alongside Victor Caratini, who carried a positive surplus value of his own at the time, the Cubs received SP Zach Davies and four prospects, all ranking outside San Diego’s top 10 according to MLB Pipeline. Our model tabbed this package at $12.4 million in surplus value, close to where we have Alcántara today. There are differences here, too, but this may be our most instructive comp when considering how money interacts with surplus value, particularly if our $10.1 million estimate holds true. 

For the sake of this exercise, if we adjust his surplus value up by roughly $7 million, we find a more potentially instructive comp in last offseason’s trade of Brady Singer to the Reds. That return offers an example of what a trade in that surplus value ballpark could look like, where the Royals addressed their need for on-base skills by acquiring former Rookie of the Year Jonathan India, who had two years of arbitration left. 

Miami’s most glaring need is power production, specifically at first base. Given that first base has seemingly been devalued over the past few years, the Marlins might reasonably be able to ask for a player with more team control than India had. Some potential matches from pitching-needy teams could be Spencer Torkelson of the Tigers, Coby Mayo of the Orioles, and Mark Vientos of the Mets. I’m not sure this is the best way for the Marlins to fill their need at first base, but I would guess one or two of these teams would be amenable to that kind of swap if the Marlins wanted to go that route.

The more likely scenario, in my opinion, is that Alcántara is moved primarily for prospects. I think a headliner anywhere in a team's top 5-to-10 range of prospects is a reasonable ask. 

 

Possible fits

There are too many potential suitors to go through each of them individually, but the Cubs were reportedly one of the more aggressive teams in the mix for Alcántara at the deadline, so we’ll use them to illustrate what some packages could look like. The Cubs have two near-ready prospects that could be of particular interest to Miami: Jonathan Long, a powerful first baseman who hit 20 home runs in AAA this year and is ranked as Chicago’s No. 7 prospect by MLB Pipeline; and center fielder Kevin Alcántara, who was brought up for a cup of coffee the past two seasons, has plenty of power projection of his own, and ranks as Chicago's No. 5 prospect according to Pipeline. 

A deal including both of these players would represent the absolute ceiling for a potential return, giving maximum credence to all of the factors that could inflate Alcantara’s market. An outcome where just one player of this caliber comes back alongside two or three lower-level prospects is probably more likely. 

 

Should they trade him now?

Then again, the Marlins showed some surprising life on the field in 2025, so it’s not out of the question that they keep Alcantara in the fold in hopes of a playoff run in 2026. In other words, the fact that they don’t have to trade him might give them more leverage for an overpay if they decide to do so. We expect them to at least actively entertain offers.