Marlins' Sandy Alcantara talks of emotional roller coaster amid trade deadline uncertainty
It has been thought all season that the Miami Marlins could move on from Alcantara amid their rebuilding project, which has included shipping out established players for prospects.
And as Thursday's 6 p.m. trade deadline approached, the Marlins ace could not hide his nerves.
He sat in front of his television watching baseball programming with his family for most of the day, repeatedly checking his phone to see if he had been traded.
'It was hard, man,' Alcantara said Friday. 'Every time I get on my phone, I see my name. I thought that I was leaving.'
Miami opted not to trade its 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner. In their only trade Thursday, the Marlins sent their longest-tenured position player in outfielder Jesús Sánchez to the Houston Astros for right-hander Ryan Gusto and two prospects, infielder Chase Jaworsky and outfielder Esmil Valencia.
The rest of the team, which has won five straight series and went 15-10 in July, remains intact. Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said Friday that the club's recent success, in part, factored into its approach at the deadline.
And manager Clayton McCullough said if there weren't trade scenarios that 'moved the needle for us in the near and the long term,' the Marlins were happy to continue competing with the group they have.
Amid what was expected to be a season of finding out which of its relatively inexperienced pieces Miami could build around in the future, the Marlins are third in the National League East at 52-55 and entered Friday seven games behind San Diego for the National League's third wild-card spot.
Bendix declined to say how close Miami was to finalizing a trade for Alcantara but noted that the team 'felt really comfortable' with its ultimate decision.
'All of the things that go into building a sustainably successful team were taken into consideration,' he said, 'at a deadline where you have all of these decisions in front of you. It's our job to be disciplined. Disciplined means listening, means having conversations, and then means trying to figure out the best decision to make for every decision point that we have.'
Alcantara has played most of his eight-year career in Miami, going 47-64 with a 3.64 ERA in 159 starts while becoming the first Miami player to win the Cy Young Award after a 2022 season in which he pitched a league-high 228 innings and six complete games.
Alcantara, 29, missed the 2024 season recovering from Tommy John surgery and hasn't yet returned to form in 2025. He is 6-9 with a 6.36 ERA, and despite being known as one of MLB's most durable starters, has only pitched seven innings once.
He said it has taken a new level of mental toughness to play through a season not knowing if he would finish the year with the Marlins.
'It was a little hard because everywhere you go, every time you grab your phone, you see your name on the media,' Alcantara said. 'But you (can't) think too much about it. Just stay focused on everything you can do. I just came here, and if something happened, it just happened.'
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Alcantara's most recent two starts have been his best, an indicator to both the player and the Marlins that he may be close to returning to his All-Star caliber play.
He allowed one run and four hits in a season-high seven innings against the San Diego Padres on July 23, then pitched five shutout innings in a win at St. Louis on Tuesday.
'Sandy is continuing to trend,' McCullough said. 'And we're going to continue to be the beneficiaries of having Sandy for the rest of the season, continuing to get back to the pitcher that we all know Sandy is.'
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