Marlins left-hander Jesus Luzardo has been diagnosed with a mild left flexor muscle strain, the club announced to members of the beat, including Isaac Azout of Fish on First. The team didn’t announce if this would impact his expected timeline.
Late last week, the lefty was scratched from his scheduled start and placed on the 15-day injured list due to left elbow tightness. That naturally led to some concern, as is always the case when a pitcher’s throwing arm is mentioned as part of an injury. On top of that, the Marlins had already seen their rotation hit hard by Tommy John surgery. Since Sandy Alcántara and Eury Pérez were already on the IL recovering from Tommy John surgeries, seeing Luzardo go down the same path would be another devastating blow.
Thankfully, it doesn’t seem as though anything like that is in the cards. Shortly after being placed on the IL, Luzardo said his IL placement was precautionary and that he felt he would only miss one or two starts, and there hasn’t yet been anything to suggest that plan isn’t possible. He played catch at the ballpark today, with some video relayed on X by Christina De Nicola of MLB.com. With his injury also reported as muscular in nature and not seemingly related to any ligament damage, that also perhaps suggests the worst fears have been avoided.
That’s undoubtedly good news for Luzardo and the Marlins, even if their season is going incredibly poorly. They are currently sporting a record of 6-23 and FanGraphs has their Playoff Odds down at 0.5 percent.
MLBTR’s Anthony Franco took a look earlier today at who the club might be looking to sell this summer, with Luzardo one of the most attractive pieces they could offer. He made 32 starts for the club last year with an earned run average of 3.58, striking out 28.1 percent of batters against a walk rate of just 7.4 percent. He stumbled out of the gate this year with a 6.58 ERA through five starts, but that’s a fairly small sample size and the injury could have plausibly played a role in that.
Luzardo is controllable for another two seasons after this one, so the Marlins certainly don’t have to trade him this summer. But non-rental pitchers are generally the most sought-after assets at the trade deadline. Given that ownership and the new front office under president of baseball operations Peter Bendix have seemingly been focused on overhauling the club’s farm system and player development apparatus, it stands to reason that they would have interest in selling Luzardo now. By waiting, his salary will rise via arbitration and his window of club control will shrink, thus reducing his value.
For Luzardo, he will obviously want to get healthy and back on the mound. Getting traded is always challenging but perhaps he would welcome the opportunity to join a competitive club for the final months of the season. On top of that, greater health and performance will help him increase his salary via arbitration in the coming seasons. He’s making $5.5M this year and is slated for two more passes through the arb system.
Elsewhere on the roster, infielder Jake Burger is expected to start a rehab assignment in the coming days, per Azout on X. He was out of a bit of a slow start this year, hitting .228/.281/.421 through 16 games for a wRC+ of 92 before landing on the IL due to an oblique injury. But that performance may have been driven by a low batting average on balls in play, as his .233 mark so far this year has been well below average and his previous rate.
He had a breakout 34-homer campaign last year, split between the White Sox and Marlins after a midseason trade. He hit .250/.309/.518 on the year overall for a 120 wRC+. He’s not considered an especially strong defender but the lineup could use his bat. The team has a collective wRC+ of 73 so far this year, a mark that puts them ahead of just the White Sox. The club has been using Josh Bell, Emmanuel Rivera and Vidal Bruján to cover the infield corners lately, but none of that trio is hitting especially well, making it fairly easy for Burger to get back in the lineup once he’s healthy.
More must-reads: