Javier Sanoja’s Unique Role Perfectly Suits the Marlins

In the game of baseball, the need for a serviceable super-utility guy is well under-appreciated. 

There have been countless examples throughout the years of these individuals playing crucial roles for their teams and just how impactful they are for winning ball clubs. For the Miami Marlins, Javier Sanoja is their guy.  

In July of 2019, the Marlins gave Sanoja a $90,000 signing bonus to bring him in as an international free agent from Venezuela at the age of 16. Since then, the Marlins organization has been all he has known. 

Though he may never have ranked as one of the top prospects in the system, getting as high as number 16 on MLB Pipeline’s rankings in 2024, the value that Sanoja provides the major league team goes beyond any rankings.  

I mentioned it before, but a super-utility player can play a pivotal role for his team, especially down the stretch. Having a single player who can play multiple positions for you, at least at an average level, proves invaluable just when you need it most.

Ben Zobrist, while he was with the Rays and Cubs, remains the premier example. Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernández have shown to be that player for the Dodgers in recent years, and Enrique did the same for the Red Sox. Even guys like Marwin Gonzalez, who, even though he may not be mentioned amongst one of the team’s greats, still played a huge role in the early years of the Astros’ AL West dynasty.  

The plus with Sanoja is that he can provide the Fish with above-average defense, which was proven by his winning the utility Gold Glove Award last season. If you were to look up the definition of utility player in the dictionary, a picture of Sanoja would be right there.

Just last season alone, Sanoja spent time at every position outside of first base and catcher. He would even be the emergency relief pitcher in games where manager Clayton McCullough wanted to avoid burning arms anymore, when victory was out of reach.  

In the 2025 season, Sanoja put up 7 Defensive Runs Saved and a +2 Fielding Run Value, which is a Statcast-based metric that measures a player’s overall defensive contribution in terms of runs saved, or cost relative to an average player. In other words, Sanoja provided more than just average defense in this role.

Marlins fans should be no strangers to utility players having a significant role on the team. Players who have filled this role for them in the past have been guys like Miguel Rojas, Jon Berti, Martin Prado, and, my personal favorite, Emilio Bonifacio. Heck, even Enrique Hernández filled that role for the team in his short span with the organization.  

Entering this past weekend (when he went 0-for-8), Sanoja was hitting .281/.333/.395 with one home run, 20 RBI, and a 106 wRC+, while spending time at six different positions in 41 games played. Seven, if you want to include his one relief appearance on the mound. He pitched a clean inning, even striking out a batter.  

What I appreciate and like to refer to the most about Sanoja’s game isn’t his defensive versatility. As a matter of fact, he just happens to be one of the more clutch hitters on the team. It doesn’t matter what point of the game the Marlins have reached; if Sanoja is up at the plate, I am confident in his ability to put the ball in play and make something happen.  

Why? Well, the 88.5% contact percentage he has this season (as of May 28) tells me that it is more than likely the ball is going to be put in play when he puts a swing on it. This isn’t a new skill, either. In his two previous big league seasons, he posted contact percentages of 86.2% (2024) and 88.9% (2025). While his 2024 debut season only consisted of 15 games, his 2025 season gives us 120 games of data to dissect.  

This is also a hitter who is going to be sure that he isn’t going to give at-bats away, considering he has limited opportunities to get to the plate. So far in his 124 plate appearances, he has only struck out 10.5% of the time, which is well below the MLB average of 22.2%. That high contact percentage I had referenced earlier? That is supported by a swing rate just a tick under 50% at 49.9%.  

What truly scrambles my brain about this is that he is doing it while swinging at a career-high mark of 40.9% of pitches out of the zone. His 41.4% chase rate, per Baseball Savant, ranks in the fifth percentile in the majors. How he makes up for it is the limited number of times that he whiffs on pitches. Sanoja currently sits in the 96th percentile in baseball in whiff percentage. 

Earlier, I referenced Sanoja’s “clutchability.” Thanks to data collected by FanGraphs, I can further support that claim.  

Per the data on FanGraphs, just on the Marlins roster alone, Sanoja ranks as the best when it comes to Win Probability Added with a 0.98 score. His 0.78 Clutch rating would rank second on the team behind Owen Caissie, but Caissie has not appeared in as many high-leverage situations as Javi has.  

Something else I mentioned earlier in this article was the impact that utility players have made on winning teams over the years. The most notable performance of the bunch is Zobrist, a star for the 2016 World Series champion Cubs. While he only hit .250 in the postseason, it was his .357 OBP and the 10th-inning, go-ahead RBI in Game 7 that cemented his World Series MVP honors.  

Enrique has shown each season that he has become the modern-day Mr. October with all of the home runs he clubs in the postseason. Even Chris Taylor came away with the co-MVP award in the 2017 NLCS, in which he hit .476 with four home runs and a .989 OPS.  

While the Marlins are not currently in the same organizational position as those other teams mentioned, I would argue that they are not that far away from competing for a spot in the postseason in the seasons to come. I mean, we almost saw it happen just last season.

When the Marlins are ready to take that next step toward competing consistently, having someone like Javier Sanoja on the roster, doing what he has been doing for this team already, is going to prove even more valuable than what he is doing for them now.