Miami Marlins Hall Of Famer No. 3- Sandy Alcantara
Why not the player on the Miami Marlins roster who just recently had one of the most dominant seasons in franchise history?
That'd be 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara, who put up a single season WAR of 7.8 en route to the award. Only Kevin Brown and Stanton sit ahead of him in club history for single-season dominance in terms of WAR, each edging Sandy out by a mere tenth of a percent. One more full season could easily be enough to put him atop the Marlins WAR leaderboard. Give him two more campaigns, and he'll likely be leading in everything but wins. Technically, Miami has him under control through 2027. Plenty of time to rack up wins and more awards. Even at this early stage of his career, you might be hard pressed to name five Marlins that are or were clearly better players.
Sadly, there are two major problems with a case for Alcantara entering the Hall of Fame as a Marlin. For one, he won't throw a single pitch in 2024 on account of Tommy John surgery. While a full recovery has become almost common place, it does sometimes take a full season after returning for that to happen. The bigger issue actually has nothing to do with the surgery, but rather the fact that the next time Alcantara throws a pitch in a Marlins uniform, he will do so as the highest paid player in Marlins history.
Basically, the only way Sandy isn't traded by the 2027 MLB Trade Deadline is if the Marlins are working on a three-peat but he's the only healthy pitcher.
Which means the most likely outcome for him is the same situation the Marlins find themselves in with Stanton. Where the player started their career in Miami, and possibly even had their best seasons here. Maybe even spent more time in a Marlins uniform than any other. Yet whether or not that is ultimately enough to make a player pick the Marlins as the team they want to be most associated with for all time all remains to be seen. It's also probably entirely dependent on how that new team performs. Alcantara is one of the most competitive players in baseball. If Sandy wins his only ring(s) with whatever team acquires him, he's going in to the Hall representing that club. But if he's a championship caliber player that never wins said championship? He's also the kind of player that would feel deeply loyal to the team that gave him his first real chance, provided things end amicably.
Alternatively, the Marlins could just maximize the heck out of their small window, and do some serious contending themselves. The threepeat crack above was a joke. Winning just one championship would likely be more than enough to get Sandy to pick the Marlins, even if the second half of his career is spent elsewhere.
In all actuality though, there's a third problem that could serve to trip up Sandy's Hall of Fame case more than any of the other points here:
Will Alcantara be seen as a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher, period?
He's not an elite strikeout artist- far from it. He's played for a lot of bad teams already, and is thus very light on pitching wins. Wins might be a terrible stat to measure a pitcher's abilities, but they do tend to come up a lot when you start talking Hall voting. Almost as much as those pesky strikeouts. Do Hall voters turn out for a pitcher with a low win total and a low strikeout rate? Sandy's best asset, his super power, so far in his career has been his endurance. All those innings, all those complete games. How much will this injury change that for him? If he isn't that guy anymore, what is he?
If he can rattle off another decade as efficient as his past three seasons, while winning another Cy Young or two? Probably still an eventual Hall of Famer, even as an elite innings eater. It all comes down to whether he returns to All-Star form after returning from surgery.
The answer to that question, as well as how much longer he stays in a Marlins uniform, will go a long way towards deciding his Hall of Fame fate. Yet he remains in his prime, has recently been discussed as one of the game's best pitchers, and has produced like a Hall of Famer for a full MLB season.
Which makes him very different from the next name on the list...