Sandy Alcantara all but confirmed the Cubs have to trade for him

The Miami Marlins fell to the Philadelphia Phillies in the opener of a three-game set on Monday night, but the team may have won where it mattered most.

2022 NL Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara was rock-solid on the mound, striking out five over five innings of two-run ball. It's his third straight encouraging outing after a disastrous start to the 2025 season; he's lowered his ERA from 8.47 to 6.88 over the last two weeks.

The first two of those outings came against the Colorado Rockies (in Miami) and the Pittsburgh Pirates; hardly the stiffest competition. But facing a Phillies lineup that still brings plenty of talent to the table, he still managed to look an awful lot like his old self.

His stuff remains as wicked as ever; his sinker sits in the high 90s, and he produces ground balls at a prodigious clip. But as he shook off the rust from nearly two full years on the shelf, it was clear that he was having a hard time finding his feel and commanding the strike zone — often the last things to come back after a pitcher undergoes Tommy John surgery. That's why this recent stretch has been so encouraging: Alcantara has walked a combined three batters over these three starts, pounding the strike zone and putting together much more competitive at-bats.

It's still too early to proclaim Alcantara all the way back; three starts obviously isn't the largest sample size, and he has a long way to go to reclaim the heights he reached three years ago. But this looks an awful lot like the pitcher who was tearing up the league not too long ago, and that's very good news for contenders looking for a rotation upgrade — and especially the Chicago Cubs.

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If Sandy Alcantara keeps pitching like this, the Marlins have to trade him

Chicago is approaching this year's trade deadline with one thing on its mind: pitching, pitching and more pitching. Jed Hoyer has already admitted as much to reporters; with Justin Steele out for the year after elbow surgery and Shota Imanaga still working his way back from a hamstring strain, the Cubs need reinforcements in the rotation if they want to make a serious push toward an NL pennant.

But as things stand, it's unclear who those reinforcements might be. This is shaping up to be a seller's market for starting pitching, with precious few options that figure to be available in late July. With the Arizona Diamondbacks signalling that they have no interest in cutting bait with Zac Gallen or Merrill Kelly, you're left with gambles on veterans like Andrew Heaney or Tyler Anderson — unless, of course, Alcantara pitches well enough to convince the Marlins that now is the time to sell high.

The righty has one more guaranteed year on his deal with Miami, plus a team option for 2027. That means that there's really no reason for the Marlins to force an Alcantara trade; they have plenty of time to wait for him to start pitching better (and for his market to recover accordingly). That said, the team will be able to command a higher price the more team control Alcantara still has attached, and they'd love it if he started looking like his old self as quickly as possible.

That sure looks like what's happening right now, with around six weeks still to go until the deadline. If Alcantara keeps pitching like this, there's no reason for Miami not to pull the trigger: His value will never be higher, and teams will never be more motivated than in the midst of a playoff push. And if Alcantara is in fact available this summer, Chicago can't afford to let this opportunity pass it by.

Which team can put together the best offer for Sandy Alcantara at the trade deadline?

Assuming Gallen and Kelly aren't on the market, an Alcantara who's anything remotely resembling his ceiling — especially given his contract — would be far and away the most enticing rotation option in the league. Everyone figures to be in on him; but luckily for the Cubs, not everyone has as deep a farm system as Hoyer's assembled over the last few years.

The Cubs have five players on MLB Pipeline's latest top-100 list, and that's not even including young MLB talent like Matt Shaw, Michael Busch and Ben Brown. Combine that organizational depth with a strong core of prime big-league talent, and there are few teams better positioned to get this deal done. Other contenders like the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers could get involved and throw in plenty of young talent of their own, but neither would seem to have as clear and pressing a need for starting pitching as the Marlins do right now.

All of which puts Chicago in the position of praying that Alcantara can keep this up for a few more weeks. If he does, the Marlins will have no choice but to make him available, and that'll put Hoyer in the driver's seat.