Ranking three Miami Marlins starting pitchers who fit the Blue Jays

Pablo Lopez

In my opinion, Pablo Lopez is the most underrated pitcher in baseball. He’s not flashy and doesn’t throw particularly hard. However, Pablo Lopez has cemented himself as one of baseball’s best young arms.

The 26-year-old went 5-5 with a 3.07 ERA in his 20 starts this season. He struck out 10.1/9, walked 2.3/9, and allowed 1.0 HR/9. Like Alcantara, he strikes out a ton of batters, doesn’t walk too many, and keeps the ball in the yard. There’s not much more you can ask for.

However, Alcantara gets the job done with 100 mph fastballs and wicked sliders. Lopez gets the job done with a 93 mph fastball and a wicked changeup. When I say wicked, I mean one of the better changeups in the game.

This season, Lopez threw his changeup 32.5% of the time, more than any other pitch in his five-pitch repertoire. The fact that Lopez ranked in the 94th percentile in chase rate according to Baseball Savant without throwing particularly hard shows me that his breaking pitches are extremely effective.

Lopez is projected to make $2.5 million this season and has two more years of arbitration left. I believe he’s more likely to be traded than Alcantara because the Marlins just paid Alcantara and they haven’t shown a willingness to pay many guys at once.

Lopez would not be cheap but he’s a guy who I believe would thrive in the AL East. 47% of his batted balls put in play in 2021 were on the ground. Only 20.7% of his batted balls were in the air. This shows that Lopez can pitch well in the smaller parks in the division as he likely won’t allow many long balls.

I believe he’d slot in very nicely in the middle of the Jays rotation and makes them even more formidable than they already are.