Closer Candidates for the 2025 Miami Marlins

With the 2024-25 MLB offseason underway and the season rapidly approaching, the Marlins remain one of the few teams without a predetermined player maintaining the closer role. Despite the robust pitching development the Marlins have flaunted for so long, no currently rostered Marlin has anything more than a diminutive sample of experience in high leverage situations, leaving the premier bullpen related position wide open for an audition to monitor this spring. While the offseason still has plenty of surprises waiting to unpack, the in house options currently possessed may provide more value than anticipated in that prestigious and coveted role.

Calvin Faucher – RHP

Calvin Faucher, a product of the first trade made by Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, flourished in his initial season in South Beach, posting a 3.19 ERA and 2.50 FIP in a career-high 53.2 innings pitched last season while covering a bulk of the closer role innings left available after the midseason Tanner Scott blockbuster. The Faucher acquisition was a move that flew under the radar last offseason, with the mainstream failing to look beyond his lackluster result based metrics, completely neglecting his borderline elite stuff which was just a command tweak away from stemming into the framework for a top end reliever. Faucher’s primary offering is a low-90s cutter, which features relatively abnormal shape, moving like a traditional hybrid slider, though the velocity aligns more with the former. His cutter was an absolute force against opposing batters, platoon neutrally, garnering a .312 xWOBACON and a 28.6% whiff rate, both of which were well above the league’s mean in 2025. Paired with the cutter, Faucher throws a sinker, which is almost certainly an error in the league’s trackman system, as it features more ride than any other sinker in baseball with a minimum 100 pitches thrown. The pitch excelled at the top of the zone for whiffs, with a 30.1% swing and miss rate which is the class of the league for sinkers. Faucher also throws two breaking pitches, a curveball and sweeper, both of which are loved by stuff+ models due to the huge movement and elite velocity combination. This is one of the best and deepest repertoires possessed by a relief pitcher, and leaves Faucher as the leading option for the Marlins’ closer role.

Jesus Tinoco – RHP

Jesus Tinoco was another masterful low-risk acquisition by the Bendix-led front office regime. After being claimed off of waivers from the Chicago Cubs in late July, Tinoco’s second stint with the Marlins went just about as well as anyone could have hoped. In 26.2 innings for the post-deadline, pitching deprived Fish, Tinoco posted a 2.03 ERA and 2.08 FIP while striking out 30, solidifying himself as a part of the team’s future. His ability to cover multiple innings per appearance was an absolute game changer for a Marlins team in which starting pitching struggled with length, though with such an elite performance to close out 2024, we could be

seeing him in more high leverage situations going forward. Tinoco, unlike Faucher, is more of an East-West pitcher, meaning his pitches feature more horizontal movement than vertical, a product of his lower than average arm slot. His sinker-slider combo was virtually unhittable last season, with .235 and .307 xWOBACONs respectively exemplifying this. His ability to tunnel these offerings creates a deceptive visual in which hitters struggle to pick up on. Though a dip in four seam fastball usage might be imperative to building sustainable success for Tinoco, the framework is there and with a strong spring showcase, it’s not impossible to think he opens the season as Miami’s closer.

Michael Baumann – RHP

Michael Baumann is far and away the most volatile, yet highest upside arm in the Marlins bullpen currently. His excellent fastball lights up stuff+ models, though he struggled to find success due to poor command and unfortunate batted ball luck, as seen with the residual between the ERA and ERA estimation statistics such as FIP and xFIP. Baumann’s bread and butter is the aforementioned four seam fastball, which features plus ride at 96.5 MPH from a higher than average arm slot. Baumann’s main secondary is a curveball with spike orientation with about 7” of drop, which hitters weren’t able to square up on, though it didn’t miss nearly as many bats as it could’ve due to the career altering issue of poor pitch location. Baumann’s command issues are an ubiquitous topic at this point of his career, but his lack of sheer control is another factor in his lack of success at the major league level. He walked an unredeemable 10.6% of batters in 2024, with a bottom tenth percentile 12.1% a year before that. There’s some clear cut issues with his approach and mentality on the mound, and the awful batted ball luck obviously did not help with that, though it’s impractical to ignore the upside in favor of an issue so commonly fixed, especially considering the strength of the pitching development in Miami. There was a visible difference in Baumann’s approach and pitchability after being claimed by the Marlins, we saw an immense growth in both his ground ball rate and K/9, some visible, surface level signs of improvement for 2025. Though an immediate shot at the closer role is a longshot, Baumann is a name to monitor if some pieces are moved around this offseason.

The sheer amount of talent Peter Bendix has been able to find for minimal cost is highly impressive, the bullpen is without a doubt the biggest strength of this team heading into the 2025 season, and even without a predetermined closer there is unquestionably some top end talent capable of manning high-leverage innings. With another season of Brandon Mann at the helm of pitching philosophy, and the recently hired former Driveline associate Bill Hezel contributing on that front as well, the talent on this roster only seems to be trending upwards. New manager Clayton McCullough clearly has some options, and it will be very interesting to watch who he leans on to begin this transition period for the Marlins