MIAMI — Miami Marlins first baseman Connor Norby has been a jack of all trades ever since he turned pro. He was considered one of the premier second-base prospects in the Baltimore Orioles organization but also played numerous games in the outfield. 

The Marlins acquired the 25-year-old along with Kyle Stowers in a trade for Trevor Rogers in 2024 and were immediately shifted to third base, a transition he said was “not easy.”

“Learning going from second to third was extremely difficult,” Norby said. “I felt like I made a lot of good strides compared to the first month, six weeks that I had over there at the end of 2024.”

Norby posted a .924 fielding percentage during 30 games at third base in 2024 and improved to .954 through 82 games last year. He said he “worked really hard at third this spring,” knowing that he is competing for a full-time spot with a recipient of a Gold Glove as a utility fielder. He welcomed adding first base to his list of positions because the true goal is to “be in the lineup every day and putting up consistent at-bats and having my bat in the lineup.”

“I feel pretty good over there,” Norby said. “I almost treat it pretty much like second base. I just have to cover the base, and I think that’s really helped me a lot. Obviously, we have a really good second baseman, so that helps me even more. He covers a lot of ground, and the transition has been, honestly, not as bad, not as tough as I thought it would be.”

At a new position, 2026 has shaped up to be Norby’s best with a glove, turning in a .985 fielding percentage with two errors in 18 games at first base. It’s the first year that he has a positive run value (1). Norby said it’s about “being comfortable with your feet around the base,” and “knowing how our guys throw.”

“That’s more so the thing that I’m working through the most and getting as comfortable as I can,” Norby said. “But overall, I feel great.”

 The Marlins (15-16) return home for a 10-game homestand, starting with a four-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s ironic that while the Miami Marlins are bringing back the uniforms and colors of a glorified past, they are sporting the next iconic middle infield duo.

Like Luis Castillo-Alex Gonzalez and Dan Uggla-Hanley Ramirez before them, Otto Lopez and Xavier Edwards are emerging from low-key acquisitions as key parts of the Marlins lineup.

Lopez came to the Marlins in 2024 as a waiver claim. Just as the Marlins were slowly trading away pieces of their most recent playoff team, Lopez emerged as an intriguing rookie with a .270 batting average, 20 stolen bases, and elite defense at second base.

His bat has taken the next step this year, batting .337 with a .945 OPS through 22 games. He was a double shy of a cycle last Friday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Marlins manager Clayton McCullough says Lopez is taking “less empty at-bats,” which is leading to better results.

“He’s a physically strong guy,” McCullough said of Lopez. “Maybe it doesn’t appear that way. It’s a really compact body. He’s strong. He’s got strong hands. There’s speed in his bat. So I think it’s not, to me, that completely shocking, that we’re seeing some of this.”

Around the same time, Edwards was also emerging alongside Lopez, batting .328 with 31 stolen bases in 70 games. Edwards didn’t replicate those numbers through the course of a full season in 2025 but his start to this season (.341/.423/.482) is signaling a return to his breakout season.

Edwards said during an interview with Five Reasons contributor Tyler Boronski that he has “been swinging at good pitches for the most part” and doesn’t feel the need to enter new seasons with statistical goals.

“I did that in years past and it’s kind of put pressure on myself to feel like I need to hit certain numbers,” Edwards said. “My goal this year is to play my game do my best every day and at the end of the year, I’ll look up and be happy with what I got.”

Unlike middle infield duos of the Marlins’ past, Edwards and Lopez switched positions and benefited from the adjustment.

“Otto has a bigger arm than me,” Edwards said. “We’re both really good defenders and pretty athletic so it’s a treat to play infield with him for parts of three years.”

Edwards came to Miami in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays leading up to the 2023 season. He was part of the Marlins’ fourth postseason appearance in franchise history (second since 2020) but became a key part of the rapid rebuild.

“We had a bit of an older team in 23 and now we’re one of the younger teams in the league,” Edwards said. “We made the playoffs that year and we got a good team this year, so looking to do the same this year. It’s been a lot of turnover but it’s a great group that we have here. It’s been a treat to come to the field with these guys and to suit up with them and spend time in the clubhouse. We got a great group.”

There were two signs over the offseason that proved the Miami Marlins front office believed in what they did in the first year of the latest rebuild and leaned into it going into 2026.

They signed a reliable closer in free agency and kept their ace.

Fresh off an Opening Day pitching performance that prompted infielder Connor Norby to call him “Vintage Sandy” in his postgame interview with the Marlins Radio Network, Sandy Alcantara tossed the first complete game shutout of the season, allowing only three hits with seven strikeouts to lead the Marlins to a 10-0 win over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.

“Sandy was really good,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “I thought we came in with a good game plan, guys were engaged and were competitive. We just got beat by a really good pitcher and I think it’s as simple as that.”

It was Alcantara’s 13th career complete game and first since 2023. A lost art in modern-day pitching, Alcantara won the 2022 National League Cy Young Award for throwing six complete games.

“It’s been a long time since throwing a complete game but this one is special for me,” Alcantara said.

In his first two starts of the season, Alcantara has gone 16 innings without giving up an earned run, nor has he hit the 100-pitch benchmark in each of his starts. He has 12 total strikeouts and two walks while averaging 10.4 pitches per inning.

“We just didn’t have an answer for him. He had really good stuff. He pounded the zone, made it really tough on us to do anything,” Venable said, “just never had a chance.”

Alcantara hasn’t looked as good since his Cy Young season. Unfortunately, that didn’t yield a winning season from the Marlins, and by the time Miami was good enough to reach the postseason a year later, he was declining to the point of requiring Tommy John surgery.

By the time he returned in 2025, it was a completely different team. He still had his affable apprentice in Eury Perez alongside him to form one of the more formidable 1-2 pitching duos in the NL East.

His return to form coincides with the team’s rebirth under a newer, younger flourish. As the Marlins started the previous season with a bunch of unknowns who arrived via waiver claims, mixed with some who came in high-profile trades. He had a pre-All-Star break ERA of 7.22 in 18 starts and the Marlins were as low as 25-41 on June 11, 2025.

A switch was flipped on June 13 and since then, only four division winners have won more games than the Marlins: Milwaukee (64),

Seattle (60), Toronto (60), and Philadelphia (59). Alcantara posted a 3.33 ERA in his final 13 starts of the season as a clear sign of his comeback.

“It’s been well-documented a ton how much of a struggle it was early for him last year and most of the year,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “So for him, he just never gives in. He just keeps competing.”

Marlins president of Baseball Operations Peter Bendix resisted the urge to trade Alcantara on the final year of a 5-year, $56M extension (with a 2027 team option) knowing what was coming. He predicted on Opening Day that this was going to be Alcantara’s best season and so far he may be right.

The Marlins (5-1) have won both of their home series to start the 2026 season. Miami will travel to New York to take on the Yankees on Easter weekend for their first road trip of the year. They are going to need vintage Sandy all year if their playoff aspirations are to be realistic, and they know that.

“Hopefully I gotta keep healthy all season long and keep winning to take this team into the playoffs,” Alcantara said.

The Miami Marlins were promised a star in the making in Owen Caissie and so far it appears that promise is being kept.

Very few Marlins players have made the introduction Caissie has. Every hit he knocks carries significance. None more so than when he entered Sunday’s game against the Colorado Rockies late and won it on a two-run walk-off homer to put the Marlins on top 4-3.

“I kind of blacked out,” Caissie said. “It was awesome to get the W and to get the sweep was great.”

Caissie wasn’t in the starting lineup entering the game due to the Marlins playing the matchups against Rockies left-handed starting pitcher Jose Quintana. He entered the game as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning and delivered when the Marlins were down to their last out.

“You kind of wish for those moments like this,” Caissie said. “I just want to keep putting good swings on the ball. I know that it’s not always going to be like this, but if I can continue to stick with my plan, I know good things are going to happen.”

While the first series of the season is a microscopic sample size, one has to also include his initial introduction to the Marlins organization, which was to play for Team Canada at the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Caissie collected seven hits, led the team with five RBI, and helped propel Canada to its first quarterfinal round in the tournament’s 20-year history.

“He started off spring training a little slow. I think he was putting a little pressure on himself, obviously trying to make a good impression for the new organization. Then WBC he really kind of got those ABs every day,” said Marlins catcher Liam Hicks, who was also Caissie’s teammate with Canada. “It’s awesome to finally see him get the opportunity.“

Now compound that to his first three games where every time he reaches base, it leads to the Marlins scoring a run that proved to be the difference between 3-0 and 0-3. Similar numbers, as he went 5-for-10 with a home run, four RBI and a stolen base. 

“He’s been unbelievable for us,” Marlins second baseman Xavier Edwards said of Caissie, “swinging a really hot bat.”

With a left-handed stroke that generates swift bat speed and power, Caissie’s stated approach of hitting the ball down the middle has paid off early on. Especially Saturday when he hit for two doubles and a go-ahead RBI single.

“I’m gonna make mistakes, but today I felt like I did a good job at swinging at good pitches,” Caissie said after Saturday’s 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies.

The price for him was seemingly high. The Marlins had to send Edward Cabrera away after completing the best season of his young career (3.53 ERA, 150 SO, 137.2 IP). He is signed for $4.45M this year and is bound to be far pricier as he goes through more years of arbitration, so it was time for the Marlins to restart the clock on a player with just as much potential.

It wasn’t the first time Caissie was traded for a potent pitcher. After the San Diego Padres made Caissie the highest-drafted Canadian outfielder ever (45th overall) in 2020, he became the prized prospect in a seven-player trade for Yu Darvish that December.

Through one year in Double-A and two in Triple-A, Caissie averaged 21 home runs per season in his aged 20-22 seasons. His 22 homers last year with Triple-A Iowa came in 99 games, his lowest since 2021, and it came with a career high .937 OPS, which was third in the International League. That propelled him to the big leagues with the Cubs in mid-August, where he collected five hits in 12 games.

It’s evident early on that Caissie fits with this young Marlins team far more than with a Cubs squad filled with established veterans and deep postseason expectations. Who knows, maybe they’ll meet again in October.

”We have a lot of fun and we play loose and relaxed,” Caissie said. “We’re never out of the game so we really play with that intensity.”

No Miami Marlins pitcher has started on Opening Day as often as Sandy Alcantara.

The first prized prospect netted in the Bruce Sherman ownership era, Alcantara made his big league debut in 2018 and he has been the ace of the Fighting Fish ever since, with two playoff appearances and a Cy Young award to his name.

Alcantara started the all-so crucial 2026 season with a strikeout. He finished his sixth Opening Day start with a seven-inning gem allowing no earned runs on four hits, two walks, and five strikeouts in a Marlins 2-1 win over the Colorado Rockies.

“We know this is a long season,” Alcantara said, “and it’s better when you start winning.”

It was the type of performance that had first baseman Connor Norby proclaiming it as “vintage Sandy” during his postgame interview.

“Everything was working today,” Alcantara said. “Put a lot of sweeper in today and we’ve got to see the result.”

That sweeper is what has the Marlins confident in the 30-year-old’s chances of returning to his peak form. After returning from Tommy John surgery and struggling through the first half of 2025, Alcantara went 7-3 with a 3.33 ERA in 13 starts, signaling a potential return to greatness this year.

“He’s building on that this year by adding a new pitch, adding a sweeper,” Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said. “His changeup is even better than before. It’s really the version of Sandy from a few years ago.”

Alcantara is in the final year of a five-year, $56M extension he signed in 2022, just before he won the 2022 Cy Young (2.28 ERA, 8.0 WAR, 228.2 IP, 207K). His contract also contains a team option for 2027, which has given the ace a lot of trade value.

However, Alcantara is more valuable to a Marlins team that is gearing up for a potential playoff push.

“Sandy’s really important to this organization,” Bendix said, “the things that he’s accomplished here, what he means to this organization. We know that and I think he’s proud of that. We’re proud of that.

Miami won 79 games last year with ascending talent and when the Marlins were at their best, so was Sandy. Should he and Eury Perez, who starts on Saturday, reach their potential this year, this young Marlins team could be positioned to compete for the postseason.

“I think this year could be maybe the best year yet for Sandy,” Bendix said.