Decision-Related Decision: Did Sandy Alcantara Miss the All-Star Game Due To His Record?

Since entering the league, Miami Marlins starting pitcher Sandy Alcantara has proven himself as one of the most consistent young arms in not just the National League, but the entire MLB. This season has been no different for the 25-year-old Dominican right-hander.

Alcantara got the nod as Opening-Day starter for the Marlins this year and began the year allowing just two hits in six shutout innings at home versus the Tampa Bay Rays. The consistency has not wavered since that brilliant beginning of the season.

In 19 overall starts, Alcantara has registered 13 quality starts. That isn’t just good for a young pitcher—it is near-elite for anybody. Alcantara’s 68.4 QS% is good enough to rank 13^th in the MLB this season. Even more impressively, perhaps, is that Alcantara has allowed one earned run or fewer in 8-of-his-19 starts.

With such an impressive number of quality AND dominant starts this season, you might assume that Alcantara could be headed to Coors Field to represent the NL in Colorado for the 2021 All-Star Game. That, however, was not the case when the full All-Star rosters were announced.

So, why didn’t Sandy Alcantara make the National League All-Star team this season?

1. Tough-Luck Losses = An Unimpressive Record

Remember when you found out that Alcantara had allowed one earned run or fewer in eight of his starts this season? For most pitchers (Jacob deGrom excused), that would be an amazing foundation for a solid win-loss record.

But Alcantara? He has recorded a win in just three of those eight starts, as the Marlins are 4-4 in starts that he gives up one earned run or fewer. In a handful of those eight games, Alcantara displayed his entire repertoire of movement and velocity. But it was a June 16^th matchup in St. Louis versus the Cardinals that best illustrates Alcantara’s powerful stuff combined with his tough luck.

Alcantara was tagged as the losing pitcher in the Marlins’ 1-0, walk-off loss that night, but in no way was he responsible for the loss. Throughout his 8.1 inning, six-hit complete game, Alcantara worked around a handful of singles with clutch pitches to induce soft groundouts and double plays to end each threat. Despite hitting two batters, Alcantara was powerfully in control with his location as he hit his spots and kept hitters off-balance throughout the night. Even the fact that the Cardinals’ (unearned) winning run came after a leadoff error speaks positively about Alcantara. Don Mattingly keeping his young starter in shows just how much trust the Marlins’ manager has in his young ace-in-the-making.

1B. Lack of Run Support = An Even More Unimpressive Record

No pitcher, at any level, gets run support every game. It is a part of the game that there will be hard losses and low-scoring games. Maybe Alcantara’s tough luck losses are made up for by the Marlins scoring runs in droves in his other starts?

That would be nice if it were the case, but it isn’t. In the 10 starts that Alcantara has given up between 2-4 earned runs, he is just 2-6.

Overall, the Marlins average just 3.11 RPG in Alcantara’s starts. That figure is good for 4^th-worst in the MLB (minimum 15 GS), and includes eight starts where the Marlins were either shutout or scored just a single run. In addition to the 1-0 Marlins loss vs. St. Louis, the team also has losses of 1-0 (vs. TB), 2-0 (vs. PHI). 2-1 (vs. TOR), and 2-1 (vs. MIL) in games Alcantara has started.

All of this is a perfect storm for Alcantara to be pitching perhaps the best baseball of his young career, and still sit here at the All-Star break with a 5-8 record. Although…

2. Trevor Rogers Already Representing Miami Blocked the Way

Sandy Alcantara isn’t the only Marlins starting pitcher that has given Marlins fans hope for the future rotation. Trevor Rogers, Miami’s 2017 1^st round pick, has emerged as the likely NL Rookie of the Year and earned himself a spot on the All-Star team as a result. His 2.36 ERA is t-7^th best in the MLB, while he also ranks top-15 in pWAR and K/9. Basically, there is no doubt that Trevor Rogers is a 2021 All-Star. That reality didn’t exactly help Alcantara carve a path to his second-career All-Star game.

The Marlins are just 39-50 at the break. The team is last place in the NL East, while also sitting 12 games and seven teams back in the wild-card chase. The likelihood that a team in last place would find a way to have two starting pitchers make the All-Star Game this year was minuscule, though not non-existent. For Sandy Alcantara to join his teammate in Denver, though, he needed to be perfect this year.

Sadly, he had one blemish.

3. One Bad Start Is All That It Takes

Alcantara entered his May 14^th matchup against Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 2.72 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, and a .203 BAA. While he was just 1-2 through seven starts, he had been pitching very well to start the season and looked as though a second career All-Star nod was a real possibility.

By the time Alcantara exited the mound that evening at Dodger Stadium, he had allowed a career-high eight earned runs in a career-low 1.1 innings. The disastrous outing raised his ERA nearly 50%. Alcantara was able to record 3-of-the-4 outs he made via the strikeout, but the bright spots were few and far between that evening as he wasted an eventual six (!!!) Marlins runs that evening in a rare offensive outburst for the team.

Obviously, it is a long season and you can’t remove the bad starts just to boost a pitcher’s All-Star argument.

But… if you take out Alcantara’s May 14^th start versus the Dodgers? His ERA drops to 2.49—good for 8^th best in the NL, and a figure that does a much better job of helping you look past his 5-8 record.

No ASG for Alcantara: Fishy at First, But Understandable

When it is all said and done and the National League All-Stars take the field alongside their teammates at Coors Field, Sandy Alcantara won’t be out there.

His rookie teammate, Trevor Rogers, will be. For that reason, Marlins fans should rejoice. It is an honor to be able to call such an up-and-coming young arm a member of your pitching staff. As amazing and encouraging as it would have been to see Alcantara join him as an All-Star this season—it just wasn’t in the cards this season.

A combination of low-scoring losses, one bad start two months ago, and the emergence of another talented arm within the Marlins rotation kept him just on the cusp of his second All-Star appearance. It doesn’t quite qualify as a snub, as it would be hard to argue for Alcantara over any of the other NL pitchers on the roster. But his exclusion from the roster should serve as a motivating factor for a pitcher as driven as Alcantara is. If just a few little things had gone differently this season, we might be documenting how the young Miami Marlins found a way to starters 25-or-under to the All-Star Game together.

The future of Miami’s rotation is bright—even with Sandy Alcantara’s All-Star hopes dimmed and blackened this season.