JUPITER, Fla. – The Marlins reassigned Top 100 prospect Robby Snelling to Minor League camp as part of their latest cuts on Wednesday afternoon.
Miami also sent down non-roster invitees Brian Navarreto, Jesús Bastidas, Jacob Berry, Johnny Olmstead and Daniel Johnson.
Snelling, who ranks as the Marlins’ No. 2 prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 39 overall prospect, made an impression during his second big league camp with the organization. He tossed a perfect first inning while facing a trio of All-Stars in the club’s Grapefruit League opener last month and struck out six Astros across three scoreless frames on March 5.
Overall in four Spring Training outings (two starts), the 22-year-old southpaw fanned 13 of 40 batters faced (33%) and gave up eight runs (seven earned) over 8 1/3 innings. He saw his strike percentage improve from 45 to 64% from last spring to this one.
“Really what stood out was for someone still a very young pitcher, he's very advanced, and he's got weapons,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “He's been very open-minded with continuing to play the long game with, ‘What am I going to need to do to be someone that gets out Major League hitters at a high rate?’ And he's got that type of ability. He's so athletic, his ability to repeat his delivery, his ability to strike, [to] move the ball around the zone. He had a terrific camp.”
As the organization’s reigning Minor League Pitcher of the Year, Snelling entered camp on the outside looking in for a combination of reasons. Not only was he a non-roster invitee but Miami also has starting-pitching depth on the 40-man roster with big league experience. Right-handers Sandy Alcantara, Eury Pérez, Chris Paddack and Max Meyer project to be in the Opening Day rotation, with righty Janson Junk and lefty Braxton Garrett vying for the final spot.
Earlier in camp, the Marlins optioned righties Bradley Blalock and Ryan Gusto as well as lefty Dax Fulton to Triple-A Jacksonville. All but Fulton have appeared in the Majors.
“There was nothing that Robby didn't do [to not] make our team,” McCullough said. “He competed great. He performed well. He's coming off a terrific season. But also, the other guys that were here in camp, they also performed very well. My decision was [based] on all these guys that were in competition for these spots. The guys didn't do anything to lose, jeopardize their spot. Every guy's performed well, which made these decisions tough.
“But Robby had a terrific camp. Robby will come up and pitch in Miami at some point this year. If and when that is, we don't know. He doesn't know. It was great to see him in this camp as long as we did and why a lot of the hype is real.”
Snelling made it clear from the get-go that making the Opening Day roster was a goal of his. His time will come sometime this season. The fact Snelling wasn’t sent down until five days remained in big league camp shows how close he is getting.
Rather than join the club in Miami leading up to Opening Night on March 27, Snelling will join a Triple-A Jacksonville rotation looking to defend its national title and that might feature Marlins top prospect and roommate Thomas White (MLB Pipeline’s No. 17 overall prospect), Blalock, Gusto and Fulton. Snelling has 12 starts and 69 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level on his resume.
“When you go down there to get to the big leagues, or get back to the big leagues for guys in other circumstances, you have to one, just continue to get better, go dominate,” McCullough said. “Go get better. All you can do is control that. The other decisions of you or someone else or when are out of your hands. So take care of what you can. You want to be ready when the phone does ring for that to happen.
“I think we'd like to see more consistency with the gyro, some of the breaking balls to give him a chance to have a wider, more robust arsenal, and to be able to get miss. He's got a good heater, and not [needing] to lean on that and being able to have the secondaries all in a good place. Again, this was to say, about Robby in particular, Robby pitched great. Robby is very close to being a Major League pitcher. We also have a lot of other pitchers here in this camp that are in a similar boat.”