Jakob Marsee’s 2026 season ended in a way nobody in Miami wanted to see, but the larger picture is still easy to understand: when he’s on the field, he gives the Marlins exactly the kind of player they’ve been chasing.
That wasn’t obvious in the spring. After a breakout 55-game rookie stretch in 2025, Marsee looked like he might be the rare cost-controlled position player with real upside in Miami’s lineup.
He hit .292/.363/.478/.842 in that debut run, posted a wRC+ that was 33 percent better than league average, and finished with 1.9 bWAR despite playing only about a third of the team’s games. On a 162-game pace, he was tracking like a six-win player in his age-24 season.
That’s why the question going into 2026 centered less on whether Marsee would make the Opening Day roster and more on whether the Marlins would lock him up early. The sides did talk extension, but nothing got done.
Then the season started, and the first few months were rough. Marsee opened with a .506 OPS in March, followed by .572 in April, then managed a .702 mark in May before sliding again to .527 in June.
By midseason, he was sitting on a .189/.307/.287/.595 line. Among 51 hitters with at least 350 plate appearances through June, his 71 wRC+ was dead last.
And yet, that was not the final word.
Once July arrived, Marsee turned things around in a hurry. Over his last 265 plate appearances, he hit .286/.401/.455, good for a 139 wRC+. He finished the year as a league-average hitter overall, ranked third on the Marlins in stolen bases, and showed enough in center field to leave little doubt he could handle the position defensively.
The biggest reason to keep believing in him is pretty simple: he gets on base. Even during the worst of the early-season slump, Marsee still drew walks at a 12.5 percent clip through June, which ranked 18th in the sport. After the turnaround, he kept that same edge, walking 12.8 percent of the time in the second half.
That kind of strike-zone control mattered all year. Marsee became the first Marlin since Christian Yelich in 2017, age 25 or younger, to draw at least 75 walks in a season. Across MLB, he was one of only three players 25 or younger to pair 75-plus walks with 20-plus steals, joining Pete Crow-Armstrong and James Wood.
There was some good fortune involved in the rebound, too. Marsee carried a .275 wOBA through the end of June, then watched that climb to .371 the rest of the way. In other words, the process stayed solid, and the results eventually caught up.
His glove gives Miami another reason to stay invested. Marsee finished in the 94th percentile in outs above average and the 78th percentile in arm strength among center fielders. Not every metric loved him - defensive runs saved had him at -9 - but the overall case for keeping him in center is still there.
The lingering offensive question is power. Given his build, there’s a fair assumption that more thump could be in there, and one possible route to it would be a slightly more aggressive approach. Marsee swung at 58.9 percent of pitches in the strike zone this season, compared with 62.4 percent in the majors in 2025 and 64.6 percent in the minors when he was a much more dangerous slugger.
Health now becomes the biggest variable. Marsee is undergoing left UCL reconstruction surgery and is expected to start 2027 on the injured list if Opening Day goes as scheduled.
The Marlins do have a fallback if he’s sidelined. Fish On First’s third-ranked prospect Cam Cannerella looks close to a call-up after crushing three levels in 2026 with a .324/.422/.512/.934 line, 21 steals, and a reputation as a 60-grade defender.
Still, even with the injury and even if Marsee never fully matches the player he looked like in 2025, the profile remains valuable. A patient hitter who can play a premium position and contribute on the bases is the kind of piece that matters for a team trying to build something real in 2027 and beyond.