Marlins Select Eli Villalobos

The Marlins announced this afternoon that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Eli Villalobos. Right-hander Darren McCaughan was designated for assignment in the corresponding move. If Villalobos appears in a game with the club, it’ll be his major league debut.

Villalobos, 26, came up through Miami’s minor league system and was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November 2022 to protect him from the upcoming Rule 5 Draft but found himself squeezed off the club’s roster early in the 2023 season, at which point he was claimed by the Pirates. He was later DFA’d by the Pirates to make room for top prospect Henry Davis on their 40-man roster and was promptly claimed by the Marlins in late June, ending his three-month sojourn out of the organization. Villalobos was once again designated for assignment by Miami shortly thereafter but this time cleared waivers and was outrighted to the minor leagues, where he has remained ever since.

Now, Villalobos will once again get a spot on the Marlins’ 40-man roster and this time will receive an active roster spot to go with it. The right-hander is more or less a pure relief prospect who hasn’t started a game since the 2019 season but has been relief on for multi-inning appearances at the Triple-A level this year, where he’s pitched to a 4.73 ERA in 13 1/3 innings of work across nine appearances while topping out at 51 pitches in a single outing. That ability to pitch multiple innings could make Villalobos a long relief option for the Marlins behind today’s starter, Sixto Sanchez, who is still building up his pitch count and threw just 68 pitches last time out.

It’s a role that McCaughan occupied with the club in recent days. The 28-year-old was a 12th-round pick by the Mariners in the 2017 draft and pitched fourteen innings for his original club from 2021 to 2023 before joining the Marlins this offseason. He was selected to the club’s roster last week to fill the role of long man in the bullpen and struggled through 4 2/3 innings against Oakland last night, allowing eight runs on nine hits and three walks while striking out just two. The brutal outing brings his career ERA at the big league level to 9.16, and the righty’s 5.26 ERA in 89 career games at the Triple-A level inspires little confidence in his ability to be more than a depth option at the big league level going forward. The Marlins will have one week to trade McCaughan or attempt to pass the righty through waivers.