Marlins Option De Los Santos to Jacksonville, Making Room for Jiménez

Deyvison De Los Santos, the 22-year-old who led all of Minor League Baseball with 40 home runs in 2024, got two days in the majors before the Marlins sent him back to Triple-A Jacksonville on March 30. The move was straightforward: Miami needed a 26-man roster spot for Leo Jiménez, the infielder the club acquired from Toronto the same weekend.

De Los Santos had been recalled March 28 as an emergency measure when Christopher Morel was placed on the 10-day injured list, the designation backdated to March 25. In his only game with the big club, De Los Santos made contact count, lacing a double. But with the Marlins completing the Jiménez trade, sending infielder Dub Gleed and $250,000 in international bonus pool money to Toronto, De Los Santos was the roster equation that had to resolve. Jacksonville is where the Marlins want him earning the next call the hard way.

The position situation in Miami made the path murky even before the Jiménez deal landed. Morel, the club's primary third baseman, figures to return from the IL and reclaim that corner. Javier Sanoja has been handling the position in the interim, platooning with Pauley. With Otto Lopez at shortstop, Xavier Edwards at second, and Jiménez now added as infield depth, De Los Santos has no clear big-league lane until Morel's recovery timeline extends or another opening surfaces.

The deeper story is what the Marlins want De Los Santos to demonstrate in Jacksonville before they hand him a sustained MLB role. His raw power is elite: a 118.5 mph max exit velocity and those 40 home runs are evidence enough. But his approach and his feet have consistently lagged behind his bat speed. His groundball rate sat at 51.3 percent last season, suppressing his power output regardless of exit velocity, and his hard-hit rate landed at just 43.9 percent, a middling figure that reflects how often he is making contact on the pitcher's terms instead of his own.

He did make measurable strides in 2025, cutting his swing rate from 58.2 percent to 51.4 percent and bumping his contact rate from 66.2 to 71 percent. But his zone control against right-handed breaking balls remains his most exploitable weakness. His chase rate reached 32.2 percent in the early weeks of last season, and scouts describe his tendency to expand the zone on spin from righties as borderline disqualifying at the MLB level. Driving that number below 30 percent, and showing he can barrel breaking balls when he does make contact, are the metrics Miami will track most closely from the scouting reports out of Jacksonville.

Defensively, the position shift is already underway. Heavy feet, limited range, and hard hands have never suited De Los Santos at the hot corner against upper-level competition, and the Marlins have been quietly grooming him as a 1B/3B hybrid. Regular at-bats at first base in Jacksonville this season would give the organization cleaner defensive data and De Los Santos a more realistic landing spot at the big-league level.

The Marlins retain him on their 40-man roster with two minor league options remaining, keeping the door open for a midseason activation if Morel's IL stint drags into May or June. A sustained Jacksonville stretch featuring tighter zone control and improved exit angles off breaking balls would make a second recall very difficult to delay. He already proved the ceiling is real. Now he has to prove the floor is stable enough to trust it.