Along with being in second place in the NL East, the Miami Marlins have some more good news. Miami’s very own Isan Diaz has decided to rejoin the team. Diaz wasn’t one of the 18 players who came down with COVID-19 during the outbreak at the beginning of the season. That outbreak riddled Miami in that first week and spurred on his decision to opt out of the season at the beginning of August.
“This has been a tough week to see so many of my teammates come down with the virus, and see how quickly it spreads,” said Diaz.
Since then he has changed his tune and, thanks to an agreement by the MLB and Players Association, will rejoin the team for the remainder of the 2020 campaign.
The re-arrival of Diaz comes as the Marlins procured several deals, including the departure of Jonathan Villar and the arrival of Starling Marte. The departure of Villar had in some degree to do with Diaz’s arrival back to the Marlins roster. The former number four MLB prospect now has a clear path back to a starting role in the infield for Miami as their every day second basemen. While Diaz was absent from the team, both Villar and Sean Rodriguez took up taking shots at second base for the Fish.
The leadup for Diaz
Diaz had only played two games before deciding to opt out for the season. That means there hasn’t been a lot of work logged by him so far. Overall, across his MLB playing career with the Marlins, Diaz is hitting .176 with 33 hits and 23 RBI. He comes off of a 2019 campaign where he only had a 15 percent whiff rate on fastballs. Overall, according to baseballsavant.mlb.com, Diaz also reached contact on 84 percent of pitches thrown to him in the zone and over 50 percent of pitches thrown outside the strike zone.
Diaz was thought of as being a dynamic bat since coming over to Miami in the Yelich trade. He did produce a slash line of .305/.395/.578 with 26 homers in the minor league ranks.
Until Diaz official returns to the lineup card, utility player Jon Berti will handle the second base duties. Berti has 91 plate appearances under his belt in 2020 and has 19 hits and a .244 average.
Main Photo
Embed from Getty Images
