However, one of Miami’s best finds came in the form of a waiver pickup in April of 2024, Otto L\u00f3pez. An elite defender and good base runner, the 27-year-old shortstop has been a big reason for the Marlins’ success in their rebuild, but there is another step he will have to take in order to become a true star. <\/p>\n
With Miami not making any big splashes this offseason, they will be counting on players from within to make strides at the plate. ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez<\/a> listed L\u00f3pez as a player to watch this spring training for that reason. <\/p>\n L\u00f3pez Has All of the Pieces To Improve at the Plate Miami Marlins shortstop Otto L\u00f3pez. | Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images<\/p>\n A valuable player due to his defense and base running, L\u00f3pez has accumulated 6.1 bWAR through his first two seasons as a Marlin. However, L\u00f3pez has posted below league average stats at the plate. In 260 games in a Marlins uniform, the shortstop has a career 88 OPS+ and .680 OPS. <\/p>\n Though his slash line may not show any improvement, with every mark down from 2024 to 2025, L\u00f3pez did make big strides at the plate in his second season. <\/p>\n The first noticeable difference came in the power. In 2025, L\u00f3pez cranked 15 homers and drove in 77 runs, a huge boost from his previous total of six home runs in just 26 more games. His isolated power (ISO) jumped from .107 to .121 and the under the hood stats confirm it. <\/p>\n According to Baseball Savant<\/a>, L\u00f3pez’s barrel rate jumped from 5.1 percent to 7.1 percent, showing that he was making better contact with the ball. That caused his expected slugging jumped from .402 to .434, in the 59th percentile. <\/p>\n L\u00f3pez is never going to hit 30 home runs, but if he continue to be a 15-20 home runs player like he showed in 2025, he becomes much more valuable at the plate. Couple that with his improved walk and strikeout rate, and that unlocks the potential<\/a> to be closer to a league average or above league average bat. <\/p>\n Recommended Articles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Marlins have had a rollercoaster past few seasons. In 2023, the team made the playoffs one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[5,1816,778,58,4171,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-567456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-marlins","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-marlins","12":"tag-miamimarlins","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116055626791394666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Miami](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/01kh7gac7b6c3vkram8r.jpg\" "\\"Miami")
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