injury troubles<\/a> in the final week of spring training, losing outfielders Kyle Stowers (right hamstring strain) and Esteury Ruiz (left oblique strain) on the same night.\n<\/p>\n\n\tThe Marlins have preached defensive versatility for years, but even more so under second-year manager Clayton McCullough. Whoever gets slotted into first base will have had experience there in the regular season or this most recent iteration of spring training.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHere\u2019s how that spot can be filled:\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\tConnor Norby<\/p>\n
\n\tThis is the natural place to start. In a pinch, Norby was slotted into the first base spot Friday after Morel was scratched.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tOriginally a third baseman his first two years in Miami, Norby got reps in the outfield and first base this spring. During McCullough\u2019s pregame media availability Friday\u2014before Morel\u2019s injury was announced\u2014he said Norby would see \u201cquite a bit of action\u201d at first base.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\tLiam Hicks<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Marlins carried three catchers on their roster for a few months last year, with Hicks, veteran Nick Fortes, and highly-rated prospect Agust\u00edn Ram\u00edrez all vying for playing time.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHicks was able to stay in the lineup by playing 28 games at first base, racking up one out above average, according to Baseball Savant.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSide note on another catcher that some fans have asked to go to first base: the Marlins have made it very clear that Ram\u00edrez will continue getting reps as a catcher only.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\tDeyvison De Los Santos<\/p>\n
\n\tDe Los Santos is currently the only member of the 40-man roster who considers first base his primary position. Promoting him would be an easy choice,\u00a0albeit an ill-advised one at this time.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe right-handed power hitter Miami got in a trade from the Arizona Diamondbacks raised his walk rate from 5.2% in 2024 to 8.1% in 2025, his highest in his Triple-A career. But his power still hasn\u2019t adjusted to playing at sea level. Even in the pitcher-friendly International League he plays in now, his slugging percentage of .363 last season was paltry.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAssuming that De Los Santos remains in Jacksonville for the near future, the Marlins would still need to call up a position player of some kind to fill Morel’s spot on the active roster.\n<\/p>\n
View full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014\u00a0Two hours prior to the first pitch of the 2026 season, the Miami Marlins announced Christopher Morel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2395],"tags":[5,891,9350,10440,7728,1816,778,58,4171,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-647632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-marlins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-christopher-morel","10":"tag-connor-norby","11":"tag-deyvison-de-los-santos","12":"tag-liam-hicks","13":"tag-marlins","14":"tag-miami","15":"tag-miami-marlins","16":"tag-miamimarlins","17":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116303938568506176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647632","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=647632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}