Marlins designate 23-year-old starter Jacob Turner for assignment

In a surprising move, the Miami Marlins announced on Tuesday that they have designated pitcher Jacob Turner for assignment.

Turner is out of options, and for the team to get him off the 25-man roster, designating him for assignment was the only move. It also takes him off the 40-man roster entirely and leaves the Marlins with just 10 days to trade him or release him, or seven days to try and pass him through waivers, which would then allow them to send him to the minors.

It seems like a near certainty that should the waiver route be explored, Turner would be claimed. He has a 5.97 ERA through 78-1/3 innings this season, but every other indicator points to Turner being a better pitcher than his ERA suggests.

To wit, he has a 64 percent strand rate (below league average), a 10.3 percent home run per fly ball rate (slightly above league average), and a .368 batting average on balls in play (well above league average). These stats don't necessarily point simply to bad luck or variance - he could very well be catching too much of the plate at times and struggling out of the stretch - but over the long run, stats like FIP have shown to be more predictive.

Turner's FIP is an acceptable 4.01 so far this year, and he owns the league's fourth-largest gap between FIP and ERA among pitchers with 50 innings.

The logic here, we suppose, is that they believe Brian Flynn can be a bigger help in the interim as they push for a somewhat unlikely playoff berth. It is curious to give up on such a young player with strong underlying statistics, however. Also, Turner was the ninth overall pick just five years ago, and was the key piece in the Anibal Sanchez trade in 2012, so the Marlins are pulling the plug on someone they were clearly high on not long ago.