Marquez’s accomplishments no small feat

Emilio Marquez has been the most reliable arm to enter games for Columbia this season. There’s no question about it, and the Venezuelan has filled a multitude of roles for the Fireflies. He began the season as one of the 10 piggy-back starters before taking an extended stint in the bullpen, but as the team has had to compete in a handful of doubleheaders in the month of July, Marquez has filled in a few times as a spot starter as well.

The bottom line is this: Marquez has a team-low 1.41 ERA to pair with a 5-1 record. The southpaw has punched out 72 batters in 51 innings and has started four of the 17 games he has pitched in for the Fireflies this season.

Fans can look up-and-down the Royals top 30 prospect lists from MLB.com and Baseball America, but they won’t find the 23-year-old’s name on them anywhere. You can look at some of the top International Free Agents of the 2018 class and compare where they stand compared to the Royals’ lefty. MLB.com rated Yennier Cano as the second-best prospect of the 2018 international class. Cano is from Cuba and was a bit older than the average signee, who are typically between the ages of 16-19 years old. Cano is 27 today, so he signed as a 24-year-old in 2019 after entering the portal in 2018. So far, across his two seasons, Cano is 4-2 with a 3.27 ERA and has pitched a total of 55 innings. The righty has pitched everywhere from rookie ball to where he currently sits, as a reliever for the Wichita Wind Surge in AAA.

Someone who tracks more closely to the trajectory of the Fireflies lefty though is fellow Maracay, Venezuela pitcher, and current Myrtle Beach Pelican, Richard Gallardo. Gallardo is a few years younger than Marquez, which is a big reason why the 19-year-old was hailed as Venezuela’s top pitching prospect and was able to sign for $1,000,000 with the Cubs. Gallardo, who was displaced in the Cubs’ MLB.com Top 30 Prospects List after the Major League Team’s sell-off at this year’s deadline, has a 2-6 record and a 4.60 ERA this season.

Marquez’s success isn’t a flash in the pan though. In his affiliated debut in 2018, the reliever went 2-0 in nine games with a 0.62 ERA, striking out 20 and walking only three. In 2019, Marquez moved into a starting role and was named the Surprise Royals’ Pitcher of the Year according to Royals Review before receiving an audition with the South Atlantic League’s Lexington Legends.

So why hasn’t Marquez been added to any prospect lists? He’s a bulldog on the mound, offering nearly 80 percent of his pitches for strikes in some outings and always hitting the zone around 70 percent of the time. The answer to this point, may be his height and fastball velocity. The Venezuelan stands at 5’8” and doesn’t have a flashy fastball that lights up the radar gun, but what we’ve seen so far in his career is that the command of multiple pitches places him above most other arms.

Some smaller publications are starting to notice what the lefty is doing. In their July 22 prospect rankings, Prospects1500 placed him as the Royals’ 49th-best prospect. In the description, something sometimes littered with a paragraph or two of information about the prospect, the writer leaves just one sentence, “An ERA under 1.5 and a K:BB ratio of nearly 8.5 to 1 will get my attention.” This shows part of how Marquez has flown under the radar for so long. A lot of Latin prospects don’t have anywhere near as much information available about them as the Americans who go through high school and collegiate tournaments and camps that have pages and pages of statistics and data about the players.

If one were to do a quick Google search and leaf through pages and pages of “Emilio Marquez baseball” searches, they’d find that prior to him landing in the DSL after signing in 2018, he’s practically a ghost.

There’s not a better chance to highlight some of Marquez’s accomplishments and personality than to talk a bit about the Fireflies Copa Weekend festivities at Segra Park this weekend. For Copa de la Diversión or Fun Cup, the Columbia Fireflies will become the Chicharones de Columbia for the weekend.

Chicharones are a popular Latin dish that typically features pork rinds or belly, and Marquez says he enjoys them and the Copa Identity. “I feel as though Copa games are a good chance for me to be able to celebrate my heritage while playing here in America. It’s a really fun opportunity for me to express myself while playing for the Fireflies.” Marquez says.

Food is a huge way that we express ourselves, not just in America, but throughout the world. When Marquez is at the ballpark, his favorite food to eat is a hot dog, and he enjoys Chicharrones, but whenever the pitcher is at home, you’ll find him eating Pepitos.

Pepitos sandwiches are a Venezuelan street food that starts with either beef or chicken and ends with crispy potato chips. In between the two, you’ll typically find salsa negra, which is similar to Worcestershire sauce, garlic, lettuce, tomato guasacaca, which is an avocado relish, barbecue sauce and mayonnaise. The sandwich is like ordering a sub when you purchase it from a street vendor. The vendors typically have many options for you to choose from and customize so you can choose exactly what you want on it!

While fuel is certainly an important part of any athlete’s routine, there’s a lot more that has made Marquez as successful as he has been this season. The lefty believes that the biggest contributor to his success has been his attitude though.

“I feel as though the key to success at any level in putting in hard work. It’s about doing the little things and giving your best effort every day—not just when things are easy or going your way.” Marquez explains. “I think what has helped me in Columbia has been having a confident mentality. Believing in your stuff and the fielders behind you is important.”

That mentality has allowed the strike thrower to pound the strike zone and get ahead of hitters all season, which has set him up to be one of the top-10 punchout guys in the Low-A East League despite having thrown for less innings than the average starter in the circuit.

If you want to catch this under-the-radar prospect before the rest of the baseball world finds out about him, you can always head to Segra Park. The Fireflies are home for the next two weeks and will play games 12 of the next 13 days against Gallardo and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans and the Fayetteville Woodpeckers. If that weren’t a good enough reason to try to catch one of Marquez’s games, this weekend is Copa Weekend at Segra Park, where fans can watch Los Chicharrones compete against Los Pelicanos de Myrtle Beach.