Florida Marlins - how good are they?

[GormanHarvey]

I was wondering what others thought of the Marlins and their fast start to the season? Obviously 11-1 is a tremendous start and they have a lot of talent top to bottom on the team, but I am curious to see how they fare when they start playing some better teams. Over half of their current win total has come at the expense of the juggernaut now known as the Natinals. Thoughts...

[Ennder]

They are about the same as the Brewers imo, a little bit over .500.

 

They have a nice young rotation but combine it with probably the worst defensive team in baseball and almost the entire rotation has major injury questions. The bullpen is pretty shaky as well. Will be a team with a lot of ups and downs but I expect something like 83 or 84 wins.

[Thurston Fluff]

Fast starts are good but the title of this thread makes me think of the one from NSBB a couple years ago when they were questioning whether the Brewers were going to run away with the division or not after they got off to a hot start. Fast starts are better than slow ones but not all that telling overall.

[rluzinski]

Short of player health, it's way to early to say that we know something more about the Marlins now than we did before the season started. The Marlins are about 5 games over where their preseason projections thought they would be, so just add that to their projection. They still don't look like a playoff team on paper.

[BrewCrewForever]

They are a good young solid club. But they play in a division with the Mets and Phillies. Not much hope for them, I do like watching them though.

[RightFieldCoder]

They've also played the Nats 6 times already. That might account for the 5 games over projections.

[Invader3K]

This is a nice blurb from MLB Trade Rumors:

 

"Marlins president David Samson doesn't anticipate the Marlins ever implementing a fire sale again. "We've put ourselves in a position, with salaries and the performance we're getting from players at a young age, that we don't have to do that anymore," said Samson. The new stadium should help with attendance, which should in turn help with payroll."

 

Of course, the real proof will be when it actually comes time to pay some of their young studs. Though in fairness trades like the one that sent Cabrera to Detroit seem to have worked out well for them.

[rluzinski]

There's nothing wrong with having a firesale, if it results in getting a lot of talent back and it doesn't result in a sub $40 mil payroll.

[Ennder]

I would think by no more fire sales they mean they wont' sell off every little bit of talent they have in the same season like they did a couple times in the past. Trading away say Ramirez before the last year of his contract is most likely still going to happen, but that isn't a fire sale.

[dragoon84]

The Marlins model has won them two World Series, how many have we won?

 

If fire sales mean championships five or six years down the road, then sign me up.

[Ennder]

The Marlins model has won them two World Series, how many have we won?

 

If fire sales mean championships five or six years down the road, then sign me up.

The Marlins were not the best team in baseball either year they won the world series, so I don't see this being a compelling argument. It is a strong case for trying to build teams that have a chance to get into the playoffs because once you reach the playoffs anyone has a chance to win the world series, even if they aren't the best team out there.

[JoeHova]

Their process can certainly be questioned. I'm pretty jealous of the results though. OTOH, I'd probably be one of the non-existent Marlins fans if I lived in Miami and had to worry about them trading every player I liked any time they got "expensive". Who is the longest tenured Marlin ever? That one chump who was an Oriole for a while? (I can't remember his name, I think it was Jeff something.) How long was he around?

[JoeHova]

Ok, I looked it up and Luis Castillo is the longest tenured Marlin to date. He played with them for 10 seasons, followed by Alex Gonzalez and Jeff Conine with 8 seasons. That's not as bad as I thought it would be, the Brewers have only had 13 guys get to 10 or more seasons and 26 (counting those 13) get to 8 or more.

[Invader3K]

The Marlins model has won them two World Series, how many have we won?

 

If fire sales mean championships five or six years down the road, then sign me up.

The Marlins were not the best team in baseball either year they won the world series, so I don't see this being a compelling argument. It is a strong case for trying to build teams that have a chance to get into the playoffs because once you reach the playoffs anyone has a chance to win the world series, even if they aren't the best team out there.

Maybe not the best...I remember in '03 they were a surprise, but in '97 it seemed like they had a fairly stacked team.

[MJLiverock]

I don't think I would mind selling off the team and suffering though a couple bad years if the payoff was a World Series title every 7 or 8 years. Watching the current crop of Brewers develop and make it to the playoffs was pretty exciting but I don't want to wait another 20+ years for it. The Marlins model is pretty interesting for a small market type team because they actually spent money to fill in the holes they needed and went for it occassionally. For me, if the Brewers win 75 games or 82 games or 85 games it doesn't really matter if they are still sitting at home for the playoffs, the overall season doesn't feel much different with 5 or 6 more wins and a being behind 4 other teams for the playoffs.

 

The Twins and A's have tried to basically sell of their teams and build through the draft but have never really opened up the purse string and went all out for it when they felt they a good team, they tried to ride out what they had and made the playoffs but never got over the top. The Marlins talent evaluators have done a great job to keep it going thus far.

 

Whether or not they were the best team on paper or in a model doesn't matter much when compared to the only thing that really matters, the actual results. Cub fans have been deluding themselves for years that this is the year and still have no rings to show for it.

[JohnBriggs12]

The Marlins will finish below .500. April records mean little. They aren't as good as they looked sweeping the Nats twice nor are they as bad as they have looked getting swept in Pittsburgh (boy that has a familiar ring doesn't it?)

[TooLiveBrew]

Who is the longest tenured Marlin ever?... How long was he around?

 

If you're referring to Jeff Conine, he played 8 seasons for the Fish.