The 2014 Marlins Macropreview

Opening Day is finally upon us, and as we do every year, the Diehards have scoured the interwebs for all the 2014 projections we can find. We averaged the projections together so as to identify the conventional wisdom about the team heading into the season (we're not exactly Nate Silver, but we do recognize the power of aggregating different projection models into a kind of supermodel).

Like last season, the baseball world expects little of the Marlins (not that we blame them). Though the Marlins should have a deep starting rotation and respectable bullpen, their offense remains iffy beyond Giancarlo Stanton (and to a lesser extent Christian Yelich). Taken together, the projections have the Marlins as a 70-win team, with little variance. Here are the projections:

This is a case where the numbers match what is generally expected of the team, a modest improvement over last year's 62-win total, but nothing to inspire hopes of a playoff berth. If the Marlins wildly outperform expectations, they could flirt with a .500 record. But if injuries pile up, this team could lose 100 games just as easily.

Indeed, 2015 remains the earliest hope for a competitive season, but Marlins fans still have the benefit of watching Jose Fernandez and Stanton (for now). Those two, at least, should provide for some fun times this season.