2003 All Over Again?

We keep hearing about the Marlins wanting to acquire relief pitching help. In fact we signed three guys off waivers in the last week alone, and I wouldn't be surprised if BJ Ryan became a fourth. This reminded me of the 2003 season, when we desperately needed help and made the trade for Ugueth Urbina. That got me thinking, and I realized there are a lot of similarities between the 2003 team and this current one. So I made a handy table to illustrate that. If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment.

		2003		2009
Position Player Callup		Miguel Cabrera: Homered in his first game and eventually become a solid #3 hitter for the playoffs.		Chris Coghlan: Had his first home run ball held hostage and is proving himself a very capable leadoff hitter.
Pitching Callup		Dontrelle Willis: A funky pitching motion and engaging personality captured fans' love, drawing comparisons to Fernando Valenzuela and Vida Blue.		Sean West: Good mechanics and not much personality shown yet has had us compare him to Randy Johnson (Who he beat!).
Ace		Josh Beckett: Texan who idolized Roger Clemens came into his own and had a dominant playoffs, launching the rest of his career.		Josh Johnson: Oklahoman Cy Young candidate who may carry entire team to playoffs, hopefully won't end up going north for the rest of his career.
Fledgling Closer		Braden Looper: Recorded 28 saves, but had the knock for blowing the wrong ones. Eventually lost his job and never became a good closer.		Matt Lindstrom: On pace for 28 saves, but has lost his job to a shoulder injury. Most fans are hoping he doesn't remain a closer.
New Closer		Ugueth Urbina: Crazy personality fit for a closer, and got the job done (except for WS Game 4), but now sits in a Venezuelan jail.		He says he can still pitch, can we get him released and pitching for us with an ankle bracelet or something?
Leadoff Hitter		Juan Pierre was so tiny and happy you just had to love him. He hit over .300, stole over 60 bases,and was the perfect table setter for the lineup.		Emilio Bonifacio: Okay, this one doesn't work out. Let's move on.
Reserve Catcher Who Looks Like A Caveman
Jeff Conine		Came back via a wiaver-wire trade to play left field and came up with some big hits to help clinch the Wild Card, threw out JT Snow at the plate to end the NLDS.		He's a coach, he's a consultant, he's a TV analyst, Jeff, why don’t you get in a game or two at left field just for fun? (you can surely still OPS better than Hermida).

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Dave's Preview

I'm using bullet points here, so I won't go into as much detail as Ted did.

• Predicted record and finish: 86-76, 3rd in NL East.
• Cameron Maybin will not win the ROY. His status as the buzzworthy candidate in the preseason jinxes him. Hanley will get MVP consideration, but will be dismissed when his team misses the playoffs. None of the Marlins' pitchers will get any Cy Young consideration, but not because they didn't deserve it.
  
• The Marlins will be in playoff contention until mid-September, when they will fade down the stretch.
• Hanley will take a month to hit his stride in the third spot of the order, but once he does, he will thrive. I expect a high-VORP year from SS1a once again.
• As for the rest of the league, in the AL, your division winners are Oakland, Cleveland, and New York, with Boston taking the Wild Card. In the NL, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and LA win their divisions, and Chicago takes the Wild Card. Cleveland beats New York in the ALCS, and Philadelphia beats Milwaukee in the NLCS. In the World Series, Cleveland wins in 6 games, finally exorcising the demons of Vic Wertz.
  

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Ted's Preview

Starting Pitching

This is the biggest strength of the team. Most people would say the power hitting, but I disagree. The top three of the rotation has a chance to be great. Ricky Nolasco was an ace last year and sliding in right after him are Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad who had impressive half seasons last year and also have high ace potential. Even fourth and fifth starters Anibal Sanchez and Andrew Miller have ace potential, but because of where the lie in the rotation, they don't need to be all stars now, just decent.

Bullpen

This could be a trouble area. The lefties are a bit of a question mark and a lot of other pitcher's roles haven't been defined yet. Even closer Matt Lindstrom has a minor health concern and hasn't yet been a full time closer. There is plenty of talent in the organization and there is always the possibility of a move before the trade deadline but this should be the area to ay attention too.

Starting Position Players

The front office has a done a good job trying to get players who fit the philosophy of the organization. Gone is some power hitting, but in should be a better on base percentage and better small ball geared to win tight games. Hanley Ramirez may have a tough month or so adapting to the three-hole, but after that he should be a major run producer. The major question mark when it comes to the position players remains defense. Jorge Cantu slides over to first base and even though Emilio Bonifacio is new to third base, he should be an ugrade. Also the outfield should be improved with Cameron Maybin covering a lot of ground in center field.

Bench

This is another area of concern. Roles are undefined here and there is also a new face who wasn't even in the Marlin's spring training (Ross Gload). As Dave pointed out, the acquisition of Ronnie Paulino should allow for a nice platoon at catcher, but after that it gets foggy. Brett Carroll is the fourth outfielder, but as good as his defense is, he has yet to rove he can hit in the big leagues. It may once again be up to Alfredo Amezaga to be the man at literally every position.

Final Thoughts

The starting staff should kee the team in a lot of games and win a lot of games on their own. The offense should be pretty good but I do think there may be significant slump that you often see with young teams. Ultimately I think the club will win between 78-82 games and finish short of the division and wild card race. But that doesn't mean the season won't be fun. The mix of established players and young potential should be a joy to watch, as long as we don't act like we are a real baseball town or anything like that.

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2009 Macropreview

We'll be making our own predictions for 2009 soon, but here is a sample of what everyone else is predicting for the Marlins in 2009.

Will the Marlins have reason to celebrate in 2009?

We compiled as much as we could find on the web, and consolidated it into one spreadsheet available here. We tried to use some discretion - no two baseball blogs are created equal, but our selection may seem arbitrary to some readers. If you find something interesting that we missed, leave a comment and we may add it to the spreadsheet.

Average Record:

Average Finish: Fourth in NL East. Baseball Prospectus pegged the Fish at last in the division with three different methodologies, all using predictive statistics. Might that be an over-reliance on past performance, considering many of the Marlins (especially the rotation) have tiny sample sizes from which to work? Even so, with the Mets and Phillies appearing loaded, it is not surprising that no one likes the Fish to win the division, but then again, the team has a history of sneaking up on people when they least expect it...

Miscellany: Jeff Pearlman thinks the Fish will grab the NL Cy and ROY (by Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin), but he dubs his predictions "Guaranteed to be 100% (not) accurate." ... On SI.com's MLB Preview, John Heyman, Ted Keith, Joe Posnanski, Albert Chen, Lee Jenkins, Melissa Segura, and Jonah Freedman pick Maybin for ROY, while Genarro Filice picks Hanley Ramirez to win NL MVP. Ben Reiter and Jenkins picked the Fish as the sleeper team of 2009 ... The Warner Report also thinks Hanley will get the MVP ... Over at Dugout Central, Thomas Wayne listed the Marlins as the fifth best team in baseball, but still thinks the Phillies are the team to beat in the NL East ... Walkoff Walk is cautious on the Marlins' young talent, but nonetheless picked Cameron Maybin to win ROY ... On ESPN, Matthew Berry and Chris Singleton have the Marlins as this year's dark horse, Maybin was the ROY pick of Jorge Arangure Jr., Eric Karabell, Nate Ravitz, Brendan Roberts, Enrique Rojas, Singleton, Jayson Stark, and Jason Grey, Peter Gammons has Josh Johnson winning the Cy, and Karabell and Rojas have Hanley for MVP. Only Singleton has the Marlins in the playoffs, winning the Wild Card.


We'll be making our own predictions later today, so stay tuned...

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