How One Fan Coped With A Depressing Trade

One difference between the Marlins and other franchises: When the Seattle Mariners traded Ichiro Suzuki yesterday, Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service - a Seattle native) penned "Ichiro's Theme." Stream it below:



I'd love to think that Jimmy Buffet and Pitbull are collaborating on a slow-jam commemorating Anibal Sanchez' 2006 no-hitter, but something tells me I'll have to keep dreaming...


Via Stereogum

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Marlins Make Trade, People React Wildly

Well, as I made a one hour drive home, I missed two bits of baseball news. One, the Yankees acquired Ichiro in a trade. Good for them. The other more pertinent news to us is that the Marlins traded Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante to the Tigers. In return the Fish get three prospects and a compensation draft pick, a pretty nice haul. Predictably, fans went nuts on Twitter instantly, some complaining about the Marlins usual selling of good players, others making uppity comments about how this is a good move. I wont pretend to know anything about the prospects, so instead I'll let Dave Gershman be our guide:

I’m very impressed with what the Marlins were able to acquire here. Rob Brantly and Jacob Turner are both, for me, top 50 prospects. Brantly is one of the best catching prospects in the game and Turner is one of the best pitching prospects. The Marlins get both of the two for a guy who they weren’t going to re-sign and Omar Infante, who doesn’t have as much trade value as he has had in the past.

Sounds good to me. The key to me is who the club jettisoned. Omar Infante's trade value will probably never be higher than it is now. He's a very capable fielder and is putting up better than average numbers at the plate. Still, he's not a cornerstone of any team (especially being over 30). I love Anibal Sanchez, but it seems the contract negotiations between he and the club always end up at an impasse. The upsetting tidbit is that officially signals the Marlins as sellers and this season is shot, but hey, who didn't know that already?

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Week in Review

Overview: Miami dropped two of three in Philadelphia, then took two of three from Houston. There was also some kind of dust-up involving Ozzie Guillen and Fidel Castro, perhaps you heard about that.

Positives: We now know for a fact that it is possible to hit a home run in Marlins Park:

Negatives: Too many fielding blunders to count this week. Ted will surely have a Tangerine Troops roundup coming in the next day or so. Suffice it to say, this team does not field too well at the moment. Heath Bell in 2012: 2 save opportunites, 2 blown saves. Also troublesome, the Herald reported Sunday that Josh Johnson's velocity is down to 91-93 mph from his usual 95-96. Ruh roh...

Line of the Week: This was Omar Infante's week: 8-21, 2 2B, 3 HR, 6 R, 4 RBI
That was in just five games (he sat out Saturday). I'm really looking forward to selling him high in my fantasy league.
Highlight of the Week: Ramirez hit a game-tying home run on Sunday that would have been out in just about every MLB stadium, even the cavernous Marlins park.
Looking Ahead: The Fish are off on Monday, then host the Cubs for three followed by a weekend series at Washington.

Photo via @KellysPics

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Ten Very Specific Predictions for 2012

11. Giancarlo Stanton will realize  this photo is a double-entrende for what happens to Marlins fans when he hits a home run.

1. Ozzie Guillen will not beef with anyone in the front office. The Ozzie lifecycle in Chicago started out nicely, as far as Jerry Reinsdorf was concerned. His confrontations with the White Sox' front office did not start until a few years into his tenure. Expect that pattern to repeat itself in Miami, buying David Samson a year or two before having to deal with an angry Ozzie. Guillen will definitely ignore Jeff Loria if he tries to talk to him from the stands during a game, though.
2. Logan Morrison will accidentally post a photo of his penis on Twitter. "Accidentally" being the operative word here.
3. Strip Club with Stanton will rename itself I Want to Go to Shake Shack With Heath Bell.
4. Omar Infante starts acting out to get noticed sometime in May. He'll begin by ritually burning a Lo Viste shirt in the locker room.
5. Juan Carlos Oviedo will eventually receive a visa and rejoin the Marlins (once he serves a six-week suspension). Unfortunately, he will have to leave the team (and the country) again in August when it is revealed that he is D.B. Cooper. Oviedo will go into hiding in Tajikistan.
6. I will stop following all the beat writers on Twitter in August after receiving five updates on a John Buck foul ball. Though I will announce my decision, no one will join my crusade to ignore facts that deserve to be ignored.
7. Ricky Nolasco posts an FIP in the 3.50 range again, but still manages to post an ERA above 5 and perpetuate the myth that "some pitchers just know how to win." Jack McKeon will feel vindicated.
8. The budding friendship between Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes goes full Jolie-Thornton by midseason as the pair each get half a heart shape tattooed on their chests. When they take their shirts off and stand next to each other arm-in-arm, the half hearts form a whole heart. 
9. Josh Johnson pitches lights-out in April and May (again), but yet another promising season is derailed by injury in June when an errant jet of water from the Marlins Park home run structure manages to make it all the way to the Marlins dugout. Johnson slips on the ensuing puddle, tearing his rotator cuff in the process. An enraged fanbase storms the outfield when it is revealed he will miss the remainder of the season, whereupon they destroy the sculpture.
10. 88-74, first Wild Card, lose in NLCS to Cincinnati.

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Get Excited

Not a new story, but a few Marlins have already reported to Spring Training camp in Jupiter, even though pitchers and catchers don't report until February 22. Images via the Palm Beach Post.

JJ drinks with his left arm so he doesn't strain his pitching shoulder.

More photos after the jump...

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Infante Returns

Via MLB.com, the Marlins and Omar Infante have agreed to a two-year contract extension worth $8 million.

Re-signing Infante is nothing to get terribly excited about, but the Marlins have bigger needs than second base this offseason, so retaining Infante for $8 million over two years is a pretty sensible deal. If he puts up 2.5 WAR for two more years, that's $1.6 million/WAR, which is $0.5 million/WAR cheaper than John Buck.

UPDATE: Marlin Maniac has run the numbers, and it turns out the Marlins might actually be underpaying Infante. Well played, front office, well played.

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Bat LoMo Second. Now.

From Joe Capozzi's latest notes column:

With the top of the batting order struggling, manager Edwin Rodriguez isn't ruling out moving Morrison higher in the lineup one day. But it's too early to make any changes now.

Edwin Rodriguez told Capozzi, "I would like to keep him in the run-producing position because he's such a good hitter and he hits righties (.333) or lefties (.313) very well."

Let me be completely clear here. Morrison should be hitting leadoff or second. He leads the team on OBP so far this year (.440), but that is over too small a sample size (50 plate appearances, though in another week or so...) to draw any conclusions. However, over 337 career PAs his OBP is .398, and he is projected to get on base at a .381 clip by Fangraphs.

Current number-2 hitter Omar Infante has a career .318 OBP (in 2866 career PAs). Over the course of a season, he is not the Marlins' optimal number 2 hitter. Fangraphs projects a .336 OBP for Infante in 2011.

Rodriguez wants Morrison in a run-producing position, but batting him behind sluggers Hanley Ramirez and Mike Stanton seems a tad like putting the cart in front of the horse. I want as many baserunners as possible during Ramirez and Stanton PAs, and that means putting LoMo at the top of the order along with Chris Coghlan (the other non-Ramirez non-Stanton Marlin high-OBP guy on the team).

When examining optimal lineups before the season started, Michael of Marlin Maniac suggested LoMo should hit second against RHPs, but fifth (behind Stanton) against LHPs (though he did leave the option to bat him third against lefties). I'll defer to his numbers, since he has more statistical acumen than I do, but suffice it to say, the Marlin with the best OBP should be getting the most PAs he can, and batting Morrison fifth or sixth leaves runs on the table over the course of a season.

Michael said it best about Infante hitting second: "He simply is not good enough to hit at the top of the order, where he would only be taking plate appearances away from more talented hitters like Morrison." (emphasis added).

Hopefully Rodriguez wises up and shuffles the order soon. But considering his adherence to the sunk-cost fallacy vis-a-vis Emilio Bonifacio, I'm not exactly optimistic.

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Trade Analysis, For Real This Time

Okay, we've all had a chance to react to the Dan Uggla trade and reconsider our initial reactions, so here are my thoughts on the matter. While it will be sad to see Uggla go, I am not surprised that the team ended up dealing him. Uggla turned down a 4-year, $48 million offer, which would have put his average annual payroll just below that of both Hanley Ramirez and Josh Johnson. I don't think Uggla is worth more than either, and I was sure the Marlins would not come back with a higher offer. And frankly, for a guy who has already made $14 million in his career, a guaranteed $48 million doesn't seem that bad.*

But I digress. After rejecting the Marlins' offer, it became clear that one of two things would happen: Uggla would be traded, or he and the Marlins would have gone to arbitration, and he would remain a Marlin for the first part of 2011, at least. As I've mentioned before, Uggla was at times one of the only reasons to be excited about the Marlins, and I have nothing but fond memories of his time in Florida. At the same time, I'm kind of relieved the Marlins will not be paying $10+ million in 2013 and 2014 for a power hitter on the wrong side of 30. Uggla does one thing well: hit for power, and when that goes, it goes fast, and the Marlins could have had a real albatross around their necks. It is no guarantee that his dropoff will come in 2013, but neither is it a guarantee that it won't, and I was never really comfortable with that risk.

So if the Marlins weren't going to keep Uggla long term, it made sense to trade him while his value is high, but I'm not convinced this deal works for the Marlins (I'm not the only one). Uggla was good for 5.1 WAR last year. The pieces received in return, infielder Omar Infante and reliever Mike Dunn, were not nearly as valuable (2.7 WAR for Infante, 0.1 for Dunn, albeit in only 19 IP). While Infante and Dunn will make a combined $3 million (ostensibly freeing up an extra $7 million for the Marlins to spend elsewhere), I can't help thinking that the Marlins pulled the trigger on this deal too soon. It is only November, after all. Who knows if holding out for better chips could have worked? But I am not privy to the Marlins' internal discussions, nor do I know what they had been offered from other teams for Uggla. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem like the Marlins got all that they could from an Uggla trade.

As my Twitter feed made abundantly clear this evening, the natives are restless amongst the serious portion of the fanbase. Here's hoping Mike Stanton can fill Uggla's shoes as the power-hitting bat to complement Hanley Ramirez, someone emerges to play centerfield, and the young bullpen arms the team has acquired this week pan out. But if Emilio Bonifacio ends up starting on Opening Day 2011, it may be time for a code red.


*Joe Frisaro tweeted that he heard Uggla was asking for 5 years, $71 million, which is way more than I would want to pay, fwiw.

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What Just Happened?

It was a crazy day for Marlins roster transactions, let's get straight to it. First in unconventional Marlins fashion the team signed free agent catcher John Buck to a three-year, $18 million deal. Then out of nowhere, this evening they traded Dan Uggla to the Braves for Omar Infante and LHP Mike Dunn. First reaction:


And that seemed to be the reaction of most Marlins fans/followers. I won't try to totally defend this move, but I do see some upside. For the last few years we have been complaining about not having enough guys that hit for average instead of hitting for power. We also all know the bullpen issues. But let's be honest, Uggla deserved better and we deserved better. This is no prize haul. We'll have more later. In the meantime you can find more thoughts on Twitter here and here. Also check out MarlinManiac: Twitter and Website.

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