The Diehards' End-of-Season Epistle

First we practiced our #Barves impression

Wherein Ted and Dave sort through the wreckage of the 2013 Marlins campaign.

Ted:

Well Dave, another season is in the books and it's finished much like the last ten years. The Fish were expected to be a 100-loss team and they ended up being exactly that. Would you say the year went as expected, worse or dare I even say better? There certainly was a little more intrigue than I was anticipating, which isn't saying much.

Dave:

I think we just witnessed the best possible version of a 100-loss baseball team we could have hoped for. Indeed, this was the best of all possible worlds for a pair of Haterade-swilling bloggers like us: Not only was this year's team historically bad, but it managed to do so with intrigue! First, the bad:

• This was just the second 100-loss season in team history (btw, they underperformed by 7 wins) 
• They CRUSHED the franchise record for fewest runs/game in a season (3.17 - next worst was the inaugural Marlins with 3.59) 
• A whopping FOUR regular starters OBP'ed under .300 
• Only two hitters were above average (in terms of OPS+): Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich 
• They lost 26 games by 5 or more runs 

Despite (and in some cases because of) their eternal derpitude, the Marlins still managed to do all of this:

• Captivate us with one of the best rookie pitchers in modern MLB history
• So many pratfalls
• Front office intrigue! (This was not exciting, but a little cathartic for the fans that had been calling bullshit on Beinfest) 
• #Monsterdongs (not as many as we would have liked, but beggars can't be choosers) 
• And the cherry on top: the most crazyballs ending to a no hitter that you or I will ever see in our lifetimes 

If your favorite team is not going to come close to even sniffing the playoffs, then this train wreck of a season is the only way to proceed. There have been plenty of less shitty teams in Marlins history, but none were even close to as memorable as the 2013 Marlins.

But even train wrecks get old. Where should new front office bosses Michael Hill and Dan Jennings start in their offseason improvement plan?

Ted: 

It is pretty crazy, huh? There are so many ways in which this season was setting historically bad marks and yet they somehow managed to avoid both being the worst team in MLB this year (Thanks Astros!) and the worst team in Marlins history.

I totally agree about this year being at least entertaining and memorable. Only a few non-World Series years stick out any more and I think ten years from now this will still resonate some as being so awesomely bad.

As for where the new crew starts? I really don't think there is anywhere to focus on. I don't get the impression Loria and Co. will be eager to spend big bucks again. It'd be best to build around this core and keep focusing and building a strong farm system. It is conceivable that 2015 and beyond can bring a pretty strong, dynamic club? Am I crazy?

Dave:

Crazy? No. A little too optimistic? Probably.

The Marlins have lots going for them at the moment, especially with regards to their rotation. Jose Fernandez, Nate Eovaldi, and Henderson Alvarez should be a solid 1-2-3 for the next few years (and they will be really cheap). If we are lucky, Jacob Turner and Tom Koehler become dependable starters as well.

But those hitters, though...

As it stands now, the Marlins have Giancarlo Stanton and the hope that Christian Yelich and Jacob Marisnick continue to progress into above-average hitters, and little else. Fun fact: Only three position players had a higher oWAR (offensive wins above replacement) than pitcher Henderson Alvarez. And his oWAR was 0.5, nothing otherworldly. The Marlins' offense was littered with past-their-prime roster filler and disappointments like Logan Morrison (a .709 OPS is not gonna cut it for a corner infielder).

There has been talk that the Marlins will use their surplus of minor league arms to acquire a bat or two this winter, and I would not oppose that. Colin Moran tore it up in high-A ball this summer, but he won't be on the big club in 2014. Beyond him, there are not many bats in the farm system that can help soon.

And if the Marlins wisely decline to bring back Placido Polanco or Juan Pierre, I will be a happy man.

 Stay tuned next week, when we bring in a few of our brothers in blog to join the conversation.

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The Miami Marlins' 2013 Season Summed Up in One Unforgettable Moment

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Marlins Promote Michael Hill, Dan Jennings

The Marlins announced Sunday that general manager Michael Hill will replace Larry Beinfest as president of baseball operations, with vice president of player development Dan Jennings moving up to Hill's old job. The move is a touch surprising: Jennings seemed to be the front-runner to replace Beinfest, while reports of the schism in the front office had Hill on the outside looking in with Beinfest. Instead, Hill will remain Jennings' boss.

Michael Hill, photo via NBCMiami.com

But even more baffling is this: Hill has been with the organization for 11 seasons, Jennings for 12. Beinfest came to the Marlins when Jeffrey Loria bought the team in 2002. If Loria was indeed unhappy with the direction of the team, why replace Beinfest with two guys who had been working for him for a decade?

Unless Beinfest was ruling the front office with an iron fist (and reports indicate that it was Loria who was doing that as of late, not Beinfest), it is unrealistic to think that Hill and Jennings will make the kind of changes necessary for the Marlins to be more competitive in the coming years. This seems like little more than a cosmetic change in the front office, where management will continually be hamstrung by their owner's notorious penny-pinching and micromanagement.

If there was one big damning fact hanging over Beinfest, it was his bad record in drafts through much of his tenure. While his staff hit big on early-round picks Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Johnson, none of Beinfest's first round picks from 2002-2009 made lasting contributions to the franchise. To be fair, recent years have seen the selections of Jose Fernandez and Christian Yelich, but there was a time when Chris Volstad and Chris Coghlan looked like they would be important players for years to come, nothing is certain.

Regardless, the question that keeps coming up with regards to the dismissal of Beinfest is "Why now?" His draft record was no secret, and he has missed far more often than not on big trades before last seasons' fire sale. In all likelihood, Beinfest forced this on himself by reportedly asking Loria to either fire him or let him resume running the team without interference, and Loria (for once) did the right thing and bought out the final two years of Beinfest's contract.

So Beinfest will earn the remainder of his salary for two years, and will probably be courted by a number of clubs this winter (should he choose not to take some time off). Hill and Jennings got promotions, but I can't escape the feeling that Beinfest himself is the biggest winner of this episode.

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NO HITTER FOR ALVAREZ

Henderson Alvarez has just thrown the fifth no-hitter in Marlins history, and the Marlins made it interesting. Miami did not score until the bottom of the ninth, leaving Alvarez in limbo after he struck out Matt Tuiasosopo to end the ninth inning:

Then in the bottom of the ninth, the Marlins managed to break through. Giancarlo Stanton and Logan Morrison hit back-to-back singles with one out, then advanced to second and third on a wild pitch by Detroit's Luke Putkonen. After Chris Coghlan walked with two outs to load the bases, pinch hitter Greg Dobbs came to the plate with it all on the line.

On the first pitch, Putkonen got one by catcher Brayan Pena, allowing Stanton to score from third and preserve the wildest no-hitter in a very long time.

Excluding the two World Series victories, this is easily the best ending to a season in Marlins history, and certainly cements this year's edition as possibly the weirdest team in franchise history.

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Later Larry

Today Jeffrey Loria finally did what everyone had been expecting him to do: fire president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest.

Marlins Diehards has obtained exclusive video of Beinfest being fired by Loria:

We'll have more on this later.

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