The up and down Florida/Miami Marlins are coming off the worst three year period in their 21 year history with 3 consecutive 90 and more loss seasons (90 in 2011, 92 in 2012 and 100 in 2013) and 3 respective last place finishes. Marlins Park was inaugurated in 2012, the newest baseball facility with a retractable roof that cost 515 million and a seating capacity of 37,000. The team shelled out a franchise high 107.6 million while drawing 27,401 fans per game. After a disappointing season ownership dismantled the team again reducing payroll to 24.7 million and losing almost 8000 fans per game down to 19,504 ( a 29% drop) in 2013. 2014 payroll is pegged at 42.5 million.
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| Marlins Park in Little Havana (wikipedia.org) |
Despite this bleak scenario at the big league level, the scouting and development program combined with the acquisition of young talent in the last fire sale have the club in a position to develop very good pitching depth, the foundation of winning teams. The near future could be very good. The 2013 Marlins were offensively challenged and were last in baseball posting a negative rating (-.7WAR) little worst than replacement sporting a .231 batting average and the only Major League club with less than 100 HR (95). The pitching saved face for the team with a 3.71 ERA which was 7th of 15 NL teams and a 14.1 WAR. Fangraphs says Miami defensively was only better than the Cardinals and Phillies in the NL while the standard defensive metrics have them at .986 fielding % with 88 errors which is not bad. The take away here is they were little below average on defense.
Miami "upgraded" with four infield free agents during the off-season:
AGE YRS/AMOUNT
Jarrod Saltalamacchia C 28 3/21.0 million
Garrett Jones 1B 32 2/7.8 million
Rafael Furcal 2B 36 1/3.0 million
Casey McGeehee 3B 31 1/1.1 million
Saltalamacchia is the only established regular, the others are trying to reestablish themselves and are stopgap measures. Furcal missed all of 2013 with an elbow injury and his last full year in 2012 in Saint Louis had a .8 WAR and is 36 years young. Is there anything left in the tank? McGeehee is coming over from Japan (.289/.371/.512) with 27 HR. His last stateside action in 2011 and 2012 with Milwaukee and the Yankees in around 1000 plate appearances produced a -.1WAR. His best year was 2010 with a 2.8 WAR (23 HR and 104 RBI) and then he disappeared off the map. Garrett Jones has good power but his 2013 with the Pirates produced a -.2 WAR and 1.4 in 2012 in 515 PA. These are all ugly numbers but there is opportunity for them to step up and put careers back on track. The only surviving IF starter is SS Adeiny Hechavarria. The 24 year old Cuban was negative across the board with a -1.9 WAR, below replacement level. He has a reputation as a good defensive SS but the metrics say he is below average with a bad bat and poor baserunning skills (11 stolen bases 10 caught stealing). If he is not going to hit his defense needs to improve a lot.
AGE IP W-L ERA WAR
Jose Fernandez 21 172.2 12-6 2.19 4.2
Nathan Eovaldi 23 106.1 4-6 3.39 1.5
Henderson Alvarez 23 102.2 5-6 3.59 1.9
Jacob Turner 22 118.0 3-8 3.74 0.3
Brad Hand 22 20.2 1-1 3.05 0.1
Tom Koehler 27 143.0 5-10 4.41 0.6
The 2014 rotation is very young with a lot of upside. The improvement of young pitchers doesn't follow a linear progression and can be bumpy with a high attrition rate. The starters need to log around 900 IP total, about 250 more than last year, to keep pitching coach Chuck Hernandez happy. Jose Fernandez at 21 is the leader of the staff but this rotation could benefit from a good veteran starter that could mentor and provide pitching savvy. An area for improvement are the bases on balls. The 526 BB allowed were 14 of 15 in the NL only ahead of the Chicago Cubs with 540. Division rivals like the Nationals (405 BB), Braves (409 BB) and Mets (458 BB) had much better numbers.
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| Jose Fernandez vs the Cardinals (usatoday.com) |
The bullpen with side-arming Steve Cishek (69 IP 4-6 2.33 ERA and 34 saves in 36 tries) is backed up by power arms like AJ Ramos (80 IP 3-4 3.15 ERA), Mike Dunn (67.2 IP 3-4 2.66 ERA), Dan Jennings (40.2 IP 2-4 3.76 ERA), Arquimedes Caminero ( 13 IP 0-0 2.77 ERA) and the additions of hard throwing Carter Capps, Henry Rodriguez and Carlos Marmol the ex Cubs closer and also Chris Hatcher who has looked very good this spring. The ones that don't make the bullpen now will be waiting for the opportunity.
The outfield corps is one of the youngest in baseball with a lot of talent.
AGE PA AVG/OB/SLUG HR
Giancarlo Stanton 24 504 .249/.365/.480 24
Marcell Ozuna 23 291 .265/.303/.389 3
Christian Yelich 22 273 .288/.370/.396 4
This young group totaled 1068 plate appearances last year. They need to get about 1650 this year (582 more than last year) to see very good results. Stanton had a down year while Ozuna and Yelich were getting their feet wet. Yelich stole 10 of 10 and Ozuna 5 of 6. Waiting in the wings is toolsy prospect Jake Marisnick, also having a good spring. Veteran Reed Johnson and Brian Bogusevic round out the OF.
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| Power hitting Giancarlo Stanton (cbssports.com) |
This team should be a lot better than last year and maybe 80 wins or even .500 baseball is a possibility. They could climb over the Mets and Phillies for 3rd place. Most experts consider them for another last place finish with about 70 wins. The Marlins have a strong rotation and bullpen, a quickly improving OF and a questionable infield.
The star power in Miami comes from 21 year old Jose Fernandez and 24 year old Giancarlo Stanton whose common denominator is power, from the pitching mound and the batter's box. Two of the very best young players in the Major Leagues.
