Archive for October, 2009

The playoffs are here, but the men of teal are not involved. Rather, the Marlins are relaxing, enjoying the offseason after six long summer months. But here at Marlin Maniac, we (I, really) never rest, even in the postseason and offseason ahead. The Marlins have a really busy offseason ahead and it seems pertinent that I (and by extension, the team) start considering the many moves and options the team has to look into. As a result, what we have is the Marlins Offseason Checklist, a list of to-do’s for the Fish to go through this offseason so that we [...]

As part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, my job is to spout my opinion on end-of-season awards and make sure we kick the crap out of the BBWAA (they deserve it). I figure with the Marlins season over, the playoffs in heat, and most importantly, my deadlines approaching, I’d get us started with these awards. The National League Manager of the Year Managers are extremely difficult to quantify. For these awards, we generally consider teams that overachieve, but how much is that is luck, sequencing/timing, and other minute effects, and how much of that managerial? I could go into a [...]

One of the series’ that I’ve been dying to whip out since I started this blog was a look back into 2003, the Florida Marlins’ second world championship, and view it through my recently acquired sabermetric lenses. Now that the offseason is underway and there are naturally fewer baseball topics to discuss, I’d like to finally be able to introduce the series to you all. Welcome to Revisiting ’03: A Sabermetric View of the 2003 World Champion Florida Marlins Introduction and Overview Back in 2003, I was a huge Marlins fan, as I am now. But back then, I didn’t [...]

Ding ding ding! We’ve got a winner. Here’s the answer, courtesy of Maniac reader Anton: Thought about this too much for the past half hour. Has to be Endy Chavez. And superficially, he seems to be the man, unless of course, Cameron’s article over at FanGraphs is read by enterprising GMs. That’s right folks, the answer to my question of the perfect Marlins outfield pickup was Endy Chavez. Who is Endy Chavez? Let’s dive in and find out. Chavez is a 31-year old outfielder most famously known for making that catch in the 2006 NLCS for the New York Mets. [...]

You can check out the first two reviews here and here. And now, let’s move on to perhaps the most disappointing part of this season’s journey, the pitching staff. Pitching Team ERA: 4.32 Team FIP: 4.15 Team Pitching WAR: 12.5 Starter FIP: 4.57 (RA scale: 4.98) Starter tRA: 4.81 Starter WAR: 10.9 Reliever FIP: 4.07 (RA scale: 4.42) Reliever tRA: 4.56 Reliever WAR: 1.6 The Marlins starting staff, coming off a stellar season by Ricky Nolasco, an encouraging return from surgery by Josh Johnson, and a bevy of young pitchers led by 22-year old Chris Volstad, was supposed to be [...]

This according to FOXSports’ Ken Rosenthal: Marlins team president David Samson fueled speculation about Gonzalez’s status by declining to state definitively that the manager would return next season. One source, however, indicated that Gonzalez never was in jeopardy. “There is nothing to that — zero,” the source said. They sure didn’t do a good job to quash the rumors. The Marlins blogosphere (all three blogs!) has been abuzz about this situation, but it appears as if everything should be as it as before and that Fredi Gonzalez will be managing our boys once again. We now return to our regularly [...]

Defense Runs Allowed: 766 Team bUZR: -25.9 Fielding Runs from Beyond the Box Score Power Rankings: -27 The Marlins rank 21st in baseball in terms of bUZR runs according to FanGraphs and 25th in fielding runs (incorporating both bUZR and THT’s batted ball data) as calculated by Justin over at BtB’s Power Rankings, as of last week. In my midseason review, I already went over the impact defense can have on the team, and a prime example the club saw this year was the case of Ricky Nolasco. Nolasco has a FIP of 3.35, a tRA of 4.05, and the [...]

The season only just finished yesterday, but I think it is important that I jump on these reviews as quickly as possible so that we can move right on to the next most interesting and important part of the Marlins’ future, the offseason. So let’s get started with an overview of the Marlins’ season as a whole and a particular look at the offense. Overall Record: 87-75 Runs Scored-Allowed: 772-766 Run Differential: +6 Pythagorean W-L: 82-80 Component WAR: 33.6 Component WAR W-L: 82-80 It surprised me how well the component WAR method predicted the Marlins’ final season win tally when [...]

I know we’re all sad to see the Marlins’ exciting season come to a close, especially on an extra-innings affair versus the Philadelphia Phillies which we lost despite the Phils resting the majority of their starters. But that’s OK everyone; soon the offseason will begin and the Marlins will once again be involved in the drama, which for us fans could actually be a bad thing. Here are season-ending Bites (though the Bites season isn’t over yet). – The biggest Marlins news of the offseason popped up rather quickly. It seems owner Jeffrey Loria is considering firing manager Fredi Gonzalez. [...]

Last night, Cameron Maybin put up four hits, including two line drive doubles, against the Philadelphia Phillies as part of a 7-2 win. That performance brought Maybin’s season batting line up to .257/.328/.419, an impressive feat given that he left us on May 10 with a .202/.280/.310 line. On the month, Cameron has hit .313/.376/.530 in 95 PA, a marked improvement over his first month or so in the majors with Florida. Where has he improved? Where do we start? In 93 PA, Maybin has drawn nine walks and struck out only 18 times, compared to the eight walks and [...]