Fish Bites

Good morning and welcome to Marlin Maniac once again. Here are your Bites for this nice and chilly Wednesday (it’s special that it’s chilly because I’m in Gainesville, FL).

– First off, we have Game 6 of the World Series tonight. On the mound for the Philadelphia Phillies will be Pedro Martinez, countered by the New York Yankees with Andy Pettitte. The Yankees are looking to finish off the series and win their first crown since 2000. The Phillies want one more game, then they’ll have issues determining who’s going to start. Enjoy.

– Apparently, even though Norman Brahman, the car dealership owner who lost his battle against the building of the Marlins’ new stadium, had support in his cause. I was getting a little tired of Brahman, but it wasn’t as if his cause didn’t have merit.

– The Marlins will have to busing more during Spring Training because the Baltimore Orioles moved out of the Fort Lauderdale facility. Burke Badenhop is not happy.

"Ideally, spring training “allows you to kind of amp up for the season and not really stress yourself out so much with travel, because you’re going to have plenty of travel during the season,” pitcher Burke Badenhop said. “Now, you’re taking about getting on a bus at 6:45 in the morning to drive three hours and play.”"

It’s not a big deal to me, and I’m sure it won’t end up being one for the veterans either.

– If you’ve got ESPN Insider (I was going to get it, mostly for Keith Law’s stuff), you can check out some analysis on Matt Dominguez, Marlins third base prospect, and his plus glove and poor bat over at Jason Grey’s Arizona Fall League blog. If I were the front office, I would be very concerned with the fact that Dominguez has not picked up the ball well in terms of hitting yet, but the news of a plus glove is exciting.

– Joe Frisaro of MLB.com jumped in on the Akinori Iwamura frenzy yesterday, saying the Marlins would be interested, if the team didn’t have to pay his salary. Of course, ultimately Iwamura turned into a bargain for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Frisaro failed to mention that Iwamura started his MLB career playing third base, and doing it decently, and thus could have been a good choice there.

– Also from Frisaro’s blog, he posts up some of Bill James’ projections for the Marlins from the 2010 Bill James Handbook. I won’t be picking up a copy myself, as the projections are all I’m particularly interested in, and FanGraphs will have them up prior to the season anyway. Frisaro did not give even a slash line in the projections, instead opting for the traditional “Triple Crown” of poor stats (BA, HR, RBIs, and he included runs scored, like that matters). Not a fan.

– Two articles this were of interest to Marlins fans on Beyond the Box Score. First off, new BtB manager Tommy Bennett had a nice piece on the Marlins’ great tandem of starters from early 2000’s, and what they’ve done since 2002. I suggest it as a nice history lesson. Also, Jeff Zimmerman has a look at team negative WAR tallied this season. Among the lowest totals? The Florida Marlins, who only gave 2.2 wins away by playing bad players this season. Didn’t seem like it, with Emilio Bonifacio playing the whole year though.