As reported by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com, the Marlins have added former Milwaukee Brewers closer Derrick Turnbow. He’s coming aboard on a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite, so nothing here is guaranteed in the slightest.
What do I think of the deal? It should be asked whether we should even care. CHONE has Turnbow projected at a 4.99 FIP, pretty awful for anyone. Turnbow has barely played the last few seasons due to elbow problems, but the Marlins do have a history of bringing in old relief arms on the cheap and attaining success. Still, this is the [...]

Baseball Prospectus recently released their first shot at Depth Charts for the 2010 season, which come complete with full team projections based on the projected performances of individual players. The release got a lot of hub over the Internets because it showed that the New York Yankees would be projected 3rd in the AL East, with the Tampa Bay Rays winning it. But of course, that is not what I was interested in. I immediately glossed over the page to find the NL East rankings, only to be significantly disappointed to see our Florida Marlins ranked 5th in the NL [...]

Next on the list is a man who saw some major league playing time for the Marlins this past season: Cristhian Martinez.  Obtained by the Marlins in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft prior to the 2007 season, Martinez wasn’t thought of as much of a prospect at all and finding any information on him was very difficult.
Last season, at age 27, was his 7th season of pro ball but his first season above the A-level. He performed well for Jacksonville though, putting up a 2.94 ERA in 17 games (16 starts) and was named the Marlins [...]

This is going to be quick, as I have a lot of work to do. Still, I think it is worth a mention.
In the offseason between 2004 and 2005, the Marlins made the biggest free agent splash they had ever considered, signing free agent first baseman Carlos Delgado to a four-year deal worth $52M. I was ecstatic when I first heard the news, only to years later find out that it seemed obvious the Marlins had a contingency plan in mind in case a fire sale had to be made. It turns out the team backloaded that $13M annual salary [...]

Quick late links for this afternoon. Hopefully more content to come.
- The Marlins are off in Kuwait right now to meet the troops. Among the players there will be John Baker, who is blogging about the affair over at his personal blog. I love the name “ManBearWolf” myself, reminds me of that South Park episode with Mr. Al Gore. You can also follow Baker on Twitter.
- Among the questions answered in Joe Frisaro’s latest mailbag is regarding the batting order slot which Cameron Maybin will occupy. The answer appears to be something like #2 and #8. My answer is #7 [...]

My new partner-in-crime here at Marlin Manaic, John Herold, and I have discussed this topic in the past, and I feel like a slow news day like today could use a look into the issue. The topic at hand for this post is the correct usage of one Burke Heinrich Badenhop, aka “The Hopper.”
Most Marlins fans will tell you that the answer to the question “Who has been the best asset from the Miguel Cabrera trade so far?” is Burke Badenhop. The Hopper has logged 119 1/3 innings in two seasons with the Marlins, including 72 innings last season mostly [...]

Revisiting ‘03 will go back to reviewing some of the seasons of individual Marlins players, but I also wanted to go through the season and tell the story of 2003 with the sabermetric lens. I wanted to start at the point which I clearly remember, some 10 games after Jack McKeon took over for fired manager Jeff Torborg. At the point when Torborg was fired, the Marlins were 16-22, and since McKeon’s arrival, the team went 3-7 and reached 19-29, ten games under .500.
Of course, the Marlins since that point went 71-42, won the National League Wild Card and eventually [...]

(MJ: I’d like to officially welcome John Herold to Marlin Maniac. John is a fellow Marlins fan and knows his stuff with regards to the team, and I think he’ll bring some excellent insight and analysis to the site. I’ve asked for John’s focus to be on the minor leagues, where I am admittedly weaker. However, it does not mean he won’t be discussing big-league baseball along with myself in his tenure here. You can expect a lot of good minor league analysis from him as we move forward. Enjoy his first piece, and leave some feedback!)
First and foremost, hello [...]

With arbitration all but settled for the team, the Marlins’ roster should more or less be set. However, the team’s bullpen is still in flux after the departure of Kiko Calero and Brendan Donnelly, the latter signing with the Pittsburgh Pirates. And thus once again begins the yearly griping about the Florida Marlins’ bullpen by fans.
If there’s one thing about having a tiny payroll year in and year out is that it assures that our team will not make ridiculous mistakes like signing Brandon Lyon to $5M a year for three years, for example. With the team’s limited budget, it [...]

(Warning: Somewhat long post, with a lot of graphs. Enjoy at your peril.)
Since I picked up this topic regarding Ricky Nolasco in 2009 in the stretch versus the windup, I have been unable to drop it. A few weeks back, I noticed that he did have some problems out of the stretch and that they were abnormal compared to the league. On the advice of friend of the Maniac VEP (Nick Steiner over at THT, in case you were wondering; go read his stuff, by the way), I decided to look at Nolasco’s work between his pitches with runners on [...]