Archive for January, 2010

So this was big news yesterday. The following joint statement was issued today by the Major League Baseball Players Association, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and the Florida Marlins: The Basic Agreement requires that each Club use its revenue sharing receipts in an effort to improve its performance on the field. This requirement is of obvious importance to all players, Clubs and fans of the game. In recent years, the Union has had concerns that certain Clubs have not lived up to this requirement, and has consulted regularly with the Commissioner’s Office about those concerns. The Florida Marlins [...]

Yesterday I compared Dan Uggla and Jorge Cantu in an attempt to objectively use the numbers to determine which player was best for the Marlins to keep talent-wise. I know, it was a meaningless exercise to my normal reader(s), but I figured it would be fun to point out that, unless you really valued your RBI, Cantu stood no chance of being better than Uggla. Still, around Marlins fans you still hear the word “unclutch” (if it can be called a word, I suppose) surrounding Uggla. After all, just look at the season he just had! With runners in scoring [...]

So Marlins news items are sort of in a lull right now, and I’ve got very little on the plate Marlins-wise. Pitchers and catchers report next month, and that’s when the fun should begin. Plus, right now we don’t even know who we should see on the roster next year. One of the “debates” going on is about the Marlins keeping either Dan Uggla or Jorge Cantu on the team. Both players are eligible for arbitration, and both stand to make decent money. Uggla will likely be in the $8M to $9M range in his second season of arbitration, while [...]

This according to Joe Frisaro (H/T MLBTR). Sometime this week the Marlins plan to have discussions with agent Matt Sosnick regarding a contract for Josh Johnson. Whether there is movement on a multiyear deal will depend on a key factor. Sosnick claims if the Marlins will guarantee a four-year deal then he will listen. Good news to hear, I’d say. It does seem that the sticking point in the negotiation process is the guaranteed fourth year. In early December, I talked to Josh Johnson’s agent Matt Sosnick and asked him why the compromise of a vesting option for the fourth [...]

Earlier in the week, I put up a Pitch f/x attempt trying to determine whether Ricky Nolasco had a significant problem pitching out of the stretch. I calculated a couple statistics in the article, but I did not have the league averages or the splits for runners on and bases empty. Of course, we couldn’t tell how significant those splits Nolasco showed were without putting them into proper context, so I’ll give it a try here. Friend of the Maniac’s Nick Steiner, aka vivaelpujols (VEP), was gracious enough to lend a hand and toss me the numbers I was looking [...]

Well, we now have the first player to ever don a Marlins uniform as an active player and be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Andre Dawson, the Hawk, has been inducted into the Hall, garnering 77% of the votes to get in. He’ll be the only new member of the Hall of Fame, as no one else was inducted this season despite a promising and excellent crop of new players and several holdovers who remain deserving of the award.

Friend of the Maniac Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel says that Dan Uggla may stick around after all (h/t MLBTR). On another front, one baseball man who recently spoke with the Marlins said it’s looking more and more like Dan Uggla will start the season in Florida. The arbitration-eligible Uggla would take a huge bite out of what is expected to be a $40 million payroll. Uggla staying could mean the Marlins start taking calls on Jorge Cantu, who as a fifth-year, arbitration-eligible player also is due a huge raise. If this is true, it’s good news and bad [...]

I’ve been thoroughly mind-boggled by how Ricky Nolasco could be such a great pitcher peripherally and have such a huge split in FIP and ERA. As we all know, Nolasco bombed badly early in the year in terms of hits and runs allowed, yet surprisingly was still solid when it came to his strikeouts and walks. As the season progressed, Ricky regressed to the mean and his ERA correspondingly dropped. Still, it was a wonder as to why he allowed so many runs while apparently pitching so well. It couldn’t all be the defense’s fault, could it? Well, a reader [...]

Recently, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com covered the ten questions for 2010 that he was assigned to answer for the Florida Marlins. Given the lack of news coming out on the Marlins front and the way baseball is covered on MLB.com (that is, in a non-sabery way), I figured I’d take a look at these questions myself and take a crack at them for the Maniac readership. Of course, my answers will have a more decidedly saber-spin to them, along with my own opinions. If you want to check out Frisaro’s answers, here they are. I’ll list just the questions, and [...]

Earlier today I unveiled the Marlins All-Decade team position players, according to WAR. Now, let’s take a look at the pitchers for the Marlins All-Decade team. In this decade, there were two distinct eras for Marlins pitching. The first lasted from 2000 to 2005, and encompassed the best young prospects the team acquired from the fire sale of 1997 and the results between 1998 and 2000. The second era was the 2006 to 2009 era, built off the draft picks of the early part of the decade and the trades made in the 2005 offseason. Once again, the determination of [...]