Archive for June, 2011

Yesterday Dave Cameron of FanGraphs published a thought-provoking piece that discusses Anibal Sanchez‘s future with the Florida Marlins. With Sanchez having such a dominating season but under only one more year of team control, it is a possibility that the Marlins could swing a significant trade involving the young starter, and that such a deal could net a very hefty return for the team. The Reds could turn their focus to Sanchez and put together a strong offer without having to take on an encumbering salary that might bust their budget. The Indians could try to keep their surprising run [...]

I recently participated in a fun project with the guys over at The Platoon Advantage in which @Bill_TPA and @commnman set off to do one thing: draft two new franchises via an expansion draft. To do this, they asked bloggers of the ESPN SweetSpot Network along with a few outside team representatives to submit a list of their protected players for the three rounds of the draft. You can check out the rules to the expansion draft here, and check out all three rounds (Rounds One, Two, and Three) along with ESPN’s Keith Law’s analysis of how everything went. Of [...]

As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA), Marlin Maniac is taking part in the voting for the BBA All-Star balloting. Every year, All-Star votes are cast, snubs are made, and fans are irrationally angry about things that are not all that important. After all, how important can the All-Star results really be when the eventual National League MVP ends up being left off the team until the very end of the process? Nevertheless, it’s a point of bonding for fans at midseason, and Marlin Maniac doesn’t plan on missing out. My process My process is going to be [...]

The Marlins are supposed to be continuing their “home stand” tonight with a three-game set against the Seattle Mariners. Unfortunately, the band U2 got in the way and kicked the Marlins out of town, which just goes to show you where the priorities of Sun Life Stadium lie. Nevertheless, the Fish will still have a three-game set against the Mariners, but it will be a “home game” away from home and at Safeco Field. Oh, and we’re still losing plenty right now. By the way, no live chat tonight! I don’t do them on the West Coast trips on account [...]

The following two players put up these numbers during their time as Florida Marlins through 2010 (numbers courtesy of Baseball-Reference). The numbers involved are runs above average components of Baseball-Reference’s version of Wins Above Replacement (rWAR). Can you guess which one is which? Player Bat* Baserunning Def Pos rWAR Player 1 +16 +2 -3 -10 3.1 Player 2 -6 +4 +4 +2 2.0 *Batting runs include runs involved with avoiding double plays and reaching on error Knowing that the two players involved were Chris Coghlan and Cameron Maybin, it should be obvious that Player 1 is Coghlan and Player 2 [...]

Buster Olney started a lot of discussion yesterday when mentioning the possibility of the Marlins trading Hanley Ramirez in light of his recent performance and his history of “clubhouse problems,” true or implied. It started when Olney suggested that there were people in the Marlins organization interested in trading him, and continued with the idea that Ramirez was not a leader in the clubhouse and that his future position would be in doubt. Let me go ahead and say this flat out before the discussion continues: The Marlins will not trade Hanley Ramirez this season or in this offseason. To [...]

The good news is that the Marlins avoided the worst record in one calendar month in baseball history with a 5-2 victory two nights ago. The Marlins now have no chance of beating out the 1988 Baltimore Orioles for the worst record in one month of baseball. And it should be encouraging to see that the Fish actually outscored the Los Angeles Angels despite losing two games in the series. The truth is that this series was probably the best played series since the set versus the Milwaukee Brewers which ended in four losses, three of them of the one-run [...]

Look, I know it’s not Marlins-related per se, but there seems to be a theme going on here regarding the potential future success of players the Marlins traded away. You’ve already heard me ranting about the “great” move to pickup the likely mediocre Cameron Maybin, and now FanGraphs author Jonah Keri is lauding the Boston Red Sox for picking up Andrew Miller. You don’t give up on talent like Miller’s, and the Red Sox did well to throw a minor league deal at a talented pitcher who could help them address what looked like one of the team’s biggest weaknesses [...]

Look, there is no doubt that these are trying times for the Marlins. When a team gets on this sort of losing streak, there really is not much to be said. “What’s going wrong?” someone might ask. The problem is, as is often the case, multifactorial. Yesterday night, for instance, the Marlins were involved in the game against the Los Angeles Angels. Anibal Sanchez kept the Angels at bay, and the teams were tied at one apiece into the eighth inning when Steve Cishek gave up what turned out to be the game-winning run. Combine that with a continued poor [...]

Trader Jack is back. Jack McKeon will replace former Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez at the helm of this team, which is now in disarray following their 17th loss in 18 tries. The embattled former Marlins manager did not wait for the inevitable pressure from owner Jeffrey Loria and left on his own terms rather than face a possible firing. What does this all mean for the Marlins? Likely absolutely nothing. I understand that the soft-spoken Rodriguez will likely have a different demeanor than the more old-school McKeon, but the honest truth is that McKeon could not possibly have the so-called [...]