Archive for August, 2011

There aren’t a lot of things to enjoy about the Marlins this year. I’ve found myself buried in work for other media and from medical school and am having a hard time keeping up with the losses the Fish have piled up this year. But as we watched Javier Vazquez pitch and record a win and his 2500th career strikeout as part of a 6-0 shutout of the New York Mets last night, one thing for which Marlins fans should be thankful is the ability to bear witness to the one of the most amazing career revivals in league history. Through April and [...]

To the naysayers out there, here are John Buck‘s performances in 2010 and 2011: John Buck PA AVG OBP SLG wOBA fWAR 2010 437 .281 .314 .489 .345 3.0 2011 438 .234 .325 .401 .317 2.1 It might not look great compared to the 2010 season that the Marlins “paid for” when they offered Buck a three-year, $18 million deal. However, the Marlins really did not pay for that three-win season, but rather a year that was more like his projected .320-ish wOBA with slightly below average defense, exactly the sort of season they are getting from Buck as the [...]

Ethan J. Skolnick of the Palm Beach Post put up this scathing commentary on the Marlins’ recent difficulty raising homegrown pitchers. Without getting to his point, the fact that the Fish have not gotten much out of their early-round pitching pickups is not avoidable: Player Draft Round IP ERA B-Ref WAR Jeff Allison 2003 1 0 – – Logan Kensing 2003 2 133 5.21 -1.5 Taylor Tankersley 2004 1 118 4.58 0.5 Jason Vargas 2004 2 116 2/3 5.25 -0.3 Chris Volstad 2005 1 546 2/3 4.74 2.2 Aaron Thompson 2005 1 0 – – Jacob Marceaux 2005 1 0 [...]

The Marlins have been having a terrible month of August. Their record is 5-17 this month, eerily similar to the 5-23 record the team had in the awful month of June. Hanley Ramirez has a good chance of not returning this season. It is very unlikely that Josh Johnson returns this year as well. The team demoted fan favorite Logan Morrison and have been winging it in the outfield since then (really since Chris Coghlan was hurt). One thing that has been a pleasant surprise (outside of the continued excellence of Mike Stanton) has been Bryan Peteresen. Petersen has hit pretty well in 2011 [...]

I’m taking a little vacation from my usual trek through Marlins history this week to focus on what I feel is the state of the Marlins today (sigh), and point fingers at where things went wrong. The first omen of tragedy would have to be the trading of Dan Uggla during the off season.  I wasn’t privy to the details, and we may never know the whole story, but from what I gathered all of the rumors and speculation that swirled around point to an unacceptable amount of douchebaggery during negotiations with the Marlins from Uggla’s camp.  I have lost [...]

Continuing our focus on the Marlins minor league system, today I’d like to provide a quick update on how Matt Dominguez, the Marlins’ top minor league prospect, is doing. The impetus of this update is based on the question I sent over to Seedlings to Stars this week regarding Dominguez and how good he would have to be in order to be major league quality in 2012 and beyond given his stellar defense. Let’s take a look at how well he has performed in 2011 in Triple-A and see what we gather from that information. Player, Triple-A PA AVG OBP [...]

I’ll just dedicate this post to Mike Stanton and his awesomeness of hitting home runs. First, here’s a preview of something we will see a ton of in the near future: Stanton swings at new park Next, we’ll see if Dodger Stadium stands a chance against Stanton: Stanton hits a ball out of Dodger Stadium Watch this ball fly!! Unfortunately, don’t have the video of Stanton’s 500-foot shot homer in the minors last season, but here’s Dan Meyer talking about it. Dan Meyer describes Mike Stanton’s 500-ft home run Mike Stanton hits 3rd longest homer of MLB season Anybody up for [...]

Today at Seedlings to Stars, FanSided’s own Nathaniel Stoltz discussed one of the more intriguing names in the world of Marlins prospects, outfielder Kyle Jensen. Here’s a little of what he had to say: After demolishing FSL pitchers for a career-best .309/.383/.535 line, Jensen was moved up to Double-A earlier this month and immediately has proven his power translates. In nine games, he’s already launched four more homers, bringing his season total to 26, just eight behind minor-league leader Bryan LaHair (who, like most of the other homer leaders, has played in a much easier park and league). You should [...]

Today we continue our trek down Marlins Memory Lane with the final five men who have managed the Marlins up to this point in history. Jeff Torborg: Torborg spent the 1960s and 1970s behind the plate with the Dodgers and Angels.  In 1977, he tried his hand at managing.  He managed the Indians for three seasons, got fed up, and took most of the 1980s off, that was a crazy decade anyway, who wouldn’t? Torborg returned to managing in 1989 for the Chicago White Sox and in 1990 he won the AL Manager of the year award where he lead [...]

The Florida Marlins enter August 12th sitting at 55-62. Last season at this time the team was 56-56. At one point in the season, the Marlins were 10-games over the .500 mark at 29-19. Since then, they have gone 26-43. Here’s a breakdown of the Marlins record from month-to-month. Month W-L WAR ERA FIP April 16-9 7.2 3.16 3.61 May 15-13 6.4 4.00 3.71 June 5-23 2.6 4.17 4.10 July 17-12 9.8 4.39 3.67 August 3-9 2.1 3.71 3.92 On the surface, it looks like the Marlins have been a decent team outside of the months of June and August. [...]