What is your confidence level in the Marlins front office, led by Larry Beinfest and Michael Hill, as compared to what it was at before the 2006 season?

The reason why I frame the question as such is that this set of seasons has been the most intriguing, I feel, in Marlins history. Never have the Marlins been so interesting on a year-to-year basis as they have been since the fire sale of 2006. Once the team gathered the nucleus of the 2006 era together, they had mostly separated themselves from the 2003 World Series team, with only Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis remaining and sure to be on their way out soon as well. Since then, the team has had its ups and downs in terms of personnel moves, and such moves have to have had some effect on the confidence you as Marlins have in the front office’s typically unquestioned wisdom. I would love to hear what you all think.

First, let’s go through a ledger of some of the moves the team has made since the start of the 2006 season:

- Acquired Cody Ross for what amounts to nothing from the Cincinnati Reds

- Signed Wes Helms for the 2006 season, then let him go before 2007

- Signed Aaron Boone to play the honorary “Wes Helms corner infield/pinch-hitter” role

- Traded Cabrera and Willis for multiple players including Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller, and Burke Badenhop

- Signed Jorge Cantu off the scrap heap

- Traded Mike Jacobs for Leo Nunez

- Traded Gaby Hernandez for Arthur Rhodes (rental)

- Traded Josh Willingham and Scott Olsen for Emilio Bonifacio and Jake Smolinski

- Traded Aaron Thompson for Nick Johnson (rental)

- Did not offer arbitration to Kiko Calero and Johnson after 2009

- Allowed San Francisco Giants to take Ross on waivers

- Traded Dan Uggla for Omar Infante and Mike Dunn

- Signed John Buck to three-year, $18M deal

- Signed Javier Vazquez to one-year, $7M deal

I’m sure there were others, but those seemed like the pertinent ones to mention. What do you think of these and other moves that the Marlins front office has made? Judge these and any other player personnel moves (or non-moves) in any way. Feel free to comment on the comments section here and vote in the poll below. Tell me what you think, and let’s discuss it together!

“It doesn’t really tell us anything useful about the player’s performance, that’s the bottom line for me,” said Law, who argues that RBI, pitching wins and saves are the three most overvalued statistics in baseball. “I still look at the stats. But the RBI column, I just will not be there. About the most useful thing it tells you is how much a guy plays — the more you play, the more RBI you have — and it tells you how often the guy in front of him gets on base. Of course, if you want to know how often a guy gets on base, just look at their on-base percentage.”

You know I agree with that. And to the point that people think Cantu has a “knack” for hitting RBI (the so-called “RBI man” idea), Law had this to say:

“You slap anybody who says that,” Law said. “It is stupid. That whole thing just has to die. You know, the implication when somebody says that is when nobody is on base, this guy takes off for the at bat. I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a player who is consistently better with runners in scoring position. It’s true of almost every player.”

You heard it here, Keith Law says you can slap anyone who tells you that certain guys have a “knack” for RBI. To be fair, of course certain players are a bit better at getting RBI, particularly those who strike out and walk less and, as a result, put more balls in play or in the seats. But no player’s performance would be significantly better with runners on than with bases empty; hitting just does not change all that much mechanically (your thought process may be different, but the mechanics of achieving that thought process aren’t too different).

As right as Keith Law is, you hate to hear something like this as a retort:

Some Marlins take extreme exception to the thinking that the RBI is overrated.

“I think it’s the most important statistic,” said former Marlin Jeff Conine, who is now a special assistant to president David Samson.

Said bench coach Carlos Tosca: “This ain’t math. This is baseball.”

This can’t speak well for the franchise, can it?

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I don’t see any way around this … the Twins are way, way behind most of the other good teams in this area. Hiring “a guy,” however talented, isn’t going to change this. I can tell you stories about other sabermetric-unfriendly teams that have hired guys — smart guys, all of them — and then ignored 95 percent of their advice. You wonder why they even bothered. I think sometimes the general managers sincerely believed the information was valuable but just didn’t have any idea how to use it; sometimes they were just doing what they thought they were supposed to do (“Hire nerd to play around with numbers: check.”)

Yes, the Twins have been successful for a long time, despite an utter lack of sophistication regarding statistical analysis. Wouldn’t they be even more successful, though, if they had even a passing familiarity with some of today’s basic analytical precepts?

As a big fan of sabermetrics, I agree with him. Sure, the Twins have been successful without sabermetrics, but does that mean you can’t be successful with sabermetrics too? Of course not, and in fact, those scouting eyes and spreadsheet numbers should be working together, not against each other, when it comes to analyzing baseball. When GM’s make moves, they should consider both the numbers and the scouts, because the important thing is to get the most information possible and weight it accordingly.

This got me thinking about the Marlins and their relative success in the last decade. From 2000 to 2009, the team managed a .500 record (811-807, if you want be exact) despite consistently having among the lowest payrolls in baseball. Clearly, the club is doing something right, but most people wonder what that is?

One thing I can say is that statistics and sabermetrics are probably not a part of the answer.

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