What are the chances of the Marlins trying to acquire Michael Young from the Rangers?
– Jorge H., Washington

I talked about this on Twitter with a few fans earlier this week, when Michael Young‘s public griping about his situation began. It would be an almost impossible situation for the Marlins to acquire Young. He has an obscene amount of money owed to him over the next few seasons, on the order of $16M per year for three more years. Did you know that Michael Young will be 34 years old and is already considered a defensive liability at third base after years of being a defensive liability at shortstop? Did you also know that we’d be acquiring his age 35 to 37 seasons at $16M a year after he has been outperformed by about three wins in the past three years by Dan Uggla? Check out this comparison chart:

Essentially, the two were pretty even performers at their respective age 26 to 30 seasons, and the Marlins did not want to commit more than $13M to Uggla for his age 31 to 35 years. What makes you think the team would be interested in committing to the older Young for more money?

Even if the Marlins got money back for the deal, they would still have to trade something of value for Young, and the team’s minor league system is essentially shot after promotions of its top talent. Who else can the Marlins trade for the right to overpay Young? No, I’ll pass on the guy; he’s a serviceable ballplayer, but he makes way more than what he is worth.

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And, while they are no longer prospects, the Marlins have a foundation of youthful stars. After developing the 2009 Rookie of the Year, the team did itself one better in 2010, finding two players in Mike Stanton and Logan Morrison that should be among the top sluggers in the NL East, and for six more cheap seasons. This is a team in the rare position that the farm system now merely must provide the team with an adequate number of role players; the stars are already there. And while what’s left in the minor league system isn’t fantastic, it could provide the Marlins with just enough of what they’ll need to stay competitive.

This is an accurate assessment of why the current Marlins farm system is so shallow. Sure, part of it has been the recent difficulties that the Marlins have had in the draft, but a good majority of it is most likely that the two biggest names in the organization, Logan Morrison and Mike Stanton (Patience and Power) have already arrived in the majors. Morrison and Stanton should stick, and the Marlins are already building a team with them as part of the foundation; the Marlins only need a few names to become solid contributors to the major league team in order to be successful in the near future.

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The AFL rosters were announced awhile back.  Here’s the list of players the Marlins will be sending (I’ll be going deeper into the numbers for players later, when park factors have been released):

Kyle Skipworth is the main name, and it’s rather surprising to see him going.  Strike outs and plate discipline are still a massive problem with him, and they barely improved in his second going around in Greensboro (0.20 BB/K, 31.8% K rate in 2009; 0.24 BB/K, 30.3% K% in 2010).  But he did show more power, hit for a better BABIP, and greatly improved on defense.  He still hasn’t been worth the #6 selection, but at least it wasn’t a repeat of last season.  The Marlins had called him up for two games in Jacksonville at the end of the season when Jax needed a catcher (when Chris Hatcher was called up); I’d expect him to be in Jupiter next season, but considering that call up and the fact he’s going to the AFL, it’ll be interesting to see if they have him skip A+.

Osvaldo Martinez is the other big name.  He had a breakout season for Jacksonville at just 22 years of age, and is now one of our top hitting prospects (though this speaks more of the current state of our system than for Osvaldo, as he’s still considered a future utility player).   He posted a strong BB/K, a good BABIP, plays good defense all around the infield, but still has questionable power.  A Rule 5 draft eligible player, we could see him some time next season.

Other names include:

2B Ryan Curry: After having a good year for Jupiter last season, he had a horrendous season for Jacksonville.  However, he’s a VERY good defensive player.

SP Brad Stone: Has decent control, but bad strikeout rates and a penchant for flyballs)

MR Peter Andrelczyk
MR Steven Cishek: Both are former 5th round picks [Cishek in 2007, Andre in 2008] who sit in the low 90′s with the prototypical slider/change rounding out their repertoire. Both have posted good peripherals, but have been old for their leagues.  Andre has posted better numbers and has a better ground ball rate (Cishek’s batted ball data is neutral), but Cishek has seen more time in the upper minors.

MR Jay Buente: You should already be familiar with him.

A reminder that all numbers for hitters are park adjusted (but not pitchers).  What this also means is that, on a monthly basis, applying park factors won’t change much of the stats because of how small they are.  But it will change the yearly stats because they are a larger sample.  This is why you’ll see things like Logan Morrison’s season BABIP being higher than both his April and May BABIP.

And some misc JAX news: Kyle Winters is out for the year with Tommy John surgery.  Jose Ceda is still experiencing pain in the shoulder he had surgery on, having only thrown in extended spring training.  With each passing day, Ceda is looking like the next Travis Bowyer.  Bowyer was a hard throwing relief pitcher that we received from the Twins for Luis Castillo.  He was expected to join the bullpen right away, being called the future closer by Larry Beinfest himself.  However, he’d suffer a shoulder injury and never threw a pitch for the Marlins organization after being traded.  Sound familiar?  Jose Ceda still has time, but don’t expect for him to be in our pen in the future.

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- The biggest Marlins news of the offseason popped up rather quickly. It seems owner Jeffrey Loria is considering firing manager Fredi Gonzalez. Friend of the Maniac Juan C. Rodriguez is confused and a little ticked. Israel Gutierrez of the Miami Herald is even more angered than that.

If it’s true that Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez is on the verge of being replaced, and team president David Samson did nothing to dispel the rumors that have suddenly circulated, then Jeffrey Loria has officially become a meddler…

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…Loria would be worse. He would be the delusional owner who wants to win so badly that he makes a mockery of his organization — but doesn’t spend any money in the process.

It is quite damning that Loria has been angered at two different managers who have been a part of teams that have overachieved (as Gutierrez points out in the article, the team is a .500 team by run differential, yet won 87 games) with underwhelming parts. Gutierrez lists a bunch of personnel problems that Fredi had no control over (though he conveniently skips over the Emilio Bonifacio fiasco over which Fredi had complete control and easily cost the team two wins anyway) and claims Fredi’s done a better job with so little. While I’m no fan of Fredi’s work, as you’ve clearly seen over the course of the season, I wouldn’t blame Fredi for the team missing the playoffs either.

The club was lucky to be close to the playoff hunt. The Marlins racked up 33.2 WAR according to FanGraphs, and that should equate to about 82 wins in a 162 game season. The team’s run differential agrees with this assessment. The Marlins went 30-20 in one-run games, which in part explains why they’ve overachieved their Pythagorean and component WAR. While there’s no doubt Fredi didn’t optimize where he could by using better pen pitchers or not playing Bonifacio, the team certainly didn’t underachieve, which is typically why a manager gets fired. If he’s fired, I hope the next guy can figure out who the best position players and relievers are, because Fredi didn’t do so. But I’m sure that the next guy wouldn’t do more than a win or two better than Fredi.

- Speaking of which, who could that next guy be? ESPN’s Buster Olney reports it could be Bobby Valentine, the former New York Mets and Texas Rangers skipper. I always liked Bobby V’s insight on the game, and while I would prefer a more forward-minded manager, he certainly wouldn’t be bad and could even be a win better than Fredi in lineup writing and pen managing. And come on, he’s a funny guy. If he gets ejected, we might see him again like this. But seriously, if some more sabermetric mind became available, I’d be inclined to lean towards that guy. Hey, maybe I can turn in an application! Think I’d be a decent skipper for the Fish?

- Rob Neyer points out Chris Coghlan’s big second half before tearing into the Marlins for playing Bonifacio and putting Coghs in left field, where he was really bad. As I commented over there, I agree with the general sentiment, but given the replacements the Marlins had this season in the outfield, it was highly doubtful they could have done a whole lot better. Cameron Maybin did not look as good in Triple-A as Rob points out (MLE batting line of .269/.332/.377 according to Minor League Splits) and once the club acquired Nick Johnson, there was no room in the infield for Coghlan. Still, with the likelihood of Dan Uggla being jettisoned from the team this offseason and Johnson likely not to return, spots in the infield should open up for Coghlan to come back, and it should help his value a bit.

- If you hadn’t heard, Marlins minor leaguer Osvaldo Martinez was shot several times in Puerto Rico last Wednesday as part of a drive-by. He was in critical condition. Hopefully everything turns out all right for the young man. We’re all hoping for the best.

- Finally, I’m going to pimp some of my own stuff. First off, check out my two-part series on the Washington Nationals last week over at Beyond the Box Score (Parts 1 and 2), along with the Value Over Contract charts by the Graph of the Day guys Walter Fullbright and Justin Bopp. Also, check out my new stuff over at Fan Huddle, the “Intro to Sabermetrics 101” course I’ll be directing. If you’re just into the world of sabermetrics, I’m looking to provide a primer guide to all the workings, including a glossary and explanations on a wide variety of topics. Hope to see you my Marlin Maniac readers over there; please drop by and provide some feedback when you can!