Dave Magadan, Third Baseman (2.1 FanGraphs WAR, 1.5 Baseball-Reference WAR)

Would you like to learn an interesting fact regarding the otherwise quiet career of current Boston Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan? He actually led the Marlins in position player Wins Above Replacement (WAR) according to Baseball-Reference (rWAR); he also ranked second on the team in FanGraphs’s version of WAR (fWAR). How did he manage to do this? Well, it helps that he was one of only two players who were regular starters for the team that season (the other being the team’s other third baseman, Gary Sheffield) who actually ended up above league average with the bat. Magadan hit a Nick Johnson-like .286/.400/.392 (.357 wOBA), which ended up being 17 percent better than league average that season. Combined with decent defensive numbers, he added up to those WAR totals while only compiling 275 PA for the Marlins.

The Marlins later dealt Magadan to the Seattle Mariners, who later hilariously dealt him back to us at the end of the 1993 season. He went on to have another half season for the Fish before moving on. I’m not exactly sure why those trades happened on the Seattle side, though they may have had something to do with his poor performance for the Mariners.

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With the Florida Marlins moving into their new home next year and changing their name to the Miami Marlins, a topic I will discuss sometime in the near future, I wanted to take a look back at the Marlins’ humble beginnings and I figured what better way to do that than by showing you some Upper Deck Marlins baseball cards from 1993.  These are all original Marlins, as in, they were actually wearing a Marlins jersey on opening day in 1993.  These cards are actually from my own personal card collection that I scanned for you to envy, and no you can not have them….NOT YOURS!

BEST.UNIFORMS.EVER!

First Baseman: Orestes Destrade #39

Not only did Orestes not fear potential ridicule that comes from wearing glasses on the ball field he also came all the way from Japan to play first base for the Marlins in 1993 and 1994.  As a Marlin he battled nerd rage and posted a .246 batting average.  Orestes eventually went back to Japan’s Siebu Lions in 1995.  He is apparently also a “MILF Hunter“, who knew?   Today you can find Orestes as a radio and TV analyst for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Second Basemen: Bret Barberie #8

The man with the hot (ex) wife Jillian Reynolds (Barberie). He is most famous not for just being an original Marlin but also for somehow rubbing chili sauce into his eye while making nachos causing him to miss an entire game – not while he was a Marlin though; we don’t allow that kind of foolishness.  Bret also sported a party in the back, business up front mullet that would have made 1980s Mel Gibson jealous.  He posted a decent .289 batting average playing in 206 games for the Marlins in 1993 and 1994.  He has not been seen in a Major League uniform since he last played with the Cubs in 1996.

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