Since their inception in 1993 the Florida (now Miami) Marlins have never been an organization that has been content to abide by the conventional wisdom of baseball. Whereas many much older and more established franchises are content to wait patiently to develop prospects and cultivate a fan base to increase revenues and then in turn raise spending, the Marlins under owner Jeffery Loria, despite a laughably small fan base, have eschewed long term thinking and gone about trying to win now and worrying about the consequences later. Twice now since its inception the Marlins have staggeringly reached the mountaintop of baseball, in 1997 and 2003 respectively, only to quickly dissemble these teams in wholesale fire-sales, leaving the franchise barren of talent for years to come. Now on the precipice of opening a new ballpark in Miami (with some of the worst uniforms ever to hit major league sports) it seems Mr. Loria and the Marlins have forgone the old formula and engaged on a spending spree, going after and getting many of the best free agents available, and now seem poised to make their presence felt in the NL East. Nevertheless, given the recent developments of an ongoing SEC investigation due to a rather fishy stadium deal as well as questions regarding their ability to draw fans, questions remain as to whether Mr. Loria’s big bets will work, both on the balance sheet and on the ball field.
Arguably the most dramatic and potentially impactful change the Marlins made this year was the signing of former Met favorite, shortstop Jose Reyes. Coming off the heels of a fantastic season where he hit .337/.384/.493 with 39 steals and a league leading 16 triples, Miami stole Reyes away from their NL East rival with a huge 6 year $106million dollar deal. By all accounts, the Marlins acquired a game-changing player at the shortstop position, a wizard on the basepaths with 370 career steals, an above average defender at one of the most demanding defensive positions, accumulating a 2.1+ UZR/150 over his career, and most importantly a true ‘sparkplug’ of a hitter, getting on base and with power to the tune of a .368wOBA last year. Moreover, despite his reputation as being injury prone, a closer look at his games played shows that Reyes has only had one season where he played less than a 125 games in a season since he became a full-time starter, making him not only valuable but durable as well, despite the rigors of the shortstop position. The only problem is the Marlins already had a game-changing shortstop in Hanley Ramirez who since the Reyes signing has been quite clear that his has no intention of moving off his position for a player that has been arguably been his inferior over his career (.346wOBA Reyes career - .385wOBA Ramirez career). Nevertheless, despite Hanley’s misgivings about the move and potential concerns about him ‘getting along’ with Jose it’s hard to not see this as a huge upgrade, essentially replacing Emilo Bonafacio’s 3.3WAR last year on the infield for Reyes’ 6.4. Those wins, in all likelihood, will mean a lot in a tight NL East race.
From here, the Marlins sought to upgrade their rotation, and after striking out on top pitching free agent C.J. Wilson, the Marlins ‘settled’ on the more accomplished and more cost effective lefty Mark Buehrle for four years and $58million. At first glance when comparing Wilson and Buehrle, given their raw stuff and recent success (Wilson has been the Rangers’ top starter for the last two years while Buehrle has gone unnoticed on several bad White Sox teams) it would seem that Miami really lost out, however a careful look at Mark’s body of work shows that he has been one of the most durable and reliable starters in the past decade. Indeed, aside from throwing a no hitter and a perfect game in the last few years Buehrle has been the definition of a workhorse, throwing over 205 innings every year since 2002 and more importantly throwing quality innings. In fact, while a cursory look at Buehrle’s statistics might scare away most teams with his 4.78ERA, his Fielding Independent Pitching Data or FIP was 3.98 which is in fact consistent with his entire career. This statistic is more impressive when one considers that Mark has had some of the worst defenses in the league playing behind him in recent years (Chicago has been in the bottom five in UZR in the last three years) in addition to pitching half of his games at U.S. Cellular, which has been consistently rated as one of the biggest home run launching pads in baseball. In short, with his quick delivery to the plate and his ability to throw strikes consistently Buehrle has been one of the most underrated and most reliable starters in the game, and given the going rate for top flight starting pitching on the open market $58million is a downright steal. Adding Mark to an already promising rotation of Josh Johnson, Ricky Nolasco and Anibal Sanchez, it’s not hard to see the Marlins competing with the class of the senior circuit.
Finally, in addition to signing one of the best position players and starting pitchers, the Marlins also snagged one of the best closers on the market in Heath Bell. Signing for a relatively reasonable price of 3 years $29million (especially compared to the $50million the Phillies gave Jonathan Papelbon) the Marlins seem to have cemented their bullpen with one of the most consistent closers pitching today. Indeed, since taking over the closer role in San Diego from Trevor Hoffmann, Bell has been among the tops in saves leaders, accumulating 132 saves in three years, and doing it in dominating fashion, with an ERA of 3.05 and an FIP of 2.55. And even though this past year saw Bell’s strikeout numbers drop considerably from 11.09K/9 to 7.32K/9, given his age and consistent success most analysts are confident that these numbers are aberrational, as both Bill James and Fangraphs.com project those numbers to be around 9 K/9 next year. Although closers are traditionally more volatile than other positions and his recent decline are reasons for concern, it again is difficult to argue that Bell does not represent an upgrade and some badly needed consistency in the Marlins bullpen, especially considering that their last closer, Leo Nunez, turned out to be using a fake name and passport and may possibly lose his opportunity to play in the bigs again.
In spite of these additions to the Marlins, which as stated above are undoubtedly significant, there are reasons for concern. For starters, reports by FOX’s Ken Rosenthal and others have suggested that these big deals are heavily backloaded, making them potential albatrosses for the organization if the deals don’t work and don’t result in more success in the short term. Moreover, the Miami Herald has reported that the SEC is now investigating the financial records of the Marlins and demanded lists of investors and any political contributions made to Miami politicians. This last charge is particularly troublesome for the organization because it begs the question of where is all this money that the Marlins are paying out coming from? The stadium itself is being financed almost entirely by Florida taxpayers, whom foot over 80% of the entire cost, and the team itself is among the league’s lowest in both game attendance and revenue. How could a team who can barely get 10,000 people show up to their games pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to top flight free agents and not go bankrupt? The answers to these questions at the moment remain unclear, but what is clear is that the Marlins are taking some very substantial risks that might not pay off. While the team has undoubtedly improved substantially, the Marlins still must overcome a still-potent Philadelphia Phillies team, a young and emerging Atlanta Braves team, and quite possibly the Washington Nationals as well (sorry Mets fans, I feel for you guys, but it’s not looking great for the short term for you). These moves and several others may very well be the magic elixir that returns the Marlins to their not so distant past glory, however if they do not they may very well prove to be rather costly mistakes for both the Marlins and the citizens of Florida who may be paying for it.
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