Those amazin' Marlins

It didn't get much attention because it happened on a big sports day, but the Marlins did something incredible today: They got back to .500...after being 20 games under (11-31) at one point this season. They are the first MLB team to do this since 1899, and have played over .600 ball since their start. Amazingly, they are in serious contention for the wild card in a season in which many picked them to lose at least 100 games.

Even more incredibly, they are doing it with a payroll of $14.3 million, by far the lowest in baseball, and less than one-tenth of the Yankees' $198 million payroll. (New York has five players earning more than the entire Marlins roster.) So in light of all this, a few questions linger about the Marlins:

1) Is Marlins GM Larry Beinfest the best in the game? Billy Beane, Ken Williams and Terry Ryan have all done well, but Beinfest - who deserves lots of credit for the '03 championship - is doing it on a payroll a fraction the size.
2) Are Marlins fans the most underserving, luckiest people in the world? They don't support the team, and more people care about what Dolphins RB Ronnie Brown ate for breakfast that day than the Fish, yet they've got two titles in the past decades, and more may be on the way down the road.
2b) Who's more undeserving of this success, the fans or owner Jeffrey Loria, who ran Montreal into the ground and then proceded to win a title in his first year in Florida. Even with the team's success this year, he may end up canning Joe Girardi, who has Manager of the Year written all over him?
3) If the Marlins do make the playoffs, what are their chances of winning the pennant? The NL, as has often been noted, is not particularly impressive this year, and the Fish have been arguably the strongest team from June on.

Even if the Marlins stay at home in October, to come from where they were to where they are today is simply amazing.

 

Loria by far, far, far. He ran one franchise into the ground and destroyed it, to make an asset-appreciation killing, and is well on the way to doing it again. The apathy of Marlins fans is in large part the result of being dicked around by Huizenga, John Henry, and Loria, corporate blood-sucking vampires and profiteers all.

Baseball would have succeeded in Montreal, and it can succeed in Florida, if these cocksuckers would quit using the fans as their personal collective sex toys.

 

I don't understand why cash-strapped teams (hello, Pirates ) don't go this route more often.

I mean, why plug holes with below-average vets and hold out hope for 75-85 wins? Wouldn't it be wiser to totally blow things up, and suffer through a few lean years while the kids get acclimated to the big leagues? If the majority pan out, there's an opportunity to win for the next 3-6 years.

Unless you like Jeromy Burnitz or something.

 

There are plenty of rookies playingin the majors every year... most are total non-factors.

 

I've been pimping the Marlins for quite awhile in the Braves RIP thread!

And as far as the people of Miami being undeserving of a team -- you've got it backwards. Do the Marlins deserve fans? All the front office of that team has done for years is bitch and moan about how the taxpayers won't allow themselves to be raped in order to build the team a new stadium. Well FU, Marlins. This is the one franchise that proves all the MLB rhetoric about needing new stadiums and spending big bucks is necessary to compete. Here's a team with two World Series championships in the last nine seasons that demolishes the team each time, yet still rebounds.

But I'm rooting for them.

 

Never count out the Fish. They're 2-for-2 in playoff trips vs. North American championships (that's 6-0 in series, small "s" wins). That said, as long as they keep drawing 1.5 mil or less, the case for keeping them in Miami gets that much harder.

(I say move them to Cleveland and reverse the "Major League" premise. The Indians are home 81 days, the Marlboros the other 81.)

 

Seven of their victories in the last week came against the Brewers.

Enough said.

 

The Marlins personally eliminated the Brewers.

So... what are you trying to say... now that you think you said enough?

 

1) debateable
2a) tough question. No doubt the fans have had to put up with asshole management, but that hasn't stopped other fan bases from supporting their teams (Cubs). However, from what I understand Dolphins Stadium is a shit facility to go watch a baseball game at. Still 2 World Series titles in a little over 10 years, fans should be filling the stadium. It would be a little more understandable if we were talking about the retarded Devil Rays.
2b) Loria is not the cause of the demise of baseball in Montreal. It was a long death for the Expos, he was merely the death blow. The team had been on life support since the strike ended their world series hopes. That's more the fault of the fans and their fucking conspiracy theories than anything else. Maybe if they still showed up their wouldn't be the annual harvesting of their talent and their might still be a team in Montreal. And Joe Girardi should be the manager fo the year.
3) I think the Marlins have as good a chance to do some damage in the playoffs as anyone, especially in the weak-ass NL where no one is particualrly threatening, even in my opionion, the Mets, who i think would prove to be cannon fodder for any AL Champion.

 

Loria and Selig set out to exterminate baseball in Montreal, and are doing the same thing in Miami, as they will do anywhere the voters refuse to bend over and shell out hundreds of millions of bucks for a brand new stadium to be used as the MLB owner's personal piggy bank.

The fans have turned their back despite two WS champions, because each time, the owners immediately dismantled the team, making unmistakably clear their utter contempt for the fan base. Fan loyalty means less than nothing to these cynical cocksuckers, who look at the fans as dupes and sheep to be sheared.

 

Hate to tell those pricks.... but no one is building baseball stadiums in the available miniscule markets.

 

Marlins win 8-5 to get above .500 for first time this season. Huge win... down 5-0 at one point.

If Houston and Colorado win today, the Marlins will trail the Padres, and only the Padres, by 1 game.

I think they had six, maybe seven teams between them and the Reds a month ago.

What I would do to see this team make the playoffs and end up playing the Mets.