Biggest Offseason Acquisition: ROTFL
Potential Fatal Flaw: Jeffrey Loria
Ceiling: Fourth in the NL East
Floor: Last in the NL East
Overall: Jeffrey Loria is one of the worst people in sports. For those of you who don’t know (and yet somehow read this blog), Loria is the owner of the Marlins.
If you were living under a rock, or on a vision quest in the deserts of Mali, you likely missed that the Miami Marlins decided that their previous offseason efforts to sign every player wasn’t the right direction, so they traded the bulk of their roster to Toronto. No team, not even the Florida Marlins, had really ever done this. And of course, because it has to, it gets worse.
Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria used lies to get the people of Miami to pay for a new, fancy, kind of weird, stadium. He told the people of South Florida that the team was going to compete. Free agents would be signed. Prospects would be paid. Success would be had.
One subpar season later, Loria decided to just blow the whole thing up and start from scratch. Now the people in South Florida who paid for a world-class stadium for what was supposed to be a world-class team get to watch Donovan Solano and Juan Pierre play every day.
The trade with Toronto netted the Marlins some relatively high-level prospects. Adeiny Hechavarria will likely be their starting second baseman at some point this season. Jake Marisnick struggled mightily in AA last year, but the Marlins are hopeful that he can join with current top prospect Christian Yelich and current best player Giancarlo Stanton sooner rather than later. The Marlins also acquired Henderson Alvarez, who should be able to slot immediately into the 3 or 4 slot in their rotation.
That the Marlins acquired good players isn’t really the point though because they gave up good players. They gave up Jose Reyes because of a down year. They gave up Josh Johnson because of a down year. They gave up Mark Buehrle because of a down year. Basically, they gave up. Which was the opposite of what they said would happen.
Jeffrey Loria cannot be trusted. Who is to say that he won’t decide to deal Giancarlo Stanton this season (for Stanton’s sake, I hope he does)?
As this is the 2013 preview, it’s worth talking at least briefly about the on-field product. That product will not be very good. It’ll be Giancarlo Stanton and the other 24 guys. There’s nothing sure in the rotation. The “ace” is probably Ricky Nolasco, who has been riding a good 2008 season all the way to continued employment. Nolasco has been awful over the previous four seasons, being worth just under 1 win above replacement per season. He’s the ace. The awful, awful ace.
Offensively, there just aren’t enough tools around Stanton. This is a team that thinks it’s realistic to start Justin Ruggiano every day in center field, alongside Juan Pierre in left. Beyond doing the people of Miami a disservice, they’re also doing Stanton a disservice.
It’s a lineup full of light-hitting slappers, save for the game’s best raw power hitter in Stanton. There’s really no, “well, if this guy stays healthy (Logan Morrison) I think they can contend” stuff. None of that matters. The Marlins are awful. And it starts right at the top.
Predicted Finish: 65-97
Mid-Atlantic Bias 