With the 7th win in a row and the best record in baseball, they're finally getting noticed.  A commentator on ESPN admitted that it was a good team, but claims they have been "lucky in close games" and "have played an easy schedule".  With close to a quarter of the season on the books let's take a look at if that's true.  I know some of you are much better at the stats, so feel free to contribute.

Luck:

May be some merrit to this.

They are 7-3 in 1-run games and 3-0 in extra innings.  Let's call it 10-3 in close games.  That's the best record in the league.  Compare to 1-13 for Atlanta, 10-11 for Philadelphia and 7-4 for New York.  A few pitches here and there and  it could still be a logjam at  the top of the division.  But a stellar bullpen has to account for some of this luck.  They have the 3rd best bullpen ERA in the majors and have given up the 2nd fewest HRs.  The Marlins power has also enabled them to get runs in bunches but there may be some luck here ("clutch"?) or could it be the bench?

Late innings of close games v regular season

AVG -  .299 v .265

SLG -  .504 v .456

HR/AB -  .06 v .04

Schedule:

According to ESPN - http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rpi

The Marlins have the 2nd highest RPI and are 14th in strength of schedule.  Hardly a cakewalk.  Lucky or not, the team record is legit in my opinion.

2 other things stand out - Atlanta, probably the unluckiest team has had the easiest schedule so far.  The expected W-L formula has the Marlins tied with Philadelphia and New York,  3.5 games behind Atlanta.  Good thing the play the games on the field and not on paper.

It reminds me of another lucky team, the 2003 Marlins.  They didn't always have it together, but they found ways to win close games, to win series, to grind it out.  Let's hope this year's team keeps it up and follows them all the way to the World Series. 

[Edit by craig]  Ramp originally posted this as a Fan Post and I hope he doesn't mind that I am going to write all around it.  The writing in the blue-grey box was his original post, the typing above and below the box is me.  I wouldn't want to saddle Ramp with my opinions.

Anyway, here is the latest speculation on Hanley Ramirez: 

Lambasted for their major league-low $21 million payroll and perpetual trading of star players, the Marlins are finally keeping one in the fold.

According to a Ramirez acquaintance, shortstop Hanley Ramirez and the Marlins are on the verge of finalizing a six-year, $70 million contract extension, the largest commitment in franchise history. The deal is pending a physical and an official announcement might not come until early next week.

The Marlins are believed to have initiated talks during spring training. Ramirez, who is making $439,000 this season, would have been eligible for arbitration after this season. Ramirez is taking a huge home discount as this deal buys out his first three years of free agent eligibility.

Marlins President David Samson would not comment. Andy Mota, Ramirez's agent, could not be reached.

Sun Sentinel

Joe Frisaro is also reporting basically the same thing  but instead of "a Ramirez acquaintance" he refers to the source as "a high-ranking Major League Baseball source".  But everything else matches.

If true, this a great move by the Marlins.  Not only do they get Hanley locked up for six years but they do so at a very reasonable (cheap) price which won't break the bank.  In other words, this isn't the Texas Rangers signing A-Rod and then not having enough money to put a decent team around him.

If everything happens as reported, the Marlins can lock down Hanley and still have enough money to pay the arbitration prices of the players who will be arbitration eligible without substantially increasing the payroll.  Oh sure, the payroll would more than double, if they did all of this, but the Marlins would still be last in payroll or close to it.

Hopefully this isn't just some tale being told by the Old Salts at the bait shop and it actually has merit.  We will see.

(Note to Ramp: if you would prefer for me to leave your Fan Posts as they are posted, let me know and I won't do this in the future.)

Rosenthal pointed out in this column that 14 Marlins will be eligible for arbitration next year, a fact he believes will result in some trades for our young Fish (basically, our best players).  He thinks they could go as early as this summer.

I'm not sure if I agree, as I don't see many of these guys (outside of Hanley) getting huge salary bumps.  I'd expect guys like Uggla and Hammer to get bumped into the $2MM range, with Hanley possibly from $4-5MM.  Overall, this will result in a $10-15MM bump in payroll overall, which I think the franchise can absorb.

One guy I can see as trade bait, however, is Uggla, considering Chris Coghlan is waiting in the wings.  I see Uggs as comparable to an Adam Dunn type, so some teams should be interested (maybe Cinci, with Dunn going FA after this year).  In a smaller ballpark, he could potentially be a 40 homer guy.

I swear to god, if this team had any brains they would buy out Hanley's arb years with a long-term deal.  I guarantee we will get the better end of the bargain.  Hanley will make A-Rod money in the free agent market without a doubt.  I'd say 95% of GMs would pick him as the one player they'd want for the future, and it would be a travesty to let him go.  Obviously, he won't be traded this year, but the whole penny-pinching-until-2011 thing has me worried.

Here endeth my input/rants.

It was rumored that if A. Miller had another poor start on May 4th that Chris Volstad may very well be called up. He would still seem like the first choice if they give up on B. Badenhop or move R. Nolasco back to the bullpen.

S. Mitre, J. Johnson, and A. Sanchez all won't be back for at least 2 more months.

marlins marlins marlins marlins marlins marlins marlins marlins marlins marlins marllins marlins

In 2007 the biggest problem with the Fish was their awful D as hits were dropping in everywhere as measured by DER and team zone rating.

It's too early in the season to focus too much on any one player, as they don't have enough AB's to have a good sample.  But the team stats have enough events that we can start to see what is going on with the whole team.

In 2008 the D is much better, as they are no longer worst in the league.  Houston, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and San Francisco are all arguably worse.  Maybe Hanley's health and having a real 3rd baseman are helping.

But the one thing that jumped out at me is that they are 29th in all of baseball in team OPS versus LHP.  As you guys see more games than me, what is going on there?  I thought the Marlins were loaded with RH batters.

I wanted Marlins fans and especially fans of Fish Stripes to see your site featured on the '08 BaseballNooz. If you like to track Florida players, you'll find unique Mashup pages with individual player stats, photos, videos and more.

You can also see every blogger in the baseball universe in community BlogJam.

However the tough NL East turns out, we’ll be tuning into Fish Stripes every day of the season. Best of luck to you all the way to October.

Regards,
Walter
lead editor
http://www.baseballnooz.com

P.S. Keep up the great blogging work, Craig.

Has anyone else encountered a problem with the radio reception from station 790? It seems as the broadcast comes in loud and clear for the first few innings and then it is like some one "pulled the plug" as the volume goes way down and interference way up!

This has not been a problem in past years. I first noticed it during spring training this year and now I'm wondering if it has something to do with the new radio affiliate...

This morning I had an on-air debate with Jorge Sedano of 790 The Ticket about the Marlins finances. He referenced an apparently recent Forbes article about the team's situation and claimed that Forbes reported the Marlins made $40 million during the 2007 season before selling a single ticket. I can't question the article because I haven't seen it (nor have I been able to find it). I do know however that Forbes does an annual analysis of the finances of Major League Baseball franchises.

THE HARD NUMBERS

Here's a compilation of what those analyses have shown over the last few seasons (through 2006 because the report for 2007 isn't out yet):

According to Forbes EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization for the 2006 season was $43.3 Million. A hefty sum, no doubt.

For the 2005 season the club's EBITDA was $-11.9 Million.

For the 2004 season the team's EBITDA was $3 Million.

For the 2003 season the EBITDA for the Marlins was $-11.6 Million

Over the 4-year period analyzed the Marlins total EBITDA was $22.8 Million. That averages to $5.7 million per year. To put that into perspective, Dontrelle Willis earned $6.45 Million last year for the Marlins.

Of course, this doesn't take into account last season's finances but for the sake of argument let's say the club earned the same during the 2007 as in 2006 ($43.3 Million, which would be in line with what Sedano quoted), the 5-year average would be $13.22 Million per year. In contrast, Miguel Cabrera just signed a 7-year deal with the Tigers that averages more than $20 Million a year.

MOTIVATIONS

The question is whether the Marlins ownership is getting rich at the expense of the fans and whether or not the ownership cares as much about winning as they do about making money.

I believe the ownership does want to win. I think what they have discovered is that in the current financial environment in baseball, that they simply don't have the resources to maintain a continuous quality product on field, that is to say one that competes on a year-in/year-out basis. I think they believe that they can win in cycles. In the down cycles, the team makes money and fields what the fans would consider an inferior product while accumulating building blocks for the next "run".

The Marlins have found an area of opportunity in baseball's labor rules that allows clubs to maintain tight payrolls by filling their rosters with young players that have not yet achieved free agency. Even so a quality arbitration eligible player will command a salary in the multi-million dollar range.

Throw into the equation the financial deal that the Marlins are finalizing with the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County which includes a commitment to provide $152 Million dollars toward the project (some of which has to be provided up-front and some of which will be provided as rent payments) as well as any cost overruns that are incurred and you can understand why Loria is obsessed with keeping payroll down for the time being and putting money in the bank. He's going to need it later. It's no secret that Jeffrey Loria does not have the deep pockets that people usually associate with sports franchise owners. He had to borrow $38 million from MLB to buy the Marlins in the first place.

FANTASY AND REALITY

Would I prefer an owner that had big dollars and that didn't need to "work the system" like Loria does? Would I prefer an owner that didn't need to go through periods of fielding an inferior product in order to save money to create a window during which the Marlins can "make a run" at winning? Would I prefer an owner that didn't need to have a (mainly) publicly-financed stadium to compete effectively and one that could simply dip into his vast personal wealth to keep every good player the organization develops?

The answer to all of those questions is "OF COURSE I WOULD!" But I don't live in a fantasy land. Jeffrey Loria is the owner of the team for better or for worse. We need to accept the financial limitations that he has personally and the challenges that operating a franchise today pose. We should look deeper at the motivations for the decisions that are made rather than jumping to the conclusion that they are all based on greed. That's fine for talk radio but it's not substantive nor realistic. Remember that with ALL OF THE MONEY the Marlins have made over the last 5 years, they still could not have signed Miguel Cabrera to the deal he signed with Detroit.

OBJECTIVE/ANALYTICAL VS. HYSTERICAL/REACTIONARY

As baseball fans, let's stop ripping the owner and instead support him in his quest to get the stadium deal finalized. When the Marlins are playing in their brand new stadium, we can judge more clearly whether Loria wants to win. If Forbes shows that the Marlins are making money over an extended period of time, in the new stadium, while consistently fielding a low-payroll inferior team THEN I will judge him to be a greedy cheapskate, but not before.

You can catch my thoughts at Fish or Cut Bait.

Continue reading this post »

Hey FishStripes,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know that FishStripes is one of the first blogs in the SB Nation family to make this transition. We still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to FishStripes from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of FishStripes and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

FishStripes now has all the basic information about the Florida Marlins and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Florida Marlins material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

-------

There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

As promised, here are some pics from my rainy outing to the Nationals game on Sunday, March 23.

Opening ceremonies, color guard, etc.

Hammer, Gonzo, De Aza, and Fredo warming up

Danny and Hanley getting loose

The Incredible Hurk hurls the first pitch

Hanley the Manley stepping in

It's go time

The Hurk

Pitching out of trouble

Hanley stands in to start the fireworks

He reaches with a single

Uggs smacks a double...

...and Hanley comes in to score

Hammer up with Uggla and McPherson on...

...and here they come

There's your final, 4-2, as the bats were silent after this point