2014 Marlins Season Review: Introduction

The Miami Marlins are done with the 2014 season, and it was a season to be celebrated. So here at Fish Stripes, our natural response is to celebrate with a full month of 2014 Marlins Season Review series! In this series, we will discuss and break down each aspect of the Marlins' 2014 campaign and hand out grades to the players and staff that made this season such a smashing success relative to expectations for Miami.

The Overall Numbers

Record: 77-85
Runs Scored-Allowed: 645-675 (Diff: -30)
Pythagorean Expected Record: 78-84
Team Slash Line (wOBA): .253/.317/.378 (.307)
Team wRC+ (Rank): 93 (T-19th)
Team ERA (Rank): 3.79 (19th)
Team FIP (Rank): 3.56 (T-7th)
Component Runs Scored-Allowed*: 647-630 (Diff: +17)
Team Total FanGraphs WAR (Rank): 31.8 (18th)

*Component runs taken from batter wRC and FIP runs allowed plus UZR defense, all per FanGraphs

All of the numbers point to the Marlins being a decidedly average-ish team in 2014, which in the end is exactly what they ended up doing. After a slew of early one-run victories, their record evened out more in that department. The club actually looks even better when you look at the runs from the components of FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metrics. But overall, the metrics all had Miami ranking a little below average in most categories.

The team's pitching staff ended up doing a better job in terms of FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement (WAR) because of the fielding-independent success of guys like Nathan Eovaldi and Steve Cishek, both of whom had seasons that looked better by FIP than ERA. Combine that with good performances from Henderson Alvarez and Jarred Cosart after the trade deadline and the Fish managed a solid pitching performance.

But it was in the hitting department where the majority of the improvement occurred. Miami vastly improved in that area over the last year, adding tons of value over an ugly 2013 season. Giancarlo Stanton returned to prime form and put up an MVP-caliber season. Christian Yelich and Marcel Ozuna provided excellent years at the plate and in the outfield and helped form the core of the best outfield in baseball. And in the infield, you can see at least some help in the form of a resurgent campaign from Casey McGehee and the fact that Jarrod Saltalamacchia, as concerning as his future may be, was not Jeff Mathis and Rob Brantly this year!

Schedule

The 2014 Marlins Season Review series will go through this year step by step.

- First, we will discuss positives and negatives throughout this week. Starting tomorrow, we will go through one positive and one negative each day. This will wrap up on Friday.

- Next week, we will begin our position player reviews. Each day, we will review each of the primary starters at each position. If there were more than one player considered a primary starter, they will be all reviewed in two articles that day. Each review will feature an overview of the season, both statistically and aesthetically, along with a grade at the end.

- At the same time, this site will not forget that there are ex-Marlins in the playoffs. We will track down the diaspora of the Marlins throughout the playoffs weekly in a Former Marlins Power Rankings series that will serve to remind us what this team's is eventually trying to accomplish: the playoffs.

Anything else we missed? Anything else you would like to see? Let us know in the comments!