Stark: Marlins Could Be Big Players This Off-Season UPDATE: All Big Names In Play

[Fritz]

Same. We're both from Orlando and hate our dads too!

[jOOj]

That makes me sad.

[Beef]

I seen a tatted Fritz at Publix today

[jOOj]

He wasn't going to IKEA.

[Metes]

FWIW Beltran has expressed his extreme distaste for playing in a pitcher's park

[jOOj]

He also has the stench of Mets still on him, too soon.

[Omar]

Are you referring to Aramis/Beltran, or the backend 5 years and $125 million of a Pujolsesque deal.

That's the issue whenever you want to take your blinders off. Going in with a bang in 2012 with Pujols would be great and it's tough to argue, but there is likely ways to get the same on the field impact with lesser deals and not kill the "marketing." Beltran and Aramis would do very well down here. Maybe not Pujols, but they aren't junk. What's smarter? Take risks on 34-36 Aramis and Beltrans for 2-3 years, or a 33-40 Pujols.

Aramis/Beltran may do well here, they may not. Pujols would do well here and it catapults the franchise quite a few places in the MLB pecking order in regards to national and international attention. Ramirez and Beltran don't do that.

[Erick]

Papelbon is currently making $12 million. He'll likely make about that much as a free agent yearly.

Fuck spending 2 million dollars for every 10 innings pitched. I don't care how elite you are.

Closers easily give the worst return on investment of any free agent expenditure.

Even with Beltran's injuries recently, he's been worth double what Papelbon has been by WAR for the last 4 years.

12% of your payroll on a guy who, at best, will throw 4% of your innings is an absolutely gigantic waste of money.

(Just for reference, for a position player to accrue 4% of his team's plate appearances, he only needs to get ~250 PAs. I'll take the over on Beltran.)

I agree with everything you said, really.

The only thing is, Beltran can't play CF anymore. He'd play LF and I don't really see the point for this team to spend on him.

I think the lineup is fine especially with the addition of an Aramis Ramirez.

LF is a position that, even if Lomo leaves, can be easily fixed internally with some cheap FA piece.
I think you can platoon either Coghlan or Petersen with some cheap right-handed bat that mashes lefties and not be much worse off than Beltran's overall production/much more cost efficient.

I think it's a lot more difficult to magically find an elite reliever like a Papelbon. Is it financially smart to spend that kind of money on a closer? Not really. However, when the closer is the final piece of the puzzle, I don't think it's a big deal. It would just complete the team.

Going into next season with the current board speculated bullpen makes the bullpen a legitimate question mark, imo.
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Aramis/Beltran may do well here, they may not. Pujols would do well here and it catapults the franchise quite a few places in the MLB pecking order in regards to national and international attention. Ramirez and Beltran don't do that.

Does that really matter?

[Bobbob1313]

NL bullpen ERA is 3.56.

Ours is 3.42. We are losing a guy with a 4.06 ERA who you hate.

8th in Bullpen WAR. 6th in bullpen ERA. 6th in FIP. 6th in XFIP.

I do not understand why it would be a legitimate question mark... Replacing Nunez/Hensley/Sanches with Ceda/Sanabia makes us bad?

[AdamRavs]

Our rotation, CF & 3B are legitimate question marks.

[Erick]

NL bullpen ERA is 3.56.

Ours is 3.42. We are losing a guy with a 4.06 ERA who you hate.

I do not understand why it would be a legitimate question mark...

A big reason why our bullpen ERA is at 3.42 is because our best bullpen arm (Mujica) has been able to eat up a good amount of innings.

Assuming our closer leaves, that would mean Mujica wouldn't pitch as many innings due to the way closers are used these days (since Mujica would end up being the closer).

One of the five guys definitely listed as coming back is Ryan Webb. Webb's been lucky with that ERA. I'm not sure what his inherited runner #'s are, but it sure seems like he sucks in those situations. Either way, he's a guy with control issues who pitches to contact. Is that really a guy you want pitching in high leverage situations a whole lot of times?

Choate is a lefty specialist. How many innings are you getting there?

That leaves Mike Dunn and Steve Cishek.

Dunn is a guy with control issues who has troubles keeping the ball in the park. I'm still not even sure if he's a guy who should be facing as many righties as he's faced this year.

I like Cishek, but you, yourself, have stated that it's just now 52.2 innings. A big reason why we're above average in bullpen ERA is due to his 2.73 ERA in those innings. It's likely that he's a good reliever, but how likely is he to repeat that type of success? It's unknown.

Ceda is even less proven. He's basically proven nothing in the big leagues, unless if you're looking at his last 16 innings of work (2.25 ERA). That's really not a telling sample at all. Especially considering that most of those innings have come pitching with no pressure.
It's also nitpicking statistics because if you split that 16 into the last 7.1 (this month) all of the sudden, he has a 3.68 ERA with a WHIP near 2.

And this is the situation with Mujica at closer. In the case that Mujica actually gets hurt or something, the bullpen is terrible. With a ~$100 million dollar payroll, I feel like we could/should have more depth in the bullpen.

A closer not only pitches the 9th inning, but he pushes everyone back an inning, which is probably most important. I'd like 80-90 innings from Mujica instead of the 60+ a closer would normally throw because they're always being saved for save situations.

[AdamRavs]

Ceda will be the closer.. He will be given every chance until he proves he cannot.

[Ramp]

maybe it's just me (it's not), but I think a return of Josh Willingham would boost season ticket sales by 15-20 ATLEAST

[Big Z]

I think if they're going to try and put a team that gets you as much wins as possible, they will not be giving anyone who's unproven a chance to close.

They're not going to roll out a $100 million dollar payroll and throw out a rookie as our closer.

I don't think JC Oviendo will be here next year either.

[Bobbob1313]

We'd maybe lose 10 innings from Mujica if he became closer. Substantial, but not a killer. You're overstating the impact that would have.

Webb has been lucky to have a low ERA, sure. But he's also probably due for some positive regression with regards to his walk rates and strikeout rates, and he's an extreme groundball pitcher, so he should likely overperform his defense independent stats by a bit anyways.

Choate is a lefty specialist, so yeah, you're only getting 45 innings from him, but they are absolutely elite innings that completely wipes out every opposing team's best LHB, and he throws extremely high leverage innings.

Dunn has control issues and probably should be shielded from righties a bit more, sure. But even with that, he's not terrible, and he was probably not used extremely well this year.

Cishek has been extremely lucky with HRs this year, but even assuming that, I don't think we should expect him to just drop off a cliff.

Ceda is unproven. But he's got closer's stuff and a very nice minor league track record. He'll have his struggles with control, but there's a ton of potential.

Your analysis also ignores that the average age of those 5 arms is 25.4 years old, and they mostly throw hard and have good stuff. There's definite room for improvement as well.

Sure, I'd like one more elite arm in the bullpen. Hell, I'd like 7 more elite arms in the bullpen. But given the other holes on this team, there's absolutely no reason to spend a lot of money on bullpen arms. It's an inefficient usage of your resources, even with a $100 million payroll.