Marlins Come From Behind, Win 8-5

[Namaste]

Very fun game to be at.
My younger brother yells "Let's Go Marlins" very loud. He was actually scaring my son a little.

The Fox Sports Florida girls sat behind us and had promo pics taken and did an interview with Craig Min.

Turner looked awful, Stanton looks even more fit if that's even possible.

[Nick]

Yes, and if he manages to hit .330 while striking out in 1/5 of his at-bats, he will probably be useful, so let's expect that to happen while ignoring literally all other available evidence.

This team should be actively looking for replacements for Hech. He's the organization's biggest long-term weakness.

I don't disagree with that last sentence. I'm just saying that it's within the realm of possibility that he could improve his hitting to being pretty much the worst hitter in major league baseball, to maybe a below average hitter and thus not hurting us so much. He's not the long-term answer in my opinion, either.

[emkayseven]

Average major-league team scored 675 runs last season. Marlins scored 513. I don't think they improved their offense by a run per game.

This will still probably be in the discussion for worst offensive teams in the majors. Baseball Prospectus has them at 72 runs worse than the Mets for dead last.
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I think if everything broke right, they still wouldn't be an average offensive team. Their best-case scenario is probably still bottom-10.

I want to be clear, I'm not saying this is a league average offense as is - but I'm saying that the Marlins offense isn't incredibly lol-worthy anymore.

You figure if Stanton is healthy, with an upgrade at catcher over the assholes who hit a combined .192 last season, natural (even if small) improvements from Yelich and others like Dietrich and Hech (who, I agree, will never OPS more than .640ish), this team lucks into an extra 75 runs on top of last year. Middle of the pack? No, but certainly a huge improvement. And of course, this is assuming that McGehee is essentially the same offensive output as Polanco was last year. Which is probably not the case - especially given that he already has over 33% of Polanco's 2013 RBI total.

My guess is we improve by 75-100 runs this year and that we're closer to league average this year than to the 513 of last year. That's a huge step in the right direction, especially with the arms we have.
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Daft, I know I screwed up my game thread but we don't need your bad juju too:

"3) Game threads can only be started the day of the game."

[Bobbob1313]

I want to be clear, I'm not saying this is a league average offense as is - but I'm saying that the Marlins offense isn't incredibly lol-worthy anymore.

You figure if Stanton is healthy, with an upgrade at catcher over the assholes who hit a combined .192 last season, natural (even if small) improvements from Yelich and others like Dietrich and Hech (who, I agree, will never OPS more than .640ish), this team lucks into an extra 75 runs on top of last year. Middle of the pack? No, but certainly a huge improvement. And of course, this is assuming that McGehee is essentially the same offensive output as Polanco was last year. Which is probably not the case - especially given that he already has over 33% of Polanco's 2013 RBI total.

My guess is we improve by 75-100 runs this year and that we're closer to league average this year than to the 513 of last year. That's a huge step in the right direction, especially with the arms we have.

If they scored 75 more runs a year ago, they would have still been the worst offense in the majors with a 10-run cushion. This is still almost certainly baseball's worst offense.

[emkayseven]

And again, I'm not arguing that it's not bad...only arguing that it's much improved and will likely continue to improve, and that it's not SO bad anymore that we should feel out of a game if the other team goes up by two runs.

[Erick]

If they scored 75 more runs a year ago, they would have still been the worst offense in the majors with a 10-run cushion. This is still almost certainly baseball's worst offense.

I don't know why, but this made me laugh. It's amazing how bad our offense was last year.

[dim]

It was a AA offense guest starring Giancarlo Stanton pretending to be a major league starting lineup.

[BigGameFish]

You guys are so damn pessimistic. I don't think you'd be happy unless we fielded a line-up of all-stars. How the hell did you become fans of this team?

What we have is a CONSISTENT lineup. That's te biggest difference from last year. I think we had a new player in the lineup or in the rotation nearly every two weeks last year. Now
we'll be getting an entire season of Yelich, salty, McGhee, and Oz. The projected averages of those guys over the course of the year is leagues beyond whatever production we got from
those positions last year (Pierre, Mathis and Co. behind the plate, Polanco, Lucas, kotchman...dare I continue?)...continuity should not be ignored here - it is the most vital improvement of the offense. With that and Stanton OPSing over 1.000 like a few years ago, it is an offense that opposing pitchers will surely respect.

Not all teams are the Tigers, Rangers, or Angels, and even those teams struggle. C'mon guys lighten up please! Then you wonder why the traffic on the site can be so slow.

[Bobbob1313]

You guys are so damn pessimistic... How the hell did you become fans of this team?

There might be a connection here.

[BigGameFish]

Lol I see what you're saying.

Oh well I'll just ride the hope train - it's more fun that way.

But for the record: the way these guys have continued to put balls in play and knock guys in even when down by 5 runs is a very good sign for things to come. I know you all are orthodox about your projections and averages, but some patterns (even early in the season) can be indicative of future outcomes. I really like what I see from the hitters. Obviously the numbers of some of them are unsustainably high, but others are unsustainably low. If that's any indication of what an average 4 game stretch may look like, I am very hopeful.

Lets see how Koehler performs tomorrow. Would be nice to see a guy go 5 without giving up more than a run or two.

[Mainge]

I don't think there's any predictive value in 4 games whatsoever. I agree the offense is much improved but there's no way it's anything but a really bad offense.

I'm not disrespecting anyone that feels otherwise but I would personally prefer this site stay small and be a place where objective analysis prevails rather than it become a large site overrun with a bunch of crazed homers.

I don't see why I can't acknowledge it's a crappy offense with several nice pieces to build around and a lot of hope for the future.
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Do you guys remember when John Buck was the best player in baseball for 3 weeks last year?

[lou]

Middle infield in general is really the one place they don't have any viable long-term options. It's really bad.
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Catcher isn't great, but they can probably find a guy to hit LHP to platoon with Salty if they ever stop this Jeff Mathis thing.

They have some catchers coming with Realmuto, Barnes, and maybe even Brantly. Plus of course the 3 years of Salty. This is pretty solid.

I'd say 1B is as big of an issue longterm as the middle infield. They have nothing. After they take Rodon/Hoffman/beade with pick 2, they need to take 4 infield bats with their next top draft picks next two rounds. Moving Cishek, Dunn, and one of the SP will help here too you'd hope.

[Namaste]

Namaste, I screwed up my game thread but we don't need your bad juju too:

"3) Game threads can only be started the day of the game."

Oh no you didn't just do that.


That was a rule we had back when we had far more active posters.

Be happy someone took the time to make one.

*it sounds like I'm angry but I'm not. I am being serious, though.

[Mainge]

I am with Daft. You gotta keep a game thread when you get one.

[Beef]

Love Hech