Ken Rosenthal: Coghlan for ROY

[Swifty]

Lou, your argument ultimately devolves into the same drivel as to why Jorge Julio had to be a good closer, because Beinfest figured shit out with Benitez and Jones and Looper and Urbina.

Past success is not at all indicative of future success.

Here's something that is tremendously overlooked about this current team.

With the exception of Hermida, not one single every day position player was drafted, developed and promoted to the club from within. Save for JJ, there is not a single Beinfest produced Marlin to make the All-Star game, Beinfest has yet to produce a multi-season all-star or award winner. All the award winners we've had were plucked from other team's systems.

Does the future look very bright for Coghlan and Johnson? Absolutely, but it looked very bright for 2005 Jeremy Hermida, too.

To just say "Beinfest does it" with young players ignores tremendously the paths the successful major leaguers we have took to the majors, and how, auspiciously, none of the perennially successful ones spent notable time in our minor league system under Beinfest.

That's why I'm skeptical, that's why I'll continue to be skeptical and won't just pencil in anyone we have in our system as a certainty, we as an organization have shown a tremendous EYE for talent, but when the burden falls on us to develop it at any level other than the major league level, we fall embarrassingly short.

[nny]

I think it's humorous you start a paragraph with "Past success is not at all indicative of future success" and then go on to say our current prospects won't work out because our past prospects didn't work out

[Swifty]

It's easier to say that when you're not good at doing something you'll continue to not be good rather than haphazardly, and incorrectly, attribute success and "getting it" to the reason we'll continue to be fine despite shedding our productive players.

It's not like it's fucking hard. You guys think that no matter what, real life works like OOTP. If they were meant to be good, at some time, and if they're still under 30, they've got a shot. I think that just because their career year might look like the season we're getting rid of doesn't mean their rookie season will be that good. You don't account for growing pains, I don't account for immediate success. You've been spoiled by the Hanley's and Miggy's of the world, and think we can continue to give them away because the next guy in the pipeline is going to hit just like that.

To be successful at anything, you hang onto certainty and minimize risk. You guys want to take more risks than even Larry "I don't need depth until August anyway" Beinfest. And yet, you don't even look at it as risk, you look at it as a certainty. That there's no way a young kid will struggle, they're just going to come in and replace a very good 4 year veteran and we won't miss a beat. It's absolutely astonishing.

[nny]

Actually the difference is you're only looking at star players, asgs, ect where as it's the product as a whole that matters.

I don't think asking for a .720-.750 OPS from every players sans-hanley is asking for a lot. And that's if we dump every arb bat.

Trying to replicate a player is stupid. Trying to replicate the teams total production (or increase the teams total production, or only get a minor production loss, ect, circumstantial shit) is what the idea is.

[lou]

It's easier to say that when you're not good at doing something you'll continue to not be good rather than haphazardly, and incorrectly, attribute success and "getting it" to the reason we'll continue to be fine despite shedding our productive players.

It's not like it's fucking hard. You guys think that no matter what, real life works like OOTP. If they were meant to be good, at some time, and if they're still under 30, they've got a shot. I think that just because their career year might look like the season we're getting rid of doesn't mean their rookie season will be that good. You don't account for growing pains, I don't account for immediate success. You've been spoiled by the Hanley's and Miggy's of the world, and think we can continue to give them away because the next guy in the pipeline is going to hit just like that.

To be successful at anything, you hang onto certainty and minimize risk. You guys want to take more risks than even Larry "I don't need depth until August anyway" Beinfest. And yet, you don't even look at it as risk, you look at it as a certainty. That there's no way a young kid will struggle, they're just going to come in and replace a very good 4 year veteran and we won't miss a beat. It's absolutely astonishing.

First of all, I don't want to get into a draft analysis argument with you. But you simply cannot ignore this front office's player acquisitions and slam Beinfest exclusively on some draft failures. They have made a killing with Hanley, Nolasco, Uggla, Ross, Baker, Lindstrom, and you know the other 15-20 names I can shoot out. Sure, Johnson, Coghlan, Volstad, Hermida, Olsen, and a few lesser ones are the only home grown guys over a 5 year period of the draft which is OK not great or good1, but whatever. Third parties judged our farm as # 2 in baseball before this season, so you can't just assume since Allison, Tankeresly, Marceaux, Sinkbiel, Kensing, and the other high draft picks didn't work out, that Stanton, Morrison, Dominguez, etc are going to fail. Does Beinfest screw up and say, not draft Ellsbury and keep drafting pitchers? Sure. But he's developed some respectable MLB talent. Currently the farm is stacked and highlighted by mostly Beinfest guys, and that's that. We'll see how these new kids look in 3 years, but I'm pretty excited with the emergence of Coghlan, and I think Volstad and West are going to be good eventually.

Also, you are so wrong about assuming myself, or others here, are spoiled by the Cabrera, Hanley, and Becketts of the world. I'm not coming out and proclaiming Stanton a .950. I'm not saying Miller is going to go crazy and throw a 3.4 era over 200 IP. I think putting Gaby at say, a .750 OPS. Or expecting Volstad/West/Miller to be able to handle 180+ innings at a low 4.25ish era is reasonable. Maybin has the talent to go .825 right away, but if it's .775? That's a real good CF considering his defense/speed and making up a lot of production immediately lost by arbitration bats. These are all reasonable totals. If this is what your problem is, thinking myself or others on this board are expecting everyone to show up as .850 rookies and bash our way to 900+ runs, please show me those posts because I'll join you in hating on them. I'd hope to see that in maybe 2012/2013, but that's a bit unrealistic for right now. And like what NNY has been saying, even getting mid 700 OPS out of the entire team makes his average in the NL, and if Baker/Maybin/Coghlan all hit .800, and we keep some arbitration bats, this is a well well above average offense. And we'll keep 1-3 arbitration bats because we can afford that.

2003 751 Runs
2004 718 Runs
2005 717 Runs
2006 758 Runs
2007 790 Runs
2008 770 Runs (previously incorrectly cited 2008 run totals)
2009 785 Runs (expected over 162 games. Or what I call, an improvement)

Do I think it's really cool two of our three best offensive seasons have been without Cabrera? Yes. Would we have been better with him? Yes. But, have we replaced all offense lost and have a slow upward trek in hitting despite enormous defections of Cabrera, Delgado, Willingham, Jacobs, etc? Yes. For about the fourth time in this thread, we're going to see improvement when the pitchers take the next step. It's not going to be the offense. We can replace the offense we have, which is at worst average and by all accounts above average. We're not going to drop to 730 runs because we trade Uggla and Hermida, and their 1300+ PA go to a collection of Maybin, G. Sanchez, Carroll, Bonifacio, some other veteran 1B/LF type, and maybe Morrison or Petersen. They'll hold their own. Every team in baseball can say "but if I had an extra $20 million to spend I can win 7 more games." But financing counts. That's a weak argument if that's your qualm about the Marlins getting rid of guys. Of course it's better to be safe and keep what you know rather than count on an unknown kid. But we can't. So we make do. We've done it before. We'll do it again. And while the offense may not get "better," it'll be "the same." And that's fine with me for another 1-2 years when we have the new minor league class to unleash, and more importantly, an extra $40 million in payroll to be able to retain players past year 5 of their career and add legit bats if we need to fill a hole somewhere to never have another Abercrombie/Bonifacio situation.

[nny]

Food for thought on our rotation:

Our rotation has an ERA of 4.64. That is 10th in the NL. We have a RA of 5.09, a better representation of our staff, which is 13th in the NL. Not good.

The average ERA of a NL staff is 4.31. The average RA is 4.63. The average fip is 4.33.

However, we have a FIP of 4.21 (4.58 RA). That is 7th in the NL. Aka, above average. Our FIP to ERA difference is the highest in the NL, meaning our staff has been affected the most by luck/defense. tRA says the same story: it says we should have a 4.63 RA and a 4.26 ERA.

Ricky's bad year as well as our defense is almost entirely to blame for us being a below average staff. His tRA (which takes LD% into account, so does damage him rather than FIP which ignores it) is 4.26. That means that he's given up about 22 more runs than he "should" have. Our defense is at -24 runs by UZR. that's 46 runs. Which would then put us at a 4.56 RA, 4.16 ERA. Banking on Ricky not having a repeat (and based off how he's done since his call down, this shouldn't happen again) and our defense improving by Uggla being gone and shifting Coghlan, there's a lot to be positive about with our rotation.