Hurdles removed to Marlins’ success
Posted: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 4:54 PM
I’m in South Florida covering tennis, but I’m taken with the sports conversation here centering on the Marlins. March Madness doesn’t register (why the NCAA placed a first/second round here, or a regional in Memphis where empty seats were in most every television shot, is a question begging to be answered), as the NCAA television ratings in Miami are the lowest of any major US market.
The Heat and Panthers are making playoff runs (what percentage of true sports fans know what league the Panthers play in?). Spring football is in full bloom, and none of it is pushing the Marlins into the background.
Having the Marlins being the buzz has rarely been the case in the 17 star-crossed years of the Florida franchise, which included a lively honeymoon year in 1993, and two World Series wins, but no sustained success.
Now a new stadium is finally a reality, and the final vote approving it early last week may be the reason for the region’s buzz. By 2012, a new ballpark will stand on the site of the now-demolished Orange Bowl. For the first time in nearly two decades, there is a certainty for the Marlins as well as a welcome name change to the Miami Marlins.
Players may now stay with the franchise, as Hanley Ramirez is the first signed to a long-term deal. There is now chatter here about the team’s edict to cut hair and remove jewelry, one that angered the previously-corn rowed Ramirez. Plenty of skepticism still exists about this region’s ability to house a major league team, but every hurdle to success has been removed. Now it is on the team.
And despite management’s best efforts to destroy any continuity by moving every good player out of town, the Marlins’ baseball operation has built a strong foundation.
A respected baseball mind just issued predictions that placed the Marlins fourth this season. With any starting pitching, they should contend. Their weaknesses have been addressed. Infield defense improves with the trade of Mike Jacobs, and the shift of Jorge Cantu to first. Young outfielders, led by Jeremy Hermida, are the talk of spring camp. A key question is the health of Matt Lindstrom, the projected closer, as well as Scott Proctor, signed as the veteran setup man, but idled this spring with what may simply be a case of career overuse.
The Marlins have to prove themselves over 162 games, but they simply have too much pitching to be ignored. But what is truly telling is that they appear relevant in their own city and it isn’t even October.
FIVE MORE SWINGS:
1. WITH MIAMI APPROVING A NEW STADIUM, and Tampa Bay buying time to resolve its issues through a World Series appearance, the front line for baseball’s Home Makeover is Oakland. The A’s won’t stay indefinitely, and Oakland appears ill equipped to address building a new ballpark. The economy derailed hopes in suburban Fremont. Territorial rights granted by MLB to the Giants in 1992 are a roadblock to a San Jose move. No wonder reports floated last week of a visit by A’s management to Las Vegas.
2. CALLING PEDRO? Already facing the start of the season without Kelvim Escobar and Ervin Santana, the Angels now learn John Lackey received a cortisone shot in his right elbow. One Pedro Martinez is available, and would certainly inject life into the early season for the Angels
3. SOME THINGS JUST DON’T CHANGE. Bobby Valentine was mentioned in Sunday’s New York Times as a potential manager for the U.S. team in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. Valentine has a former New Jersey sportswriter as a PR man in Japan, and stories are planted in a sound effort to keep Valentine, who expects not to be re-signed by his Japanese team after this year, visible in the U.S.
Managing in the WBC seems a natural fit for Valentine, given his knowledge and appreciation of the game as it is played internationally. Then Valentine talks about the WBC. Wrote the New York Times, “(Valentine) said the double-elimination format is silly and used harsher words about the pitch-count restrictions.” Valentine’s words, “Do you think it is right that the rest of the world has to be told what to do by MLB?” I happen to agree with his stance on the format -- the WBC can never be truly legit until it is played without restrictions -- but then again, I’m not campaigning for a job managing the U.S. team.
4. MLB HAS CREATED A MONSTER. Remember we posted here several times over the winter about the pay discrepancy between starters and relievers. That A.J. Burnett was paid so much more than Francisco Rodriguez and Kerry Wood COMBINED strikes one as lunacy.
The analytical argument is for another day, but here’s the real world application: Justin Duchscherer tells Oakland he won’t go back to the bullpen. Now, he can’t stay healthy, having only started 22 big league games, and he will open this year on the DL. But he still stands up and tells his team to take their bullpen and shove it. There is one and only one reason: money. Duchscherer, at age 31, knows he has a chance for one decent payday in his career, and his best chance for cash is as a starter.
5. THE DONTRELLE WILLIS story took a bizarre twist Sunday as the Tigers claimed Willis suffers from an “anxiety disorder.” Willis claims to be fine, but admitted team doctors didn’t like the results of a blood test. If true, his career is now secondary to rooting out the cause and finding control for a life-altering issue.
