The Miami Marlins: History in the Making

Hi! My name is David Hruska and I’m a Springfield, MO resident who’s new around these parts. I’ve been a baseball fan for as long as I’ve been able to breathe and I’m very excited to be working with the great people at High Heat Stats. When I’m not watching baseball or at work I tend to spend my time with my college sweetheart grilling the most delicious BBQ that you can possibly imagine. You can catch more of my musings, thoughts, and ramblings at thecutoffman.mlblogs.com.

Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria talked a big game just one offseason ago, acquiring big-name free agents like Heath Bell, Jose Reyes, and Mark Buehrle while making a run at the biggest fish in the sea, Albert Pujols. While Loria’s attempts to lure Pujols to South Beach would ultimately prove unsuccessful, the message was sent nonetheless: these new Miami Marlins were finally willing to open the pocketbooks to win. But the wins never materialized and dysfunction quickly set in. The Marlins slummed their way to a dismal 69-93 record which was good for a 2nd consecutive last place finish in the NL East.

The Marlins, as they are notorious for doing, decided that this current roster wouldn’t get the job done. They opted to leverage nearly all their usable roster pieces into future assets, making multiple trades that left the big league roster in tatters. Out the door went Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Heath Bell, Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, and their combined 13 All-Star appearances, only to be replaced by a handful of minor league prospects plus some veteran placeholders. If the Marlins could only muster 69 wins with that group of players, it was worth wondering how low they could go with an even less talented group. Well, if the early returns are worth anything, these 2013 Miami Marlins may make a run at some truly terrible history.

Through the first 39 games of the 2013 season, Miami has scored a total of 110 runs, which averages out to 2.82 runs per game. Since the advent of the designated hitter in 1973 every single Major League team has managed to score at least 3 runs per game. The lowest scoring ball club during the designated hitter era was the 1981 Toronto Blue Jays, who average 3.1 runs per game during the strike shortened, run suppressed season. (Teams today average about a quarter of a run more per game than they did in 1981.) The only other ball club to approach that level of ineptitude is the historically bad 2010 Seattle Mariners team that managed to finish dead last in the American League in nearly every offensive category outside of stolen bases.

The biggest problem for the Marlins has been their inability to keep Giancarlo Stanton healthy and on the field. At this stage of the team’s development, Stanton is the only Marlins hitter worth paying the price of admission to see, yet he’s been anything but entertaining in the early going. Shoulder injuries have put limits on his ferocious swing, which has led to career-worst numbers in OPS (.728), batting average (.227), and homers (3.4% of his at-bats end with a long ball compared to 6.1% for his career). Without a healthy Stanton pounding baseballs in the middle of the lineup, opposing pitchers can carve through the Marlins without a worry in the world.

A good offense is fueled by a strong catalyst at the top and that’s something the Marlins just don’t have. Juan Pierre has hit lead-off in 30 of the Marlins 38 games this season and he’s got a terrible .220 batting average and .273 on-base percentage in that spot. Placido Polanco hasn’t been any better this year hitting .242/.306/.280 while mostly hitting in the #2 or #3 hole. It’s damn hard to score runs when your top of the lineup can’t get on base.

The rest of Miami’s veteran pickups have been disasters as well. Casey Kotchman managed to get 5 hit-less at-bats under his belt before succumbing to injury. Thirty-something outfielders Matt Diaz and Austin Kearns have both lived up to their reputations as back-up outfielders gone bad, combining for just 6 hits in 41 at-bats. And don’t even get me started on Miguel Olivo, who’s .248 on-base percentage from the past 2 seasons combined has proven to be no fluke. Olivo is currently hitting .186/.226/.373 in a part-time role. Manager Mike Redmond may not have many options behind these guys, but at some point you’ve got to stop doing what’s unsuccessful and try something else.

That something else could be Christian Yelich, the 15th ranked prospect in baseball according to Baseball America. Yelich is currently stationed at Double-A Jacksonville, where he’s tearing the cover off the ball, pounding 14 extra-base hits in 19 games. The Marlins have also been giving more burn to Marcell Ozuna, the 75th ranked prospect in baseball. Ozuna’s responded well during his first 12 Major League games, hitting .326 with one homer and 5 RBI, which is more than most Marlins hitters can boast about. But apart from Ozuna, the rest of the Marlins who made the leap to the big league level have struggled.

Catcher Rob Brantly and shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, the key pieces to all of last season’s maneuverings, have looked overwhelmed by big league pitching. Brantly has shown an excellent batting eye, walking nearly as many times as he’s struck out in his young career, but the rest of his game is lacking. He still struggles to drive the ball to the outfield and left-handed pitchers have carved him up thus far, holding the rookie to a .091 batting average. Hechavarria, on the other hand, has had trouble elevating the ball off the bat. He hits ground balls twice as frequently as the average big leaguer which is a bad thing because those are the balls that are most frequently converted into outs. As long as Hechavarria continues to pound pitches into the ground, he’s going to continue to make outs.

This season was always going to be a long one down in Miami, but I don’t think anyone saw a train wreck of this magnitude coming. The hope was that on the way to 90 losses, some of the young prospects would show some promise in the hopes of building a contender by 2016 but that may be taking the optimistic view. This current roster has may 5 or 6 usable Major League players on it and the best of the group, Giancarlo Stanton, is already trying to force his way to another city as we speak. Unless things begin to turn around at the plate, these fish could go down as the most rotten hitting team in the modern era.

Big thanks as always to the folks at Baseball-Reference.com for the statistical help.

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Andy
Admin
10 years ago

Welcome David!

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago

If Miami loses today they will become the 20th team since 1916 to lose 30 of their first 40 games.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago

Well actually they would be the 35th team to lose 29 of their first 40 games. Sorry about that.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

Richard – does that count include this years Astros?

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Yes it does. So Houston is one of 19 teams to lose at least 30 of their first 40 games.

kingcrab
kingcrab
10 years ago

through 39 games, they score 13% of their runs in one game against the phils.

birtelcom
Editor
10 years ago

The Marlins team OPS+ is currently under 70. I believe no MLB team since at least 1916 has completed a full season with a team OPS+ below 70.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Of the top 11 Marlins in terms of PAs, nine have a lower OPS+ than the year before. The exceptions are Hechavarria who so far is duplicating his 74 from last year and Chris Coglan who would be hard pressed to be worse than his 10 from the year before.

The Marlins definitely are a poor offensive team but some of this has to be collective bad luck.

birtelcom
Editor
10 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

The most recent major league (as defined by baseball reference)team I have found with a full season team OPS+ under 70 was the 1886 Baltimore Orioles of the American Association. (The star of that team was pitcher Matt Kilroy, sort of the Doc Gooden of his day, who struck out 513, count ’em 513, batters that year.)

Doug
Doug
10 years ago

Miami has scored 1 run or less in 13 of their first 39 games, on pace for an even 54 times in 162 games. Only 6 teams since 1916 have had 54 games scoring 1 run or less, the 1972 Rangers being the most recent, and the other 5 all in the 1963 to 1969 period, incl. 3 expansion teams (i.e. all three within their first 4 seasons). If you want to be a bit more optimistic, only 18 teams have 50 games scoring once or not at all, none more recent than those ’72 Rangers. You have to slide… Read more »

Daniel Longmire
Daniel Longmire
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Seems pretty good at this point, Doug. Consider last night’s game (#14 with one run or less): the Marlins were shut out by the Reds, despite accumulating a staggering 14 baserunners (10 1B, one 2B, two BB and one HBP). Of those, seven were left in scoring position with two outs.

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
10 years ago
Reply to  Doug

For offensive ineptness in the modern era, it’s hard to beat the 1908 Cardinals. They averaged 2.42 R/G and scored 372 runs that year. The Dodgers were close behind with 2.44 R/G and 375 runs. Neither team had a player score or drive in more than 64 runs.

Oddly, the Cardinals had a somewhat higher OPS+ than the Dodgers, 81 to 77.

John Autin
Editor
10 years ago

Welcome, David! Nicely written overview of the Miami shipwreck. I still think they’ll wind up with an “ordinary” awful record of about 54-108 — but if things break just wrong for them, the ocean floor’s the limit.

Ed
Ed
10 years ago

Speaking of teams that aren’t hitting, the Yankees currently have an OPS of .671 for the month of May. Last time they had a monthly OPS below .700 was Sept/Oct of 2001. Before that was June of ’92.

And their seasonal OPS (currently .733) could very well end up being their lowest since 1992 (also .733).

And yet somehow they keep on winning….

Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Their opponents have a .617 ops, that’s how.
(well, not including the shellacking that Raul Ibanez is laying on them at this present moment)

no statistician but
no statistician but
10 years ago
Reply to  Ed

It’s early yet, not quite a quarter of the way along. Their pitching has been good, but my feeling is that they will fade by the end of the season, as they did last year, only sooner, possibly much sooner. Too old. Even this replacement bunch is old.

Timmy Pea
Timmy Pea
10 years ago

The Marlins are jinxed as an organization and will never reach the playoffs again. When the manager of a team located on the edge of Little Habana praises Fidel Castro, that is the kiss of death. It’s worse that Bartman or the goat.

Brendan Bingham
Brendan Bingham
10 years ago

David: Very nice piece. I want to say something positive about the Marlins’ near-term future, but admittedly it’s a struggle. The regression-to-the-mean streak in my personality leads me to think that the Marlins will not perform quite as badly for the rest of the season as they have through the first six weeks. Here’s a stab at associating a mechanism with that guardedly optimistic view. The Marlins are fielding a team of approximately replacement level players. Any injuries they suffer as the season goes on will have minimal effect, as the bench and AAA players that they use to replace… Read more »