WELCOMING OUR NEW CONTRIBUTOR; MARLINS OFF-SEASON REPORT

I'm so pleased to welcome one of the finest reporters working today to "Performance Analysis." Mr. Gideon Friedman comes to us with an insane work ethic, and he's not just a tools goof. He once volunteered to have Brian Cashman's demon baby. He's a devout Yankee fan which is bad enough, but he more than makes up for that in jokes about Bernie Williams' limp noodle of an arm. Welcome, Gideon.

Without further ado, let's start cranking out these off-season reports. As usual, look in the archive for YOUR favorite team.


Florida Marlins Off-Season Report

The Marlins, two time winners of the World Championship in their short history, have generated plenty of examples of how to rebuild from nothing into a championship caliber team.

The question is, is this going to be another textbook example?

I’m pessimistic.

I didn’t like what they got for most of their players.

This team is going to have an ugly season, and forgive me for being skeptical that Giradi’s no facial hair rule is going to save this season.

1B

Mike Jacobs 3 to 1 strikeout ratio means it’s going to be hard for him to be anything other than league average at 1st. If he hit 40 homers, it probably wouldn’t matter. Jacobs will earn his playing time.

RF

Jeremy Hermida is going to be one of the most interesting players to watch this coming season. Just so my Marlins readers don’t have to buy the $35 Baseball America Prospect Handbook:

As a high school student in the Atlanta area, Hermida was ticketed for Clemson along with local rival Jeff Francoeur until the Marlins took him 11th overall in the 2002 draft. Hermida earned Baseball America’s nod as the top pure hitter on the prep level and the fourth-best position player overall. Scouts compared him to Eric Chavez, Paul O’Neill, and Andy Van Slyke, though Hermida himself preferred Shawn Green as a role model. He signed without acrimony for $2,012,500. His father groomed his hitting stroke from a young age, converting him from a right-handed batter to a lefty at age 4. Hermida was working with wood bats ate age 13, and counted former big leaguer Terry Harper among his early private instructors. All those lessons paid further dividends in 2005, when he played in the Futures Game, was MVP of the Southern League all-star game and hit a grand slam off Cardinals right-hander Al Reyes in his first big league plate appearance on Aug 31.

They go on to name him the favorite for Rookie of the Year. There, I saved you $35 bucks.

SS

The mindset for scouting Hanley Ramirez as the centerpiece of a deal to unload Mike Lowell’s contract and the injury-prone Josh Beckett was to acquire an up-the-middle player, filling other positions with their farm system. Ramirez is an enigmatic prospect – he’s not much of a hitter, and his glovework would be league average or worse. He is still young, but Beckett might have been used to acquire a better prospect. Hey! One was being traded around this summer. Coincidentally the very team they were dealing with had him for a short time! Anybody want to think that if their owners weren’t so mental, the Marlins could have gotten better value for Beckett? Why was Schuerholz sleeping on this one? The Braves even needed a friggin’ major league 3rd baseman in return.

Using Nate Silver’s incredible forecasting tool UPSIDE, Ramirez ranks seventh among shortstop prospects. It would have been interesting to see if they could have gotten any of the top three in a deal for Beckett, if they had their hearts set on a SS.

Player UPSIDE

1. Joel Guzman, SS, LAN (21) 175.6
2. Eric Aybar, SS, LAA (22) 161.2
3. Brandon Wood, SS, LAA (21) 161.2


3B

Conventional wisdom had it that Miguel Cabrera would be making a move to third. I’m not that enthused with that idea, filing under the heading of “if ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Wes Helms figures to get plenty of at-bats on this team, and PECOTA has him being short of league average, but really, it’s going to be tough to distinguish between him and Bill Mueller’s season.

LF

This is Cabrera’s future, anyway.

His stars and scrubs chart is way out of control. The green represent superstar, and it’s a veritable forest. He’s settled in as a .320 EqA player, and the scary thing is, he’s got considerable upside. He’s…23.

2B

They’d be really dumb to let Pokey Reese take this job, although considering their shortstop situation, I’d wager he may well get time there too. Reese had a hard upbringing, so I’ll forgive him his other flaws. (Consider this my concession to “make-up.”) Defensively, he’s a help.

C

Prospect Josh Willingham, ranked No. 11 in the Marlins system by BA, stands to get his first serious playing time. He’s only been catching with 2002, so expect his career at catcher, and probably his career as a whole to be short-lived. He’s still not the worst late-round fantasy choice out there, as he has a decent mix of offensive skills, including plate patience.

CF

From all the depth charts, it appear Eric Reed will be getting a lot of playing time in center. He’s not well-known to me, so if this is really true, it’s not heartening that his 90-percentile PECOTA projection is a line of .278/.326/.394 with four homers.


ROTATION and BULLPEN

To avoid the perennial fate of the Devil Rays, who don’t have huge problem scoring runs but have serious issues when it comes to keeping them off the board, the Marlins decided to restock their farm system by pursuing a bevy of young arms and hoping some of them worked out. While the quality of prospects didn’t exactly blow you away, the outgoing talent doesn’t exactly blow you away either. Forgetting about the Beckett deal, an inaffordable Carlos Delgado, Juan Pierre, Juan Castillo netted Yusmeiro Petit, Reynel Pinto, Travis Bowyer, Ricky Nolasco who may be able to contribute right now.

The rotation, outside of Dontrelle Willis (himself not the safest bet), consists of Mitre, Moehler, Vargas and Johnson, and Joe Giradi’s wildest prayers only involve the phrase “league-average.”

In other words, it’s going to be a long season for Fish fans.