I admit I’m a week late in writing, but the contrarian inside me couldn’t stand to hear another writer/TV analyst tell me that the Red Sox are going to win the World Series. What fun is the beginning of a new season if all you’re hearing is a reaffirmation of the conventional wisdom? Saying Boston is going to win is like saying owning land is a good investment, or that the Strokes like getting drunk. Reasonable and measured. But leave the safe bets to your mutual fund manager; it’s a new baseball season. With that in mind, you heard it here first – The Florida Marlins are going to win their third World Series this year. This is my boldfaced prediction for the 2011 MLB season.
The Phillies are still the class of the NL East. The reigning (times three) division champs stole the best pitcher on the free agent market and put together a rotation thought to only be possible if you managed a team in MLB The Show for Xbox. But even with their four aces, nothing is guaranteed. Halladay, Lee and Oswalt are all on the wrong side of 30. It’s not too much of a stretch to think that one of them (I’d bet Lee based on history) spends time on the DL this year. Offensively there are other questions. Chase Utley is hurt and maybe out all year, Jayson Werth is gone, and Placido Polanco and Raul Ibanez have to be regression prone seeing as they were drafted in the 1970s. This is not the juggernaut Philadelphia offence of three years ago. And the Phillies bullpen is still the Phillies bullpen. This doesn’t mean they aren’t a good team, it just means that on April 4 it’s not unpossible to imagine a scenario where things break wrong and the Phils miss the playoffs.
The Phillies aren’t the only team standing in the Marlins’ way. The Braves are another team that can be expected to make a lot of noise in the NL East this year. But like every team, there are uncertainties. What happens if Derek Lowe and Tim Hudson start to show their age? Is Jair Jurrjens really going to come off (and stay off) the DL in mid April? Is Larry going to come back and hit like the Chipper of old? Do they have an option in centre field that can hit .200? You get the idea.
Is everything going to break wrong for the Phillies and Braves? Probably not, but could enough break wrong that the Fish sneak into the playoffs? Sure, it’s the wildcard era (sidebar: the Marlins first two World Series victories came as the Wild Card entrant).
The Marlins starting pitching has the potential to be very very good. Josh Johnson is as bona fide ace and could be the best pitcher in the division not named Roy Halladay or RA Dickey. Behind Johnson, Ricky Nolasco and Anibal Sanchez are both better than we might think. They are both young (under 28), and coming off seasons in which their FIPs (fielding independent pitching- I’m admittedly very green with sabermetrics) were even lower than their already above league average ERA’s. Throw in Javier Vasquez, who can be one of the best pitchers in the league when no one expects anything out of him, and Chris Volstad whose numbers suggest he is very “Blantonesque” as a number 5 starter, and you have a Marlins’ rotation that could be as strong as their divisional rivals.
Offensively, the team has some breakout potential. Hanley Ramirez is still one of the most complete hitters in baseball, and if Gaby Sanchez and Mike Stanton continue to develop into the players that many in baseball think they can become, the Marlins will have a solid core in the middle of the lineup this year. Logan Morrison is another player that toils in relative obscurity, but could build on a rookie season that saw him post a .390 OBP (or a 369. wOBA; again with the sabermetrics ) to become a very valuable offensive asset. Sprinkle in a rebound year from Chris Coghlan (don’t expect one defensively now that he’s in CF) and a repeat of John Buck’s 2010 season and Florida will have itself a nice little offence.
This is not to say there aren’t questions surrounding Miami’s least favourite team (the Panthers don’t count because no one knows they exist). As good as Johnson is, he has been injury prone, the offense is still young and unproven, Vasquez could falter if he gets even a whiff of the Yankees, and if you’re a fan of anecdotal (but largely uninformative) evidence, the bullpen has already blown one lead this season. On top of all this, there is a reason I haven’t spoke about their defence, it probably won’t be good. But this is April; it’s a time to look at what could be, and not what will probably happen. So instead of hedging your bets on the Sox/Phillies/Yankees, take a shot with me on the Marlins. If it does happen, watching them play in October will be a lot more rewarding than watching the BoSox play the Phillies. If it doesn’t, odds are some other team will surprise us all. In any case, no one ever gets excited in baseball when exactly what’s supposed to happen does happen. So think bold now and rationally in August. Go Fish.
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