OFFSEASON
Jeffrey Loria spent his off-season utilizing all those skills for “closing the deal” he learned at all those businesses development conferences over the years and convinced Giancarlo Stanton to sign a gigantic, long-term deal with the team.
Then Loria laughed about with other owners while chomping on cigars because the contract has an opt-out clause and Loria that Loria is just sure Stanton will use. But then one of those owners that Loria was yucking it up with went and played tattletale to the press because clearly, even fellow rich dudes don’t like Jeffrey Loria.
…so THAT happened.
Oh and then then sold their number one prospect Andrew Heaney for some not-so-great players who were pretty good not that long ago to make it look like they are trying to win something (trust me , they aren’t).
C: Jarrod Saltamacchia
The best thing about Saltamacchia is that everyone gets to call him “Salty.” Baseball likes their nicknames. (The second best thing about Salty is he just got DFA’d.)
1B: Michael Morse
Sweetums.
2B: Dee Gordon
“You may run like Hayes but you hit like shit,” said a wise man once. In the case of Gordon and his career 89 OPS+, it might not matter. It’s called speed and it kills.
SS: Adeiny Hechavarria
“ ‘Glove-first’ is the polite way of saying you can’t hit.” – Lasorda’s Encyclopedia of Baseball Terminology: MMXV Edition (Out Now from Harpers Perennial, $29.99) (Editorial note: As of this writing Hechavarria is batting .312 with 16 ribbies so who the fuck knows!)
3B: Martin Prado
Every baseball nerd knows one thing about Martin Prado: he qualifies for like 17 different positions in fantasy baseball and almost always available on the waiver wire when Ryan Zimmerman makes his yearly sabbatical to the DL.
RF: Giancarlo Stanton
Giancarlo
Giancarlo is a joy for ever;
His WAR increases, it will never
Pass into negative, he will keep,
providing home runs for us, and a season
Full of sweet baseball, and hits, and MVP votes.
CF: Marcell Ozuna
Marcell Idelfonso Ozuna is to Giancarlo Stanton as Canseco was to McGwire, Pippen to Jordan, Maris to Mantle, Robin to Batman, Laurel to Hardy, Oates to Hall (or vice-versa) Olmstead to Vaux, etc. In addition to hitting baseballs hard and instilling fear in pitchers, they hang out a lot, wear matching henleys and take over-exposed photographs in dimly-lit bars together, they go shopping and in the off-season, spot each other in the gym. Or, at least, so I hope…
LF: Christian Yelich
The left-handed swing of Yelich is like rain on a spring day, a California sunset, a sunny day in Brooklyn after an evening snowfall. It’s children making daisy chains and chasing butterflies in grassy park. It’s a smile from a loved one. It’s a symphony. In other words, it’s beautiful. And it has a penchant for smacking doubles all over your favorite pitcher.
BENCH
Ichiro still has a baseball contract and he is using it to remain soundly in repose, deep within the Miami dugout amongst buckets of bubble-gum, bags of sunflower seeds and Jarrod Saltamacchia’s cup.
STARTING PITCHERS
Jose Fernandez
Let us remove our orange, alternate visitor caps and pray. Cross our vintage Alex Gonzalez jerseys and pray. Kneel upon the green green carpet of Marlins stadium and pray … pray to the Baseball Gods above that Big Fern’s UCL was fully healed by the hands of a delicate surgeon and stays intact long enough to bring us seasons and seasons of his unforgiving four-seam fastball and devastating nameless breaking pitch.
Mat Latos
Everyone knows Latos is kind of a loudmouth jerk (see here and here) but now he’s a sad, Grade-A loudmouth jerk who is struggling to return to dominance after elbow issues and a bum-knee. Oh and his wife also has a blog where you can find photos of Mat Latos holding his newborn son in his baseball glove. Weirdo.
Dan Haren
Haren used to be pretty good but has been on the long, slow escalator ride to retirement for a couple years now. This off-season he thought about calling it quits after getting shipped to Miami from LA, but then his wife asked him to take out the trash and he thought better of it. So “Dan the Man” signed up for one more year in the sun not doing house chores.
Jarred Cosart
Turns our young Jarred is a gambling man. The 24 year-old was exchanging Twitter conversations with some account named GhostFadeKillah about gambling prospects. Not sure what that means about his pitching but if it does means anything, it can’t be good.
Tom Koehler
Someone let Kohler pitch almost 200 innings last year and surprise, he wasn’t half bad thanks to a nifty curveball that batters hit only .191 against. He’s also from the Bronx. That’s pretty rad.
Bullpen
I heard someone once suggest that Steve Cishek get his own fan section at Marlins Park and that it should be called the “C-Section.”
So Basically
Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life.
….yep. It’s still there.
The Future
According to ESPN, Miami Marlins rank near the bottom of all sports teams when it comes to using advanced analytics. They also have the 29th worst farm system according to Baseball Prospectus. Couple that with an owner whose been known to ship half his team out after a single bad season and almost never offers a no-trade clause and I’d say the Marlins future looks pretty fucking bleak. Then again, there’s Giancarlo Stanton. And that will always, forever, be something.