Of the millions upon millions of observations and storylines that occur in October baseball, one of the best may be the resurgence of the Fightin’ Fish.
I know everybody wants to praise the Cubbies for making the turnaround from cellar dwellers to division champs, but the Florida Marlins second-half success has remained under the radar ever since Dontrelle-mania cooled off. And look at the regular season records: Florida won three more games than Chicago in a tougher division.
The Marlins have been a moribund franchise for years. It seemed that, as soon as Craig Counsell crossed the plate winning, Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, owner Wayne Huizenga decided to cut payroll and rob Miami fans of stars like Gary Sheffield, Edgar Renteria, Moises Alou, Robb Nen and Kevin Brown.
Things got so bad that the Marlins was one of the teams Bud Selig considered eliminating two years ago, after Huizenga sold the team to John Henry. Henry then turned around and sold the team to Jeffrey Loria.
All the while, the Marlins front office continued to stockpile prospects. Everybody knows that Florida made a solid trade to land Dontrelle Willis from the Cubs for Matt Clement and Antonio Alfonseca, who has become every Cubs fan’s worst nightmare. In one of the underrated trades of this season, GM Larry Beinfest nabbed lefty starter Mark Redman at the start of the season from the Tigers. Redman went 14-9 with a 3.59 ERA for a young Marlins staff without the awesome-but-injured A.J. Burnett. Burnett also traded for centerfielder Juan Pierre before the season started, and then acquired Ugueth Urbina to shore up the bullpen.
What makes the Marlins so intriguing this season is the postseason play of Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez. He was among the top players in the game while with the Rangers, but a lack of consistency and injuries made Pudge available to small-market teams as a free agent. Beinfest surprised the baseball world by signing Rodriguez to a one-year contract worth over nine million dollars. It was a sign that Beinfest believed that Florida could compete with the heavy-spending Braves and Phillies for their division crown.
Pudge clearly has made the Marlins better, despite warnings from scouts that he was a bad candidate to handle the young starting rotation that the Marlins boast. He responded by hitting the ball all over the ballpark and leading Florida to a 4.04 staff ERA. The previous season, without Pudge behind the plate, the Marlins had a 4.36 ERA. That’s a pretty big difference.
To top it off, he has played in the postseason against a very strong San Francisco team like a man possessed. He is hitting .353 with one homer and six RBI. But when Pudge came through with the game-winning hit in Game 3, and when he held onto the ball despite the charge of J.T. Snow in Game 4, I couldn’t help thinking whether or not Rodriguez will be back with the Marlins next season. He undoubtedly has earned himself a long-term contract with his stellar play this season.
Without Rodriguez, the Marlins would struggle to get back into the playoffs. With him, they are at least assured of contending for the wild card entry. With a rotation consisting of Josh Beckett, Brad Penny, A.J. Burnett and Dontrelle Willis, the Marlins could be a force for many years, assuming they can keep at least two or three of these arms for a handful of years. That, however, is not a given, since these players will all earn substantial raises trough salary arbitration and free agency in the near future. The Cubs are in a similar position, but they have the money to be able to keep the Kerry Woods and the Mark Priors of the world.
Florida’s financial situation is almost always as cloudy. But with the pitching staff that Beinfest and company have assembled, guys like Rodriguez could be worth keeping around, keeping the Miami skies clear for the foreseeable future.