FRZfishfan

I work in the ad/media business and I can tell you the Marlins do have a lot of fans. One of the problems in sports attendance is that people have a free substitute for going to the ballpark when 150+ games are broadcast on TV. 2/3 of an MLB teams games are played weeknights. Add any small inconvenience to attending the game (like distance, rain, or heat) and its easy for people to say "I'll stay home and watch it on the tube". When people say Marlins fans are front runners that's not eexactly true. A lot of fans are emotionally attached to the team and follow them closely without attending many games in person. As the games become more important and magnified the sense of urgency to be at the park begins to take over. Obviously most people in the country have never attended a World Series game. When you get that opportunity you take it and thus the big crowds. But that doesn't mean that those 65,000 people are casual fans. My wifes grandfather (R.I.P.) was a die hard Marlins fan, He saw every game on the tube while listening to the Spanish broadcast on the radio. He never attended an MLB game in his life until I took him.

Thanks for posting the recap. It's hard to express how much I like Dontrelle Willis. I gues the best way is to say that he seems to me to act the way I think I'd act if I had a chance to be a major league ballplayer. Always having fun, always smiling always hustling, always feeling like I had the best job in the world. He really gets it. And I think he's the kind of guy anybody can get behind. Black, white, latino, whatever. He's just a genuine guy.

You can't walk the pitcher. It will kill you every time.

Yeah and what about the penny sales tax that was supposed to go to transportation but ended up paying a defecit? Just cuz they say they are going to pay it back doesn't mean they will. It's an internal game of 3 card monty. And $85 Million is a lot less than $200 Million for projects that will end up costing roughly the same.

The Miami Herald reports today that the cost of the new Performing Arts Center has skyrocketed to $446 Million. Article here. The County Manager is asking for another $35 Million after the $67 Million he got last year. Now color me naive but what's the difference between a performing arts center and a ballpark. They are both public venues that have private tenants. If anything baseball is much more accessible culturally and financially for Dade County's residents. Why don't we hear the same platitudes about the schools and the transit system when the county manager asks for $100 million for cost overruns on this white elephant? And Loria is not only guaranteeing almost $200 Million he's also guaranteeing cost overruns (which I suspect will be low given that this is a semi-private vs. public project). I love that they can scramble and get $35 million at the drop of the hat so they can open their PAC on time and have their black tie gala but not to build something that much more of the community will enjoy and add visibility and prestige to our city. When was the last time they broadcast 3 hours of national TV from a performing arts center?

I personally don't like the idea of Loria selling to a "richer guy". If there's one thing we know about Loria is that he'll do whatever he possibly can to win. There's been teams with tons of money that have sucked. See New York Mets. Also the naming right to the stadium are already figured into the financial projections for the project. So don't count on additional funds there. It's a crappy situation all the way around and I hate Sorenson. Loria is committing more ownership funds than almost any owner ever has for a stadium (almost $200 Million). It's going to stretch his resources and it's a gamble whether or not people will support the team once he gets the stadium. And if the build it without the roof a lot of the reason for building it in the first place will be gone. Although further away, I think people will come from greater distances to a domed stadium because they will be certain that the game will be played instead of looking outsider and saying "it looks like it might rain." I guess they could build without the roof and add it later but I think Loria believes later will never come. Bottom line is the governor and the state senate screwed the pooch on this one. The fish were asking for a sales tax rebate and the fish won't generate any sales tax for Florida if they are in Nevada.

The one that always gets me is loosing for losing.

The stats don't prove me out but I'd like Beckett to start the series and possibly pitch twice. Just my personal preference. If Beckett has one thing that I don't like about him it's that he doesn't seem to get up for games when there isn't a lot at stake. He's one of those live on the edge type of guys. The post season seems like the natural environment for him.

I don't think those off brand mp3 players play the file formats (particularly) the ones itunes uses. I may be wrong.

They run the model every day including the outcome of the previous day's game and today it has the Marlins winning the Wild Card 37.69% of the time and the division 4.59% of the time. So in the model they make the playoffs 42.28% of the time. On the other hand the Astros only made the playoffs 23.86% of the time and the phillies 31.42% of the time. A win tonight could be HUGE. Let's see if AJ can get his head out of his culo and if we can get to Clemens early. I'd be watching the tape of the WS game against him right now if I were the Marlins hitters.

OK I have two Ipods (don't ask why). They are good. You can use them in a variety of ways. You can take your CD's and convert them (or only the songs you like) to digital files you can play on your ipod. You can download music from those sites where people share files (but beware there's a ton of viruses and spyware in those places) or you can buy songs and albums on itunes. Itunes is cool because you can just buy the song you want for 99 cents or you can buy the album and the cost is really reasonable. Usually 9.99 per album. Then you can burn a CD if you like. There's no sales tax on the purchase either which is nice. Unfortunately songs you buy on itunes are in a protected format that don't allow you to share them without authorizing use on another computer and you can only authorize a certain number of devices but there's software (shareware/freeware) out there that let's you rip files from others. For example in my office several of us have big itunes libraries. We can share the library legally in the sense that my buddy can conect over the network and play a tune in my library (this is different than tghe authorization thing I just talked about) but can't copy it. and when I log off he can't listen any more. But with this software he can just rip the song and make a copy for himself. It's called "our tunes"

Well this one paid off off. 3-6-3 double play!

Here's the west Average wins by position in NL West: 81.7 76.6 74.6 72.1 64.4 NL West W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Padres 71 72 .484 81.6 80.4 93.55878 .00000 93.55878 Dodgers 66 77 .446 75.7 86.3 3.88977 .00000 3.88977 Giants 65 78 .427 74.1 87.9 1.66337 .00000 1.66337 Diamondbacks 65 79 .430 73.9 88.1 .88660 .00000 .88660 Rockies 57 86 .389 64.5 97.5 .00000 .00000 .00000 It looks like the padres have it sewn up. Notice that none of these teams won the wild card when this model was run 1 million times.

There's about 5 pages about the variables they include in their model. Some of these include home field, avg. runs scored, avg runs allowed, etc. They don't take into account indivdual players so if an important player is hurt it won't know that. The answer given that the it was run 1 million times and the Astros didn't win the division once is correct. In other words given the variables mentioned above (avg runs the cards score and allow vs. what the astros score and allow) it's virtually impossible for the astros to catch the cards. There's no free link but you can subscribe for $4.95 a month. You can cancel after a month if it's not interesting enough. I signed up for a year which was $40. It's loaded with good stuff, they publish like 5 articles daily and as the season winds down the playoff race model is becoming real popular. With the Marlins winning tonight (it looks like they will) and the braves losing I'd say that tomorrow the revised percentages will show the Marlins having a little more of a chance of winning both the WC and the division.

You know what? After watching that clip a couple of times I noticed the throw came to the foul side of the base path and Snow also came down that side (obviously as you round third you'll be on the foul side) but if he had adjusted and slid on the fair side rather than looking for the collision he may have had a better chance to make it home safe. Sux for him

Man I can't find that picture anywhere but here's a link to the video: Link

some of my favorites:

Another thing to keep in mind (and root for) is that there's still a 1.01% chance the braves miss the playoffs altogether. They ran the model for the 64 phillies and found that on the 17th of September they had a 96.1% chance of making the playoffs and of course the rest is history because the collapsed by losing 10 straight. So something almost as remote has in fact happened before.

Math is the most awesome thing in the universe. 1/3 isn't that wonderful considering there's only three teams in the wild card race. 943655[/snapback] Technically there's more teams than that in the race becausee (even if the odds are low) there's a chance the Marlins could win the division, which would put the braves in the wild card picture. The actual percentages for just the wild card are: Houston: 35.67914 Florida: 32.79778 Philly: 23.12422 Atlanta: 3.60458 NYM: 2.62609 Wash: 1.08396 And several other teams that have less than 1%. But since Houston has 0% in terms of winning the division and the Marlins are still mathematically in their division race the percentage of times the Marlins make the playoffs in the model is just about on par with Houston: 35.56190 for Florida vs. 35.67914 for Houston. Philly is 24.93674. So the fact is that according to the model, the Marlins have at least as good a shot of making the playoffs as Houston a better shot than Philly and and any of the others.

I just became a subscriber to baseballprospectus.com and there's a lot of interesting stuff on there. Something that caught my eye was a model they use to play out the rest of the season. They actually use the model and a bunch of complicated algorithms (that I don't understand so I can't explain) and run it 1 million times. Of the one million times the Marlins actually won the division 2.76% of the time and the wild card 32.79% of the time. So with this mathematical model the Marlins made the playoffs 35.56% of the time. So if these "stat geeks" are right we have a little more than a 1 in 3 chance of making the playoffs.

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Cliff Floyd has to be my LEAST favorite Marlin of all time. And oh how they cried about not trading him. He's a potato chip and a bum.

30 Mil ??? You guys believe those numbers? Let me guess: Peter is gettign his info from Wayne H. accountant. 943435[/snapback] The reason Huizenga's numbers weren't true was because the money he lost with the Marlins was more than made up by revenues the stadium generated. When he sold the team he got rid of the cost uncertainty and kept the lion's share of revenues. I don't doubt that Loria is losing a significant sum. He doesn't have those other revenue streams to counter the team's operational losses. By the way although I want the stadium built, I don't have any real hope that they will be able to increase payroll significantly even if it is built. It WILL guarantee that the team doesn't move though (for at least 20 years). And that's enough for me.

Last time I checked he still throws that helmet down and gets pissed when he hits a weak grounder. Is that the "18 month" lag of the roid effect? Or is it just a guy that's pissed because he's totally psyched out.

A couple of years ago the Marlins had a throwbacks day and they wore those orange blue Miami Marlins uni's and they were selling the hats and jerseys in the team shops in the stadium. There were a few afterwards at the Marlins en Miami store (which by the way has great prices). I bought a 2005 LoDuca all-star batting practice jersey for $65 bucks which was 40% less than the regular price. They always have stuff on clearance. You can get a world champ shirt for $3.