Out of the Past

If money were no object I would move 1 NL team to the AL and would make all the divisions with 5 teams. I hate how the NL Central has 6 teams but the AL West has only 4. I hate it because it's much easier to win a 4 team division than a 6 team division. I would eliminate interleague play and would have a balanced schedule. I would keep the WC. The first round would be best of 7 but the WC would only get 2 home games. In the other series going through the WS the team with the best record gets 4 home games.

I just checked Cody's CF Zone Rating and it's .797 which is the worst among the 49 CFs with 239+ innings (he has 239 innings). Scrap the Cody in CF idea.

Does the unbalanced schedule hurt the Marlins in trying to build a fan base ? I was thinking this morning, when you had the balanced schedule, that meant that Chicago, New York & Atlanta were coming to town just once a year......3 or 4 games. That was it. If you were a baseball fan, and you wanted to see baseball, then you had only 3 or 4 chances to see your favorite team. However now, if you are a transplant, why change to another team like the Marlins ? If you are a Mets or Braves fan, now you get to see your team 8 or 9 games a season, and that's probably about as many as the average "regular" fan attends in a year. Does this make any sense as to why we still have so many people that are loyal to out of town teams, and can't seem to build a local fan base ? Maybe I am pulling at straws, but its gotta be something.....it makes no sense how so many people have just stopped going to games. what do u mean the marlins have an unbalanced schedule. they play as many games as everyone else in baseball, and play the divisional opponents more than other teams...just like everyone else. i dont think you are, but if you are saying something like the NL EAST is hard...your very wrong. are you suggesting a shorter mlb season? cause thats what i get from this... i dont know who would want to see the yankees here for 3 and red sox for 3, rather than the braves for 9. at least with the braves here, we have a chance to win a game or two. Up until a few years ago you played every team just about the same number of times but several years ago it was changed so that now you play division rivals 18 or 19 times and the teams in the other divisions only 6 or 7 times. This is what the unbalanced schedule is. I don't think the unbalanced schedule has much of an impact on the fan base. The fan base has been killed by firesales and by threats of contraction and relocation.

If he doesn't deserve to keep his job then fire him but if he deserves to keep it then don't nickle and dime him. Even with the "raise" he would still be the lowest paid pitching coach in MLB. That's ridiculous.

FWIW, Cody's got a .986 OPS against RHP this year, so there is tremendous hope he can be a good full-time player. Yes he'd need a break every now and then, but dammit the man has earned the right to be the in-house favorite for the CF job next year, and I'm not talking platoon status either. I agree. I think he should be playing every day now and next year at the start of the season the job should be his not matter how he does in ST.

i dont think cody can handle playing 150+ games in a season. maybe he could be productive in about 120 games and we can use pasta but that would be some pretty bad outfield defense to go along with the "work in progress" infield defense. sure the defense can't get any worse from the past 2 years but i would like it to improve and rather have someone with good defense in center who is a step down from cody at the plate getting time in center why don't you think Cody can play 150 games? Most of the horrible defense comes from the IF. Among the outfielders Hermida was the worst defender and he has improved as the season has gone along.

I think Mitre was already shut down.

I don't bet often but I think people very much overrate Reggie Bush and that makes them overrate the Saints so I'm taking Tenn +5.

I think defense is where we missed Girardi and Perry Hill the most. False on all accounts. It would make for better reading if you explained why it is false on all accounts. I'm just going to throw this out there as I have before. IF the defense were such an overwhelming problem, we'd be in the middle of the league in terms of earned-runs allowed. It's just incomprehensible for me to blame a defense when we're #1 in the league in walks allowed and #2 in earned runs allowed, neither of which has ANYTHING to do with the defense. Since, you know, quantifiable pitching stats generally don't punish the pitching for defensive short comings, since that's what EARNED runs is all about. Poor defensive range leads to extra EARNED runs allowed. Several of our players have very poor range (we're last in the league in DER) which means they don't make a boatload of plays an average fielder would make and many of the plays not made aren't classified as "errors" and that means many of the extra runs allowed because of the poor range end up as EARNED runs.

A lot of the guys are friendly towards him giving him stuff, asking him for favors or going to dinner with him so if they have no problem with him I have no problem with him either.

Actually, RFerry, Wiley did not tinker with his motion at all. Wiley had Willis throw to target grids made of string. Together, they observed the commonalities in his delivery when he was successful (when he hit the targets most consistently). Having isolated what naturally made Willis successful, they then set out to repeat it. Wiley let the results dictate the delivery, whereas Kranitz wants the delivery to dictate the results. That's the difference. And a small sample size of good results should speak more positively than a large sample size of poor results. I think Kranitz and Wiley both have tinkered with his delivery by trying to tone it down to make it more consistent.

We need Carmona to have a bad start/Josh to have one more really good one. Sabathia can still win it.

8 unearned. :lol Many people would have you believe that defense is meaningless Nobody has ever said defense is meaningless. They talk about like it's meaningless. And don't hesitate to call it over-rated...especially by the un-washed masses who don't "understand" sabremetric stats. Well some have said that defense is overrated or that it's not that important. I don't know what's the record for stolen bases allowed in a season is but I'm pretty sure Jason Kendall must pretty close to it but I guess that doesn't really matter because we have several posters calling for him to the catcher next season.

We also need starting pitchers. Never thought I would be saying that. Nah, we need health. We need an ace, but we've known that since '06 started. Anibal healthy upgrades this rotation immeasurably, and Olsen and Willis can't possibly be this bad again. I think pitching is the biggest need going into next year. I wouldn't think Olsen and Willis will be this bad again but it'll take one hell of a turn around for them to be good or even average. Olsen has the worst ERA+ in the MLB and Willis has the 4th worst. I wouldn't predict good seasons out of them.

NL MVP? I think it'll come down between Wright and Holliday and maybe Fielder but right now Holliday would win it. I hope Wright or Fielder have strong finishes and one of them overtakes him because I would hate it if Coors inflated stats decide the MVP. Hello humidor. Meet reality. Even with the humidor I'm pretty sure it's still the best hitter's park in MLB and if not the best it may be 2nd after that joke of a stadium in Cincinnati so his stats are inflated.

NL MVP? I think it'll come down between Wright and Holliday and maybe Fielder but right now Holliday would win it. I hope Wright or Fielder have strong finishes and one of them overtakes him because I would hate it if Coors inflated stats decide the MVP.

he was 12-12.....Where was your boy Vargas? Where was Brian Moehler? Al Leiter? Don't go blaming that season on AJ. AJ Burnett last 7 starts in 2005: 0-6, 38.1 IP, 25 ER, 5.88 ERA Way to carry a team. Just about every player will have a slump during a season. If you look at the entirety of his '05 season he had a good year... 207 innings / 6.5 inninps per start / .344 ERA / .646 OPS allowed. Ok??? He still fell apart when he was needed most. (Thus my question) Games in April are worth just as much as games in September Ok??? He still fell apart in the heat of the playoff run. Oh, AND he took his shots at the team and was set home. He took shots at a manager who the GM wanted to fire during the season but didn't because the owner overruled him and who in fact got fired, or was asked to retire, if you prefer, a few days after AJ's comments. Should he have done it? No. But I have no problems with anyone who took shots at Jack in '05.

Have you seen the recruiting class UM is bringing in right now, btw? It is unbelievable. Give Randy Shannon a QB and another class like this one and UM will be right back to the USC/UM of only a few years ago level. They will be fine. USF and UCF will never be at that level. College football is all about recruiting, and USF, UCF very rarely (I mean like 1 out of every 1000) win the battle for a big time recruit that one of the big three are after. That is the difference. Obviously recruiting is very improtant but having top recruiting classes doesn't automatically translate to great success because of the importance of coaching and because recruiting can be so hit and miss. The generally accepted excuse for Miami's recent lack of success is a lack of talent but here is how their recruiting classes ranked the past few years (along with Florida): Miami: '02 - 2nd '03 - 6th '04 - 3rd '05 - 12th '06 - 14th Average - 7.4 Florida: '02 - 20th '03 - 4th '04 - 8th '05 - 11th '06 - 2nd Average - 9.0 I doubt Miami will be a consistent big winner with Randy Shannon as the head coach.

he was 12-12.....Where was your boy Vargas? Where was Brian Moehler? Al Leiter? Don't go blaming that season on AJ. AJ Burnett last 7 starts in 2005: 0-6, 38.1 IP, 25 ER, 5.88 ERA Way to carry a team. Just about every player will have a slump during a season. If you look at the entirety of his '05 season he had a good year... 207 innings / 6.5 inninps per start / .344 ERA / .646 OPS allowed.

I always said to myself that if we can't get many wins atleast I hope it's not because we have trouble scoring 2 runs a game. We're currently 5th in scoring runs and we've hit 190 homers so i'm somewhat content for now. All this team needs is two or three consistent starters that don't tank every other start and they'll be fine. I agree but those aren't that easy to get...

baseball has always been about pitching defense...and the teams that consistently win have contact hitters...not mini adam dunns...im sorry to the stats guys on this board...but striking out is a waste of an out...and its proven...teams that strike out as much as we do, dont go anywhere...they dont win anything...we need to refocus on what made this franchise so much fun to watch...speed, pitching and defense The reason we're in last place IS NOT because we hit too many homeruns or because we K too much or because of the number of runs we score (we're 5th in the league in runs scored). In fact, if it wasn't for our offense we would be even deeper in the standings because our pitching and defense are both horrific. The defense and pitching need fixing. The offense is fine. if we have to sacrifice some offense to get better pitching and defense then so be it...we will be a better team for it I don't disagree. It's tough to win without pitching.

We're not underachieving, we're achieving exactly as a team with a plethora of average pitching prospects who are all injury prone should be. Everyone seems to be oblivious to the fact that none of our young pitchers are truly high ceiling guys, and that an abundance of them doesn't make you a contender. If we had guys like Jon Lester, Justin Verlander, Francisco Liriano (a bad example I know because he is out for the year) then I would be impressed but we don't. I agree with that. I remember during the '06 ST someone asked Mazzone what he thought of the young arms the Marlins had and he said all the young arms he liked were gone. Talent wise these guys don't compare with Beckett, Penny and AJ.

baseball has always been about pitching defense...and the teams that consistently win have contact hitters...not mini adam dunns...im sorry to the stats guys on this board...but striking out is a waste of an out...and its proven...teams that strike out as much as we do, dont go anywhere...they dont win anything...we need to refocus on what made this franchise so much fun to watch...speed, pitching and defense The reason we're in last place IS NOT because we hit too many homeruns or because we K too much or because of the number of runs we score (we're 5th in the league in runs scored). In fact, if it wasn't for our offense we would be even deeper in the standings because our pitching and defense are both horrific. The defense and pitching need fixing. The offense is fine.

The cap won't keep teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, etc. from compiling talent. Those teams have other things going for them. Nor will a salary floor make the Pirates and Devil Rays adjust their intent towards winning ballgames. Granted, incentives NEED to be created for them to do so. If the cap was $120 million then the Yankees wouldn't be able to compile as much a talent as they do without the cap. I still think the floor is more important than the cap but I doubt the the players union will ever allow a floor so probably nothing will change.

1977- Aguirre, the Wrath of God I'm going by the year per IMDB but if Aguirre is '77 then this would be my '77 choice.