HawkFan

Cool. I've had my plate since '96. It's been repaced twice in that time because of the reflective coating wearing, so I started getting them signed.

Is it me, or do the new-style batting helmets (the kind w/ multiple breathing holes and molded ridges) have a new two-tone silver to black paint job? The Mets have had this paint job on this new syle helmet for a couple of yeas, I believe (Blue to Black), but I don't recall the Marlins having this paint scheme. I saw them in Spring Training and in Tampa against the Rays, and I'm pretty sure they were all black. Not a big deal or anything, just wondering if they've been like that a while and I just didn't realize it. Looked pretty spiffy, woud lok even better if it were black to teal.

In an attempt to shift focus very briefly away from the negativity that has swept the board in light of tonight's come from ahead loss, raise your hand if you have a Marlins lisence plate, or have decked out your car in Fish gear. :waving

for the price that the rockies are asking i would DEF PASS ON THIS GUY!! How do you know? I haven't seen anywhere where they mention what they're asking for. All it mentions is that it says some clubs are saying it's a high price; if the asking pricie is young pitching, that might be too rich for some clubs, but not us since we're stocked w/ young pitching. Anyway, sometimes a team is a quality bullpen arm away from putting it all together and making a run. Remember 2003: One could contend that giving up Adrian Gonzalez for Ugueth Urbina was a high price for a 6 month rental; all Uggy did was suplant Looper as the closer and help us win our second championship. While I lament Adrian's not manning 1st for us (of all of our draft picks through the years, he excited me the most to see w/ the big club), I would say we won in that deal. Heck, even look back to 97 when we got Dutch for the stretch run...perhaps his leadership was what it took to organize the clubhouse into a cohesive, winning unit. All we had to give up was bilyl McMillon, who never panned out.

I know the point was to be old timey, but that doesn't mean that the point is good. This is supposed to be a new era for the team, and new-school logos need to be part of that. Now, for a throw back day, I don't see anything wrong with it. Hell, I would love one of those caps. They already have, it was either 2002 or 03, because I remember a Mike Mordecai jersey on ebay following the game. It's funny for the turn back the clock games now they were the teal pinstripe jerseys and not the minor league ones. Anyone remember the turn forward the clock game? I have one of those jerseys hanging in my closet.

Obviously the same medical staff that diagnosed Sanchez last year :banghead . Miss most of the season and then decide its time for Tommy John, seriously this ridiculous now you're looking at Aug-Sep 2009 instead of Apr-May 2009. If they had done a better job of this last year Ani would already be back. Actually, it was Dr. Andrews in Birmingam at the beginning of the season that diagnosed it as a forearm strain. Funny how after it didn't get better, it was later diagnosed by him as the dreaded ligament tear. If anyone blew the diagnosis, it was the fabled orthopedic surgeon. Same thing w/ JJ last year- it was first nerve irritation, then later upgraded to the tear, requiring TJS. This is a big dissapointment to mine, as Sergio's one of my favorite players. I dreamt of him gettng the run support when he came back down the strretch that he didn't get last year. Oh well, good luck in your recovery, Sergio, hope you'll still be wearing teal and pinstripes next year.

Some people are making WAY too big of a deal here... I'm glad the last few posts have tossed some reasoning into this thread. Uggla had a bad game. Sucks that he had to have this type of game on such a big stage. I'm sure nerves played a role as well as the ankle. You could see he didn't really plant his foot on the ball that went under his legs... I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who noticed that as well. I personally don't think Danny's 100% yet, and only came back those last couple games in LA so he could play in the All-Star game. I know t's a cop-out to blame his play on injury, but I do believe it had some bearing. In the end, I think it was mostly nerves, plain and simple. With the exception of the free-swining So's, last night is not an indication of his play, and we all know that. Let opposing fans and teams get that impression, and he'll make them pay. That kind of thing (looking bad in a high-profile situation) causes a sink or swim kind of response, and I think it's going to motivate himself for the stretch run to prove everyone it was an abboration. In addition, I think it gave him good experience in high-pressure, "high stakes" situations, so if we make it to the playoffs, he'll know he doesn't have to force things.

...Hoover and Baker. I know catching has been a concern on the board and with the front office, but I'm not so sure we should mortgage the farm to get another catcher (Torrelaba, Ross, La Duca or Olivo- wtf!?!). Since all of MLB knows our catching situation, we'll be bargaining from a position of weakness; that means we'd have to give up the kind of talent we would to get a star player for another player that is marginally better than what we have already. If we set our sights on a top-flight catcher like Pudge, I shudder to think what the asking price would be. In the end, I've come to accept our catching situation is our weak spot in the offense. However, when the rest of the lineup is tearing it up and not having problem scoring runs (most nights), it's not a huge concern for me. Hoover and Baker platooning gives us a R-L hitting combination, so we at least have some flexibility. Hoover's shown he can get a clutch hit, and I would expect after some adjustments, the hits will come for Baker. All we need from our catchers is to handle our young pitching staff, call a good game and be solid defensively behind the plate. Though some on here have lambasted Hoover for having little MLB experience, not framing pitches well and missing balls in the dirt, I would disagree. While he only has 24 MLB games under his belt, he's not exactly a spring chicken w/ 10 yrs og MiLB seasons of catching. He's caught some good talent (James Shields), and is familiar with much of our staff w/ his time in the Rays and Marlins systems (Scott Olsen, Nolasco Pinto, Nelson, Waechter, Justin Miller, Kensing and Gardner though obviously not with the team right now). I think he calls a pitch and location alright, and as far as I can tell, he only has one passed ball and no errors accredited to him this year. Baker is an unknown commodity behind the plate IMO, but he also should have familiarity with our staff from his playing time in ABQ. Like I said, we could do a lot worse behind the plate (Rabelo), and we don't have to give up any of your arms in the farm, or one of our budidng stars at the ML level.

The Marlins don't get borderline calls regardless of who is catching Fredi does really need to shake some things up. Both the line up and bullpen could use some reordering. You and I are the only ones not jumping all over Hoover it seems. I think he calls a pretty good game, and provides veteran leadership to the staff. Everyone seems to focus on the balls in the dirt he didn't get, but misses all of the others he did. Besides, I don't believe he was credited with a passed ball, they were all WP's, so they weren't his fault. vc

Wow, I actually called this over the weekend! While Baker does have the upside of the two, I like Paul now, and he was already on the 40-man roster, so it made sense. I saw him a lot back in 2000-2001 when he was w/ the Rays' AA team here in Orlando, and he always had the makings of being a solid major-league catcher. He just never got the chance (if you look at his transaction history, he's been signed and released by the Marlins and rays at least twice, each!). He had a great end of spring filling in for both Traenor and Rabello, and looked to continue the hot start in his first two games of the regular season. I just couldn't understand why they brought Rabelo up right away instead of getting some more extend ST time once he came off the DL, then send Paul down. Just to justify The Trade. In my post a couple of days ago, I expressed my only concern about this (at the time potential) move was that we will now have two essentially back-up, right-handed hitting catchers platooning. The one thing Rabelo had going for him was he was a switch hitter.

Just saw something kind of interesting, but probably means nothing in the end. It's the replica of the Marlins State of Liberty that is in NYC for the All-Sar Game. Notice anything different? How about the teal pinstripes and majority coloring? The lettering is the grey/silver we've gotten used to, but instead of the black they've been using as the background color for advertisements and merchandise, it's teal (reminds me of the Inagural year batting practice/spring training jerseys). http://shop.mlb.com/product/index.jsp?prod...kid=body_rv_img

While I think Salty would be a great addition to our team, I believe the cost would be too great since the Rangers know we'd be looking for more consistency at catcher. Personally, I don't have a problem with a platooning arrangement, as long as the two players in aggregate represent the production of a decent player. As much as I like Matt, he's obviously not having a good season and just doesn't have what it takes to carry the majority of games behind the plate. Rabelo I think is utter garbage, and the only reason he's on the ML roster is to justify the Mega-trade (it's the Jorge Julio effect). So assuming they do something w/ Rabelo (release or sed to the minors), and can't swing a favorble trade, I personally think we already have a solution on the 'Topes: Paul Hoover. I'm a realist, so I wouldn't begin to say he's "the answer" to our catching woes. However, he had pretty good spring, and even though it was just two games at the beginning of the season, looked to have carried his hitting into the regular season. They brought him up June 4th when they sent Tank down, then inexplicably sent him back down 4 days later. In my opinion, Paul could do no worse then Rabelo, and would provide an additional veteran presence behind the plate for our youg pitching staff to complement Matt. While it's one game, he showed at the end of last season he has the ability to come up w/ a clutch hit (breaking up Maine's no-hitter, if you call that clutch), and his .281 current milb avg is respectable. The two biggest problems w/ this option: both he and Matt bat righty, and he appears to no longer be on the 40 man roster (they have him listed s a P, on the 60 day DL ???). I know there's another thread about Baker, who bats lefty, so he could be another solution to our platooning woes, instead of looking outside of the organiation for a backstop.

For those of you Sabremetrics nerds out there, you know that getting on base and advancing to scoring position provides a higher probability and contribution towards a win than hitting a home run because of the limited commodity of outs. Small ball is true baseball in my books, and the type of play the Marlins had until 06 it seems. Manufacturing runs as they did Monday night is the reason we have two Championship trophies residing at 2267 Dan Marino Blvd. Let's see if Freddi and Presley can steer them that way more often. It's one thing to mean "small ball" as in scoring runs via singles, doubles and such, it's another to say that sac bunts and stolen bases are responsible... No Sabermetric "nerd" (which by the way is unnecessarily derogatory, thanks) will say that scoring runs by walking, singles, doubles is that much different than hitting the home run, as long as the end result isn't using outs. Now, if we had an inning where Hanley leads off, gets sac bunted over, steals third and gets sac flied in... then yes, that is a relatively "weak" way of using "small ball" to score runs However, knocking 6 singles in an inning is ALWAYS good I promise you there aren't many on this board that are geekier or nerdier than me, so when I used the term "Sabremetrics nerd" it wasn't ment as libel, it was ment as a term of endearment. As an Economics grad and Insurance Underwriter, I believe in the power of numbers to explain problems and give insight into outcomes of certain situations; I fully fall into the Sabremetrics nerd category. Sorry if my original post gave the wrong impression. I would agree w/ you from a Sabremetric perspective there is no difference in a run scored via singles and extra base hits vs homeruns; a run is a run. Because of the limited, valuable commodity that is an out, sac bunts and flies to move runners over doesn't yield a higher run expectency than the cost of losing an out. Which is another reason why I'm not a big fan of a team swinging for the fences as the Marlins due: cost-benefit analysis. When a hitter hits the ball into the air towards the outfield, one of the three occuances can happen: it sails over the wall, it touches the field of play (thus allowing the hitter on base either through a hit or an error on the fielder's part) or it is caught for an out. While I don't have the time to dig into the data and analyze the rate of occurance for these three outcomes, I'm willing to bet you the out occurs most often, followed by the hit/error allowing a baserunner and last the home run. To me, the probability of hitting a deep fly out, and its susequent cost, is higher than the benefit of actually hitting the homerun. Factor in the usual swing required to generate the power to hit it out leaves the batter susepital to striking out, well it's just not worth it to have the majority of a lineup built to hit home runs IN A PITCHERS HOMEPARK.

This drives me bat sh*t crazy. The team is 4th in runs scored. It doesn't matter how the runs are generated. Also, power hitting teams are more consistent, tt is very difficult for teams without power to have a consistent offense. While I agree w/ you in the end a run is a run and a win is a win, I would completely disagree w/ you on the consistent comment. A team that is built to hit for avg and speed on the basepaths (like the Marlins used to be due to our cavernous ballpark) get on base and in scoring position more frequently; the more basrunners you have, the more chances to score a run you have, bar none. More baserunners and chances to score a run= more consistency in offensive production in my book. Power hitting teams, like our currrent Marlins teams, are prone to hot and cold stretches. Look at the Friday and Saturday Rays games. Where were the bats in those two games, hmm? They went completely cold. Instead of the "normal" 2-3 homers a game, all they did was a lot of walking back to the dugout. We could hardly get on base, and the result was only 4 runs scored in those two games. In addition, streaky power hitting teams tend to score their runs in bunches, not consistently as you pointed out. This is why I'm sure if we were to analyze the runs scored per win and loss, the runs scored in the wins will be at a much higher rate than normal, and certainly a much higher rate than in the runs scored per loss. While we are 5th in runs scored, we're 22nd in Avg and 23rd in OBP, which contributes more to wins, in my opinion. Think about how more runs we'd have scored, and how many more wins we'd potentially have, if our avg was even just in the middle third of the league. If we were to hit more to get on base than to hit out of the park, I believe we'd be a true force to reckon with; Hanley, Dan, Jake and Hammer would be truly feared as power hitters if they had more discipine at the plate and weren't always swinging for the fences. The all or nothing approach at the plate makes us unconsitent and easy targets for the opposing ptcher to pick apart- this is why we are leading MLB in strikeouts.

I was wondering if anyone else found it refreshing for the team to return to its small ball roots, at least for a game, Monday night? It's no secret that the new bunch of guys that came up in 06 are free-swinging mashers, and we live and die by the home run. I remember a time when our teams were built to play in Dolphin Stadium; we had prototypical leadoff hitters like Carr, Quivilo and Pierre (not Hanley, who is better suited for 3-5) that had high OBP then would have no trouble swiping 2nd base; we had a slugger in Sheffield who had as good an eye as he did a bat and was always among the league leaders in walks (not among the league leaders in SO's like Dan and Hanley); and I remember a time when our hitters weren't affraid to go opposite field (anyone see the shift Tampa put on Dan in the later innings on Sunday? Aki was at SS and Bartlet was practically at third). Don't get me wrong, I like this team as they're a good bunch of guys and they're fun to watch. However, they hit so many homeruns because the opposing pitchers aren't affraid to throw strikes; when there's a higher probability the batter's going to strike out our have long flyout then hit it out of the park (as seems to be the case the past month or so), there's no reason for the pitcher to nibble at the corners or pitch around in the count. For those of you Sabremetrics nerds out there, you know that getting on base and advancing to scoring position provides a higher probability and contribution towards a win than hitting a home run because of the limited commodity of outs. Small ball is true baseball in my books, and the type of play the Marlins had until 06 it seems. Manufacturing runs as they did Monday night is the reason we have two Championship trophies residing at 2267 Dan Marino Blvd. Let's see if Freddi and Presley can steer them that way more often.

Overall it was a good experience. I did take exception to the drinking college kids who kept yelling the Marlins suck, but I offered to buy them another beer if they promised they would drive home and give me a head start to my car. :whistle I get the fact their team hasn't been a winner and appreciate their growing support of the Rays. I would think they'll set some attendance records this year especially this month with the Cubs and Red Sox coming in. I'm guessing USF students, not the brightest or classiest bunch of human beings. as odd as it may sound some of us USF students picked USF over UF. I would imagine those that do so pick USF to be closer to home. Generally speaking, I doubt you find many people outside of the Tampa/St. Pete metroplex choosing USF over any of the other major FL schools. If they do, they're probably saying they did to cover for the fact they couldn't get into any of the other major FL schools. I'm a proud UCF alumn and Marlins fan, so I wore a mixture of shirts/hats for the two teams to all 3 games. What I experienced the whole weekend continued my poor experiences w/ the USF fanbase (stemming from the FB game at the Citrus Bowl 2 yrs ago and Raymond James last year). Friendly, good-natured ribbing between rivals is fine, but what I've been called and the things that have been said to me do not paint a good picture for the USF fan base. While it's always the loudest members of the group that tend to set the perception of that group, I've yet to have a positive experience when it comes to USF fans. And they reached a new low Saturday; I was with my 3 YR OLD SON going to get a hotdog in the second inning. A bunch of Drunk (In the 2nd Inning!) kids get in our way and start yelling "UCF F'ing SUCKS!" "You're F'ing Losers" and then one in particular stands over my son and yells at him "You're going to be a loser, too!" What kind of common, base person does that to a 3 yr old, huh? But getting back to the Rays, I'm happy for them and the people of Tampa/St. Pete that they're doing well. Every fanbase deserves to have a competitive product, and this team is a fun one to watch. I do want to point out, though, that anyone who points a finger at S. FL for being bandwagon fans needs to take a serious look at Tampa/St. Pete, as well. While I am not and never will be a Rays fan (stemming from the expansion days when Orlando was the lead candidate to receive an expansion team, only to have our neighbors on the West Coast get them), I've gone to my fair share of games through the years, so I know many of the hard-core supporters. Where have all of these people that filled up the Trop on Sat and Sun been the past 10 years?

I CAN'T EXPRESS MY APPRECIATION AND EXCITEMENT FOR THIS TEAM LIKE SANE PEOPLE SO I HOLD UP SIGNS INSTEAD! I sat next to sign guy once, he is really kinda creepy. The guy never talks, just spends all game going through his signs, then he holds up the sign after something happens and shows no emotion or says anything. Chewy- I see your Gator Engineering sig...did you happen to sit in the Fishtank last year for the Saturday Twins game? My wife and I took our 2 yr old son to his first game then, and sat in front of a very nice couple nd their son from UF.

He then showed the audience an orange baseball cap with "Marlins" on it. Ugh. I swear Loria is hell-bent on eliminating all traces of teal. Look at the current uniforms compared to the original; the only bit of teal left is the thin outline around the letters, on the MLB logo and the bit on the fish on the hat. The unfiroms really look plain on television, especially when they're wearing the black tops. All of the advrtisements and the website seem to be pushing orange over the teal. What's his beef? I personally love the black-teal-silver combination, so much so I painted my downstairs den as such. We went from being unique to being generic. Loria and Samson already said the uniforms woud be redesigned w/ the rename to the Miami Marlins in '11; we do I hve the sinking feeling they'll be shoving orange down our throats? That will be truly horrible- look at Clemson and the Orioles. We're being conditioned...

I'm sorry to rehash previously trodded ground, but as a devoted Marlins fan living in Orlando, I want to throw my two cents into the mix. I agree with some of oktoberfest and Bucklin's comments to an extent, but have my own take on this whole issue. There's been a lot of debate back and forth concerning Orlando as a small market uncapable of supporting a Major League franchise, it's a tourist market, etc. I'm in complete agreement with the South Florida Marlins fans here who say Miami-Dade is the 4th largest TV market in the country...for now. Has anyone seen the Impact Florida economic and growth studies from the U of F recently? Our state is projected to essentially double in the next 20 years, and most of that growth is centered around the central to north western part of the state. I would conntend that you folks down there have experienced so much Urban Sprawl over the years that there's not that much more room to grow except density-wise. Central Florida on the other hand has remained somewhat contained and constrained to the I-4 corridor until recent years when expansion to the South (airport area), West (Occoee and Kissimmee) and East (Oviedo and Lake Mary) have greatly increased our population. This was one of the reasons we were awarded the Magic, almost nabbed the Jaguars and had the Devil Rays STOLLEN away from us (more on that to follow). We will hold our own in the TV market before long (heck, we're already home to the Golf Channel!). The tourism factor, I agree, is pointless and not based in logic- tourism dollars can't support any franchise, season tickets and luxury suites/boxes do. However, those of you who have hammered on Orlando for being a torusim town, you are grossly underestimating our economy. Besides the obvious themeparks, we have a exponentially-growing technology and defense base (Lockheed Martinhome of Tiburon, makers of all EA sports games like Madden), a decent financial presence and the #2 University in the State and 7th in the Country in terms of enrollment. UCF is getting a Medical School, which is already attracting bio-tech firms. Besides, our tourism isn't just themeparks- we have the second-largest convention center in the country (if not the world) behind Las Vegas, and are booked solid the next 20 years or so. To chime in on the lack of support for the Magic and Devil Rays up here, I have some theories, and also a feeling that this theory would not pertain to a Major League Baseball team actually in Orlando. 1) Basketball is a sport popular with minorities and the inner city due to its ease of play and low-cost in order to participate. The location of the O-Rena is close to downtown on the other side of I-4 is a low-income, high African American population... would seem tailor made for the community. However, ticket prices to the Magic games are so high (as much as $20 for nosebleed seats), they effectively price themselves out of the attendance and market they're shooting for. FAnd for a middle class of 4 to pay 80 bucks just for admission to watch a marginal basketball team in horrible seats really isn't an option for most. Major League baseball, on the otherhand generally has quite affordable seats in the outifeld and upperdecks. 2) The Devil Rays were STOLLEN from us, and I know that still resonates with a lot of baseball and sports fans who are still living here when that went down. We were neck and neck with Tampa/St. Pete for the expansion team, with Mr. Herrick leading a team of investors with money ready to go and a stadium plan in place. Then, out of left field, the Naimoli group was awarded the team for St. Pete. then-Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood and Orange County Commissioner Linda Chapin didn't fight it, and in fact supported the purchase of the minor league Orlando Cubs to the Devil Rays in an effort to cement Devil Ray support in Orlando. How are we supposed to root for a team that was going to be ours but was awarded to another city? 3) Competitive product, which pertains to both teams. The Orlando Magic have been addled with poor teams ever since Shaq left, due to poor free agent signings (Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady anyone) they bet the entire bank on. The Devil Rays have been a pathetic product from the start, and continue to have poor financial resources comitted with even the new owenership group. While a winning team isn't required to support a franchise, an enterniang product at least is, especially if Central Florida residents are expected to drive 2 hours to watch a game in such a horrible environment (you guys think Joe Robbie is a bad place to watch a game, try Tropicana Field, with some of the worst sightlines and architectural elements ever to disgrace this great game). I think the Marlins' attendance woes can't be entirely blamed on weather- where did all the fans go after the 97 firesale? I don't know, I'd LOVE to have the Marlins here, and would buy season tickets in a heartbeat. As a what if scenario, I'd say neither the Disney area nor downtown would be the best choice for a stadium, but East Orlando. Avalon Park and Waterford Lakes are exploding (with kids and young families, a mjaor target market for baseball), they're expanding Alafaya to the beeline, and there's UCF as already mentioned. I think somewhere on East Colonial would work, past alafay and almost to Bithlo/Christmas due to its proximity to so many major roads (408/417, beeline, 1-95). However, i really don't think they should move as I much as I'd like it to happen. The long-term viability and success of the Marlins hinge on them being successful in South Florida. We don't want to lose them to San Antonio, Virginia or Las Vegas. I just want them to be more inclusive of the non-south Florida Marlins fans- now that they moved to Jupiter for Spring and we lost our radio broadcast contract, it's really hard to follow them and be a fan (especially since the Sun tv broadcasts are blacked out here, and I can't even buy pay per view games). I'd personally like to see a stadium located close to Broward county as they presently are, but closer to 1-95 (maybe even WPalm Beach or Ft Lauderdale)Afterall, they're the FLORIDA Marlins, not the Miami Marlins; moving them to downtown area would make it tougher for me as an Orlando Marlins fan to follow and pop down for a game or two than it already is. Anyways, let's show some Sunshine State unity and get everyone to support this team and keep them here, instead of attacking another area's fan base. I'm confident Orlando will get a major league team eventually, whether it is the marlins, D Rays or an axpansion team.