TSwift25

Pedro Feliz and Omar Vizquel got robbed Tulowitzki*

Miguel Cabrera. How's that for an option?

Yeah I've posted it before, but a relevant time to bring it back.

Here are the others in the NL: Maddux, Martin, Rollins, Lee, Hudson, Beltran, Andruw Jones, Jeff Francoeur and Aaron Rowand tied for the final outfield spot AL: Santana, Pudge, Youkilis, Polanco, Orlando Cabrera, Beltre, Hunter, Sizemore, Suzuki Definitely a popularity contest at this point, seriously ass backwards list.

Marlins: Devil Rays: Swifty, those numbers are from 2006. Here are the numbers for 2007: Interesting to note how the value of the D-Rays jumped 28% over the course of a year. Amazing that our market value would drop 3% in one year. Fantastic business model we're running.

:banghead What good goddamn reason do you have to keep doing this. Here's a f'ing clue, we SUCK with Lemon too. SUCK. I have no idea how this helps us win a game. Basically the other team has to have a collective aneurysm for us to win a f***ing game at this point anyway. Play Beck, figure out if we need to look more at McFadden or Brohm in this coming draft. Then again, who am I kidding...

Marlins: Devil Rays:

Nauseatingly bad third quarter. Wright needs a long benching.

Allen gives the Celts the lead with 2 seconds left. Game over. Absolutely fantastic game.

Absolutely insane game. Ford hits a 3 with 4 seconds left in OT to tie it.

I may be alone, but if you're a Heat fan, you have to feel real good about the last two games. Strong showing against a strong Pistons team that just wiped the floor with the already crowned Magic. And, Daequan showed more in this game than Wright has in his career. I'm not happy to be 0-2, but you feel as if we'd be 2-0 with Wade. Oh well. Yeah, gotta be so happy with 0-2. Nice shot at the Magic. What a stupid comparison. Hey, the Magic felt pretty good last year when they beat the Bulls after they (cant think of a fitting word to describe what the Bulls did to the Heat to begin last season) demolished the Heat. Im not sure if you watched either game, I am however sure you will claim you were in the locker room of both games. I was at the Heat game and watched the Magic tonight. The Pistons came out last night and looked terrible and missed wide open shots all night and tonight they happened to make all those shots they couldnt hit last night. If you didnt watch the Heat last night, while they only lost by 11, they looked absolutely terrible and lost to a team that did not play well at all. Tonight the Magic played poorly and Detroit did the simple things they didnt do against Miami. Of course, theres also the little fact that the Magic werent crowned by anybody, a handful of people have said the Magic would be improved which kicked your inferiority complex into gear so you had to claim the Heat with Dorrell Wright starting and piece of crap after piece of crap coming off the bench was still the best team ever. The Heat will be a good team when Wade comes back and the Magic are a good team. You however, have most likely have had human sh*t rubbed in your eyes by Magic fans in the past or something. Jeez, just thinking you called that first game a strong showing is stunning and makes it obvious you didnt watch but you saw a final score. They looked anything but strong in that game. Now find something I didnt say to argue with me about. That describes it perfectly. How dare the Magic consider they might have a shot at the division lead. How dare they not bow to the almighty Miami Heat. :lol I think it is the Magic fans having some sort of complex here. I don't think the Heat fans even think/care enough about the Magic to hate the fans. It's obviously the other way around. Swift just made a quick comment in jest about all the hype this off season. Hey, someone gets it!

:lol :lol :lol What a bunch of losers. Seriously. Celts Raptors has been a ridiculous game. Tied with 27 seconds left.

:lol :lol :lol :lol

My perception tells me that a lot of people here are quick to overlook the defensive liability of Ramirez and Cabrera just because their offensive production is so great. I don't care if the defense improved marginally, they are still among the worst in baseball. Maybe if people weren't so desperately trying to compare them to Wright and Reyes they would look at this more realistically. That is why an objective evaluation is so helpful. Cabrera and Ramirez get off the hook because they are putting up MVP-like offensive numbers, but a player struggling to break out offensively (Hermida) at a less important defensive position (RF) is on the receiving end of all of the bitching. Defense is indeed important, but it wasn't what primarily brought the team down in 2007. If Cabrera and Ramirez don't shape up their acts soon and the Marlins somehow find adequate replacements at their positions, they should be moved. I think a Cabrera transition to first base is a lot more feasible than Ramirez moving to centerfield, however. I respectfully disagree; save the 2003 Marlins, none of the past 7 world series champions featured elite defense. It was either absurdly strong starting pitching or elite offense, and in the case of several of the teams, offense in spite of (or at the cost of, if you'd prefer) defense. I mean, if money's no object, the 2007 Red Sox or 2003 Yankees are the basic formula teams would follow. Top heavy starting pitching, elite offense in the middle, good the notion of moving our duo, that's crazy. An elite bat plays at the most premium position the glove warrants. Miggy and Hanley are a lot better defensively than most of the haters are willing to admit, and I still stand by my assertion that adding even Doug Mientkiewicz at 1st makes our infield defense ten-fold better. I think this is a misrepresentation. First of all, World Series winners are not always the best team in baseball, nor the best team in the playoffs. I think that is an ineffective method of comparison. To each his own. And I do agree with your basic argument that defense is overrated in comparison to the more important pitching and hitting (if that is indeed your argument), but there is a considerable difference between not having Doug Mientkiewicz scooping your throws and being bottom of the league defensively at nearly every position. There wasn't a single defender on our team last year that I would even consider to be average. This is problematic because it appears that the only upgrades being made for the time being are catcher and CF (and the latter isn't even guaranteed). I think since defense is so terrible all around we need to use that as an excuse to shuffle things up and perhaps rid ourselves of certain players (Mike Jacobs comes to mind). I of course realize that the team that wins the World Series is often not the best team in baseball; I was rather poking at the misbegotten axiom (if it even is anymore) that speed and defense are a blue print for success and instead offered what I feel to be a more appropriate model "just enough elite pitching and an elite offense." Fair enough. However, I think it is worth pointing out that this team is dead last in terms of defense. How many playoff teams have been dead last in that category? I'm not advocating replacing Hanley Ramirez with Alex Gonzalez but suggesting that the Marlins should be considering moving these players to less defensive important positions if allowed to by the quality of replacement talent. We were also, bar none, the worst pitching team in the majors last season. It wasn't even close. And these aren't the categories you can vilify the defense for. We're talking walks, hits allowed, EARNED RUNS and on and on and on. AVERAGE pitching makes our defense look a heck of a lot better. And, for the record, I'm not sure where this discussion is headed. If it's headed down the path of defense being the problem, I'd say it's not, it's the pitching. If it's headed down the path of the defense making the pitching bad, I'd say that's not accurate, first and foremost it's the walks. Period. You can't walk over 600 batters in a season and expect to be average. You can't give that many free passes, and I'd probably kill somebody if I could find out how many of those walks were either awarded to start the inning, or with nobody out.

My perception tells me that a lot of people here are quick to overlook the defensive liability of Ramirez and Cabrera just because their offensive production is so great. I don't care if the defense improved marginally, they are still among the worst in baseball. Maybe if people weren't so desperately trying to compare them to Wright and Reyes they would look at this more realistically. That is why an objective evaluation is so helpful. Cabrera and Ramirez get off the hook because they are putting up MVP-like offensive numbers, but a player struggling to break out offensively (Hermida) at a less important defensive position (RF) is on the receiving end of all of the bitching. Defense is indeed important, but it wasn't what primarily brought the team down in 2007. If Cabrera and Ramirez don't shape up their acts soon and the Marlins somehow find adequate replacements at their positions, they should be moved. I think a Cabrera transition to first base is a lot more feasible than Ramirez moving to centerfield, however. I respectfully disagree; save the 2003 Marlins, none of the past 7 world series champions featured elite defense. It was either absurdly strong starting pitching or elite offense, and in the case of several of the teams, offense in spite of (or at the cost of, if you'd prefer) defense. I mean, if money's no object, the 2007 Red Sox or 2003 Yankees are the basic formula teams would follow. Top heavy starting pitching, elite offense in the middle, good the notion of moving our duo, that's crazy. An elite bat plays at the most premium position the glove warrants. Miggy and Hanley are a lot better defensively than most of the haters are willing to admit, and I still stand by my assertion that adding even Doug Mientkiewicz at 1st makes our infield defense ten-fold better. I think this is a misrepresentation. First of all, World Series winners are not always the best team in baseball, nor the best team in the playoffs. I think that is an ineffective method of comparison. To each his own. And I do agree with your basic argument that defense is overrated in comparison to the more important pitching and hitting (if that is indeed your argument), but there is a considerable difference between not having Doug Mientkiewicz scooping your throws and being bottom of the league defensively at nearly every position. There wasn't a single defender on our team last year that I would even consider to be average. This is problematic because it appears that the only upgrades being made for the time being are catcher and CF (and the latter isn't even guaranteed). I think since defense is so terrible all around we need to use that as an excuse to shuffle things up and perhaps rid ourselves of certain players (Mike Jacobs comes to mind). I of course realize that the team that wins the World Series is often not the best team in baseball; I was rather poking at the misbegotten axiom (if it even is anymore) that speed and defense are a blue print for success and instead offered what I feel to be a more appropriate model "just enough elite pitching and an elite offense."

save the 2003 Marlins, none of the past 7 world series champions featured elite defense. If you go with DER which is probably the best stat to measure team defense then I think the '07 Red Sox, the '05 White Sox, the '04 Red Sox and the '02 Angels would disagree with you and if you go back further then the '01 DBacks, the '00 Yankees, the '99 Yankees and the '98 Yankees would also disagree with you. DER Rankings: =========== '07 Red Sox - 2nd in the AL '05 White Sox - 2nd in the AL '04 Red Sox - 4th in the AL '02 Angels - 1st in the AL '01 DBacks - 3rd in the NL '00 Yankees - 4th in the AL '99 Yankees - 3rd in the AL '98 Yankees - 1st in the AL I find DER to be quite a flawed stat. It allows factors other than just the fielder to enter the equation.

My perception tells me that a lot of people here are quick to overlook the defensive liability of Ramirez and Cabrera just because their offensive production is so great. I don't care if the defense improved marginally, they are still among the worst in baseball. Maybe if people weren't so desperately trying to compare them to Wright and Reyes they would look at this more realistically. That is why an objective evaluation is so helpful. Cabrera and Ramirez get off the hook because they are putting up MVP-like offensive numbers, but a player struggling to break out offensively (Hermida) at a less important defensive position (RF) is on the receiving end of all of the bitching. Defense is indeed important, but it wasn't what primarily brought the team down in 2007. If Cabrera and Ramirez don't shape up their acts soon and the Marlins somehow find adequate replacements at their positions, they should be moved. I think a Cabrera transition to first base is a lot more feasible than Ramirez moving to centerfield, however. I respectfully disagree; save the 2003 Marlins, none of the past 7 world series champions featured elite defense. It was either absurdly strong starting pitching or elite offense, and in the case of several of the teams, offense in spite of (or at the cost of, if you'd prefer) defense. I mean, if money's no object, the 2007 Red Sox or 2003 Yankees are the basic formula teams would follow. Top heavy starting pitching, elite offense in the middle, good not great fielding with maybe one defensive standout. As for the notion of moving our duo, that's crazy. An elite bat plays at the most premium position the glove warrants. Miggy and Hanley are a lot better defensively than most of the haters are willing to admit, and I still stand by my assertion that adding even Doug Mientkiewicz at 1st makes our infield defense ten-fold better.

http://wwww.marlinbaseball.com/forums/inde...atter&st=75 In two years, The Don and Polo are the only members of this message board to use the phrase "defense doesn't matter" when discussing the Marlins. Go figure. bobbob came the closest by saying "outfield defense doesn't really matter," which is totally understandable. I've said many times it's overrated, but not that it's of no value.

Not even for $1 Mil. He's done. he had a pretty good year mind you, I don't think we need him but he is far from done :thumbup

I'll just go ahead and say that ratings system that doesn't say Jacobs is one of the three worst fielding first-baseman in baseball has to be intrinsically flawed.

So Brian Cashman compared us to the Cleveland Browns, with Girardi being Belichick. Up yours Cashman. I believe you suffer from amnesia. Certainly an ironic comparison, all things considered (and I'm not talking '03). '03 is the obvious thing -- what else are you talking? That the Belichik Browns had a reviled owner and are now the Baltimore Ravens.

I could be dead wrong but weren't the two a**hole pitchers (Beckett and Burnett) having conflicts with Wiley (as they did with Rosenthal)? Beckett adored Wiley. The day Girardi was hired, Beckett called Girardi to say that he thought Wiley should be retained.

Good decision.

I missed you futurmarlinsgm