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| | Thursday, April 20 Florida Marlins | ||||||||||
| By Rany Jazayerli Special to ESPN.com
Record: 64-98, 29th overall Payroll: $14.7 million, 30th overall Runs scored: 691, 16th in NL Runs allowed: 852, 12th in NL What went right? Alex Fernandez returned from career-threatening shoulder surgery and was magnificent when he was able to pitch. Matt Mantei developed into a top closer, allowing the Marlins to cash him in for a terrific trio of prospects. Preston Wilson nearly won the Rookie of the Year award, and Alex Gonzalez was only slightly behind him. Minor league veterans Bruce Aven and Kevin Millar made solid contributions. And Luis Castillo developed into one of the game's better second basemen and leadoff hitters. What went wrong? Mike Lowell was diagnosed with testicular cancer after he was acquired from the Yankees, and missed the first half of the season. Fernandez was the only starting pitcher with an ERA below 4.50. Mark Kotsay showed little improvement from his rookie year, and Derrek Lee and Todd Dunwoody flopped. Cliff Floyd couldn't stay healthy. And neither Wilson nor Gonzalez showed much understanding of the strike zone, which may hamper their future development. In retrospect, the critical decisions were: 1. Trading Matt Mantei to Arizona. Marlins' GM Dave Dombrowski took advantage of the Diamondbacks bullpen worries during their stretch run, grabbing three outstanding prospects for the former Rule V pick. Vladimir Nunez, in his rookie season, had a 3.10 ERA out of the bullpen before moving into the rotation late in the year; Brad Penny is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball; and Abraham Nunez is a switch-hitting outfielder who hit 22 homers, stole 40 bases, and walked 86 times in A ball last year -- at the age of 19. This trade could go down as one of the building blocks of the Marlins' franchise for the next decade. 2. Acquiring Lowell from the Yankees. This trade didn't work out nearly as well for the Marlins. There was no way of anticipating Lowell's health problems before the trade, but giving up three promising arms (Ed Yarnall, Mark Johnson, and Todd Noel), two of whom were former No. 1 picks, was an awfully high price to pay for a player who was buried in Triple-A behind Scott Brosius. Yarnall (13-4, 3.47 ERA, 146 K's in 145 IP in Triple-A) would have looked very nice in the Marlins' 2000 rotation. 3. Cashing in Livan Hernandez. Hernandez, the playoff hero from 1997, was given the heaviest workload of any pitcher in baseball by Jim Leyland in 1998, and his arm hasn't been the same since. Dombrowski finally decided that it was too risky to hope for a rebound, and dealt him to the Giants for a pair of good pitching prospects (Jason Grilli and Nate Bump), giving the Marlins even more pitching prospects but leaving them with another gap in the rotation. 4. Letting Brian Daubach go. Oops. Daubach had a monster season in Triple-A in 1998 (.316, 35 homers, 45 doubles, 80 walks), but the Marlins were skeptical that his bat would handle major league pitching and were committed to Derrek Lee at first base. Daubach was picked up by the Red Sox and had a great year, while Lee ... uh ... didn't. 5. Protecting Alex Fernandez. Returning from rotator cuff surgery, Fernandez was carefully coddled by the Marlins' staff, rarely throwing more than 90 pitches in a start. This TLC paid high dividends when Fernandez put up a 3.38 ERA, which would have ranked sixth in the league if he had thrown enough innings to qualify. Looking ahead to 2000 Three key questions 1. Can the young hitters step up? On Opening Day, Lee and Kotsay will be 24, Wilson 25, Lowell 26, Gonzalez just 23. Even the "veterans" like Castillo (24) and Floyd (27) are still young. If rookie Ramon Castro (23) starts behind the plate, every hitter in the lineup will be 27 or younger. 2. Is A.J. Burnett for real? The highly-touted right-hander struggled (5.52 ERA) in Double-A all season, but when the Marlins decided to challenge him with a promotion to the majors, he clicked (4-2, 3.48 ERA). He's got the arm to be a No. 1 starter in the major leagues, but does he have the composure? 3. Can Floyd stay healthy? Can expect to play better Given how young this team is, nearly everyone. It's a miracle that Lowell was able to play as well as he did. Expect him to double his homer total (12) from last year. Kotsay is still only 24, and while his bat hasn't developed as quickly as the Marlins hoped, he's a Gold Glove-caliber right fielder and has a tremendous work ethic. A breakout season from him wouldn't be surprising. And Lee has to play better, if only because there are laws against first basemen who hit .206 with little power and a .263 OBP. Can expect to play worse Preston Wilson impressed the baseball world with 26 homers, but he struck out 156 times and was old for a rookie (he turned 25 last July). Alex Gonzalez flashed the leather at shortstop but swung at anything that came out of the pitcher's hand, including the rosin bag a couple of times (see below).
Projected lineup 2B Luis Castillo SS Alex Gonzalez CF Preston Wilson LF Cliff Floyd 3B Mike Lowell RF Mark Kotsay 1B Derrek Lee/Brant Brown C Mike Redmond/Ramon Castro Rotation/Closer Alex Fernandez Ryan Dempster Vladimir Nunez A.J. Burnett To be determined Antonio Alfonseca/Dan Miceli A closer look When you finish with the most losses in baseball two years in a row, you have nowhere to go but up, and nowhere to look but to the future. To their credit, the Marlins are doing just that. There's no way to erase the damage done by Wayne Huizenga and his order to dismantle the club two years ago. But Dave Dombrowski hasn't looked back. Forced into a rebuilding job that wasn't necessary, he has nevertheless stayed the course, continuing to convert useful veteran players into prospects, giving the Marlins a farm system that is the envy of baseball. The youngest of those "veterans" traded away was shortstop Edgar Renteria, who was just 23 when he was dealt to the Cardinals (actually, it's generally accepted now that Renteria is a year younger than he claims to be, but that's another story). It seemed puzzling that the Marlins would trade away such a young, proven major leaguer who could play defense, hit for average, and steal bases. But the Marlins felt that in Alex Gonzalez, they had another great young shortstop ready to take Renteria's place. Gonzalez got off to a hot start with the bat and the glove, and was an early Rookie of the Year candidate before fading in the second half. On the surface, though, his season looks good: .277, 14 homers, above-average (if occasionally erratic) defense for a 23-year-old shortstop. But dig a little deeper -- or just move your gaze to the right side of his stat line -- and a pair of numbers stand out in a most unpleasant way. Fifteen walks, 113 strikeouts. Plate discipline is an important, vastly underrated skill for a ballplayer to have, but that doesn't mean a player has to draw a lot of walks to be valuable. Vladimir Guerrero isn't a very patient hitter. Neither is Nomar Garciaparra. Ivan Rodriguez has never walked 40 times in a season. While all three would be better players if they were a little more patient, it doesn't mean that free swingers can't be great hitters. But there's a difference between a "free swinger" and Alex Gonzalez, who swung more wildly than a barroom drunk last season. In the history of baseball, do you know how many players have drawn fewer walks than Gonzalez did while striking out more? One. In 1996, fellow shortstop Orlando Miller drew 14 walks and struck out 116 times. The following year, Miller was back in the minor leagues, and he's never returned. That's a bad omen, and it's not the only one. The list of shortstops who have drawn fewer than 15 walks in a full season in the last 25 years: Andres Thomas, Alvaro Espinoza, Tim Foli, Mariano Duncan, Todd Cruz, Ozzie Guillen, and Shawon Dunston. Let's just say that none of these guys have any hope of ever dating Mariah Carey. Ozzie Guillen and Shawon Dunston are the best players on the list. Renteria, on the other hand, does know the strike zone -- he walked 53 times last season -- and as he ages, he's learning to drive the ball when he gets ahead in the count. Last year, Renteria hit 36 doubles, nearly doubling his career high, and 11 homers, almost as many as he had hit in his career (12) to that point. All hope is not lost for Gonzalez; he's young enough, and talented enough, to learn the strike zone and make himself into a tough out. He needs to learn quick, because opposing pitchers were already making adjustments to him in the second half, and he wasn't adjusting in return. After hitting .291 with nine homers at the All-Star break, Gonzalez tailed off to a .255 average with five homers after the break. If he doesn't learn, well, just look at the names above to see where his future might lead. And the Marlins didn't trade Edgar Renteria to make room for the next Shawon Dunston. Rany Jazayerli is co-author of the annual Baseball Prospectus, a hard-hitting, irreverent, no-holds-barred look at our national pastime. Look for the 2000 edition in bookstores on Feb. 1. | ALSO SEE Marlins minor-league report ESPN.com's Hot Stove Heaters  | ||||||||||
