Column:

Florida Marlins deserve credit

By JJ Stankevitz

Published Sept. 22, 2008

For the first time in their decade-long history, the Tampa Bay Rays will make the playoffs. This is no small feat, considering that they had to get past the Mark Mangino-sized payrolls of teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to make it to October. The Rays are a great story. There's no question about it. But there's another great baseball story in Florida that's getting much less attention - the Florida Marlins will finish with a winning record this year.

The Marlins entered 2008 with a payroll of $21,836,500, the lowest in baseball. As a reference, the Rays had the second lowest payroll, coming in at $43,820,598. The Marlins have next to no resources. And their attendance at Dolphin Stadium - one of the worst sports venues in America - is last in baseball at 16,386 per game. After trading away their best hitter (Miguel Cabrera) and best pitcher (Dontrelle Willis) to Detroit in the offseason, the Marlins looked like they were going to spend yet another season being irrelevant, which is a shame, considering the Marlins' franchise has won two World Series in its 16-year history.

Basically, coming into this season, the Marlins looked like they would be just awful. Outside of Hanley Ramirez, who just might be the best shortstop in baseball, this team had nothing. And, even now, as they sit at 81-73 after losing to the Phillies on Saturday night, the Marlins aren't all that impressive outside of Ramirez. Yeah, Jorge Cantu, Dan Uggla and Mike Jacobs are all putting up impressive seasons. And Ricky Nolasco and Chris Volstad have done fine jobs out of the starting rotation. But come on. This team still isn't very good.

They have hardly any depth on their offense or pitching staff, especially in their bullpen. This team doesn't do a whole lot right, except hit a lot of home runs. And, yet, they still have 81 wins with eight games to play.

The Florida Marlins likely won't make the playoffs this year, despite a nine-game winning streak that was halted this weekend. In fact, they probably won't get a whole lot more publicity outside of this column. (Although, apparently, you can find anything with Google News - just ask my good friends over at Penn State.)

But keep this in mind: the philosophy of the Florida Marlins has been to build up, win and then demolish that team and reload. It's worked once already - many of the parts that were traded away after Florida won the 1997 World Series brought in prospects that eventually developed into key cogs in the team that won the 2003 World Series. Now, many of the players the Marlins acquired after dealing away players who were with the team in 2003 are having an impact - Ramirez, Nolasco and Cameron Maybin (who's hitting over .800 since being called up in early September), and there are a few more waiting in the wings.

The third massive rebuilding project in Marlins' history might be closer to completion than you think. It took the Marlins six years to rebuild after 1997. Next season will be the sixth year since Florida last won it all. I realize that's far too early to be trying to predict 2009, but that's just something to chew on in the coming months.