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2014 Miami Marlins Season Preview: The Good, The Bad, And The Fishy

Garrett Jones

The 2014 Miami Marlins are going to play a lot of short baseball games. This prediction is unrelated to recent comments made by Marlins President David Samson in which he hopes the team can, “lower [the] average game time from last year to this year, and […] have the highest-percentage decrease of any team.” The Fish were already tied for second quickest with the Kansas City Royals, only one minute behind the Toronto Blue Jays. Regardless of the reasoning behind Samson’s curious comments, it isn’t hard to imagine the Marlins playing some quick games this season. The pitching is projected to be good, which means other teams will make outs quickly and not have too many big innings. Conversely, the offense is projected to make any pitcher look good, likewise leading to quick outs and not many big innings.

 

Some writers are putting the 2014 Marlins right where the 2013 team ended up: last place, close to 100 losses. Other writers are giving the Fish a better chance: fourth place, improved record from last season, but still not too close to .500. My predictions are below and they are based on very little. I have watched most of the televised Spring Training games this season and watched most of the games last season as well. I have read box scores and stats, but I’m not a scout, and I can be a bit optimistic. With that being said, here we go:

 

Starting Lineup: (batting average, home runs, runs batted in)

C- Jarrod Saltalamacchia: .233, 15 HR, 56 RBI

1B- Garrett Jones: .244, 21 HR, 68 RBI

2B- Derek Dietrich: .227, 14 HR, 44 RBI (Furcal will spend more time on the DL than on the field)

SS- Adeiny Hechavarria: .221, 6 HR, 36 RBI

3B- Casey McGehee: .255, 17 HR, 59 RBI

LF- Christian Yelich: .277, 14 HR, 55 RBI

CF- Marcell Ozuna: .259, 15 HR, 66 RBI

RF- Giancarlo Stanton: .279, 37 HR, 93 RBI

 

Starting Rotation: (ERA only- Wins are an incredibly volatile and mostly worthless stat)

Jose Fernandez- 2.79

Nathan Eovaldi- 3.88

Henderson Alvarez- 3.93

Jacob Turner- 4.54

Tom Koehler- 3.99

 

Overall Record:

77-85, fourth place in the National League East, only a few games behind third place.

The Washington Nationals will run away with the division. The Atlanta Braves will struggle to end up just over .500, and the New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, and Miami Marlins will beat each other up all year.

The Marlins will end up with one of the top 10 pitching staffs in baseball to go along with one of the bottom 3 offenses. 2014 will be another poor season, record wise, but should not be a “lost season” as Ed Lucas called 2013. We will learn a lot about the team’s future this year and with smart moves in the offseason following 2014, the 2015 Fish may be able to sneak into a Wild Card spot. A lot has to happen before that can become a possibility, but the potential is there. The 2014 team will not make it to the playoffs. Most likely, they won’t even come close. That won’t stop me from putting a few dollars on a Marlins World Series win when I visit Las Vegas next month (don’t tell Bud Selig!) There’s my optimism. A bright future for the Marlins, but a pretty dim present. The less 2014 dims as the year goes on, the brighter 2015 will be.

 

I will revisit this post at the end of the season so we can all laugh together at how awful my predictions were.

Author: David Marcillo

David has been a Marlins fan since 1993. ’97 and ’03 were nice. Best of times, worst of times, mediocre times in between.

You can follow David on Twitter: @DavidMarcillo77 or you can email: [email protected]

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