This is part of a series of posts wherein we guffaw at teams for their grotesque offseason gaffes, or else praise them for their precient preseason ploys.

Every offseason for the past 5 years, since their fire sale after the 2005 season, the Florida Marlins have done basically nothing at all to improve their team, and if they did make any moves, it was to dump salaries by trading rising stars off to other teams for prospects.

On the surface it was the same-old, same-old for the Florida Marlins this year. In fact, they did so much nothing this year that the Fish were the only team in baseball not to sign even a single free agent to a major league contract. That’s right – zero free agent signings!

Ace Josh Johnson got shown the money.

Looking a bit beneath the surface, however, there were a few surprises. First of all, the Marlins did not part ways with 2B Dan Uggla, despite the fact that he will be making around 1/5 of the team’s total payroll this season, making him next in line to be shipped out of town, and virtually every baseball pundit had assumed he was as good as gone. Instead, the Fish surprised everyone by inked him to a 1 year, $7.8 million pact, avoiding arbitration.

Then the Marlins surprised again by signing ace Josh Johnson to a 4 year, $39 million extension, also in lieu of arbitration, and by making a surprisingly robust run at Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman.

Of course, Chapman might have only drawn their interest because of the large Cuban community in south Florida, and the Marlins might still turn around and trade Uggla and Johnson before the year is out, but at least they didn’t immediately stab their fans in the face by trading away yet another top player before the season even began.

Not that the Marlins didn’t cut ties with a number of players this year, as they most certainly did, shipping injury-prone erstwhile closer Matt Lindstrom to the Astros for a trio of D-grade prospects (aka “Astros prospects”), dealing inconsistent outfielder Jeremy Hermida to the Red Sox for a pair of minor leaguers, and letting Nick Johnson, Alfredo Amezaga, Kiko Calero, Brendan Donnelly, and Ross Gload depart as free agents.

But at least for the first time in recent memory the Marlins didn’t do something to actively make themselves worse, as outfielders Cody Ross, Cameron Maybin, and reigning rookie-of-the-year Chris Coghlan are all better options that Hermida at this point, and Gabby Sanchez seems ready to take over at first base for Johnson, who typically has trouble staying on the field anyway.

Still, as nice as it is that for once the Marlins didn’t take careful aim at their own foot and pull the trigger, and actually extended one of their young stars (for the first time since they extended Hanley Ramirez), it remains a travesty that they did not make any move at all to really improve the team beyond where it was last year.

The ongoing tragedy for Marlins fans is that despite having the lowest payroll in the game the team is always on the verge of contention, meaning that if the team had even made a tiny increase in payroll they probably could have made the playoffs more than once in recent years.

This past season for example, despite having far and away the lowest payroll in the Majors, the Marlins won an unbelievable 87 games (just 3 short of 90!), and just think how many they might have won if they hadn’t given 509 plate appearances to Emelio Bonifacio and his .303 OBP.

Given that the Marlins finished a mere 4 games out of the wild card, you have to wonder what could have happened if they had say, kept Josh Willingham and signed a decent starting pitcher, given that they could have done that and probably still had a lower payroll than the second lowest San Diego Padres.

Knowing how much the Marlins are getting in revenue sharing, what they are doing is criminal, and it’s why they probably would have gotten a failing grade this year, if not for the extension to Johnson. They are making a big deal of how their payroll is “rising,” but it’s only up $3 million from $37 million to $40 million, still the lowest in the game, and not signing even a single free agent is just sickening. The still-strong young core means that the Marlins will verge on contention again, but the lack of reinforcements means that they will still fall just short.

Offseason Grade: D

Acquisitions: None!

Losses: 1B Nick Johnson, OF Jeremy Hermida, RP Matt Lindstrom, UT Alfredo Amezaga, RP Kiko Calero, RP Brendan Donnelly, UT Ross Gload

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – John Baker
1B – Gabby Sanchez
2B – Dan Uggla
3B – Jorge Cantu
SS – Hanley Ramirez
LF – Chris Coghlan
CF – Cameron Maybin
RF – Cody Ross

SP1 – Josh Johnson
SP2 – Rickey Nolasco
SP3 – Anibal Sanchez
SP4 – Chris Volstad
SP5 – Andrew Miller

CL – Leo Nunez

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Via MLB Trade Rumors comes this tidbit from an article by the Miami Herald’s Israel Gutierrez, who feels that the face of the Marlins’ future is ace Josh Johnson and that the Marlins need to sign Johnson to a long-term deal. Gutierrez says:

If Hanley Ramirez was worth paying for, then Johnson is at least as important, if not more.

Over the last five seasons, Ramirez has been worth 22.2 wins more than a replacement player. Johnson, meanwhile, has been worth 8.5 wins over replacement.

Even this year, with the season Johnson is having, HanRam has been worth more.

Maybe Gutierrez thinks Johnson is “more important” because he thinks ace pitchers are more scarce than slugging shortstops? Maybe, but it’s not true. I appreciate that aces don’t grow on trees (all you need to know about the scarcity of aces can be found in Nick’s annual unquestioned aces post — this year there were only 6 unquestioned aces). And there are more than a few shortstops who can swing the bat (see: Tulowitzki, Scutaro, Jeter, Tejada, Escobar, Rollins). But there is a huge gap between the shortstops I just mentioned and Ramirez, whose 2009 SLG is .554 (The shortstop with the second highest SLG is Tulowitzki, at .480).

As Fangraphs recently pointed out, Ramirez will likely go down as one of the best short stops ever, and is on course to be in the top three (behind Honus Wagner and A-Rod).

Conclusion: Johnson is good, but Ramirez is better.

Most people have realized by now that the Marlins have one of the best offenses in the National League – an offense which has kept them in the NL East race all year long.  The Marlins also have a pretty nifty bullpen, led by closer Kevin Gregg (23 SV, 2.47 ERA), which has posted the 4th best ERA in the National League, at 3.74.

But everyone has been assuming that the Marlins will eventually fade from the playoff picture, thanks to an abominable starting rotation.  After all, this is the same Marlins team who tabbed Mark Hendrickson of all people to be their opening day starter.  The Mark Hendrickson who has gone on to post a 6.09 ERA this season.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the consensus narrative that the Marlins shoddy rotation would be the downfall of an otherwise solid team.  Some new guys emerged, some old guys stepped up, some crap guys pitched their way into the bullpen, and some hurt guys came back from injury.

And suddenly, the Marlins rotation became awesome.  Now the starting five is led by de facto ace Ricky Nolasco (10-6, 3.94 ERA), backed by the continuing-to-surprise-the-naysayers Scott Olson (6-6, 4.04 ERA), and the out-of-nowhere rookie sensation Chris Volstad (2-1, 2.38 ERA in four games).

And now with the return from the DL of two top young hurlers, Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez, the Marlins rotation has gone from completely suspect to rock solid 1 through 5.

All of these five guys are good, and guys like Johnson, Sanchez, and Volstad have the potential to be truly great on any given night.

And with that offense, these guys don’t necessarily have to be great every night anyway.  With that offense, they just have to be decent enough, and that seems like an assignment they can handle.  Which should be a scary thought for the Mets and the Phillies.

These Marlins probably aren’t going to go away anytime soon.

For some reason I have been watching the Florida Marlins take on the Pittsburg Pirates tonight down in South Florida. But actually, it’s actually been a really good show – a well-pitched, tight ballgame with some good plays and some well-executed small ball. Right now, it’s 3-3 in the 9th. Here are some random thoughts that have occured to me in the meantime…

Best rookie pitcher that nobody has ever heard of: Josh Johnson of the Marlins. While everyone is lavishing attention on guys like Justin Verlander, Francisco Liriano, and Jered Weaver, Johnson started tonight, allowing 2 runs on only 4 hits in 7 innings of work to lower his ERA to a second-best-in-the-Major-Leagues 2.49.

On the Pirates side, how good is Jason Bay? The Pirates default All-Star centerfielder clocked another home run tonight to raise his total to 22 on the year. Even more impressive is his walk rate, which has put him on pace for 106 walks this season. A power hitter who can control the strike zone like that is surely in for some very big seasons down the road. Not to mention, Bay has the third best OPS of all National League outfielders, behind only Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday. Who knew?

Man this young Marlins team looks good. The batting lineup is starting to look positively intimidating, as weird as that sounds. In addition to Miguel Cabrerra, starters Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla, Mike Jacobs, Josh Willingham, Miguel Olivo, and Jeremy Hermida all have OPS’s around .800 or better. The only regular of the Marlin’s young guns that has really fallen on his face at all is Reggie Abercrombie (.622 OPS).

Which gets me thinking – maybe the Marlins have got it right. In the last decade plus of baseball, encompassing the modern era of skyrocketing salaries, ballpark extortionomics, expansion, and division series play, only the Yankees have won more World Series than the Florida Marlins’ two titles, and the Yankees have spent bajillions more than the Fish. Despite all the criticism raining down from all sides on the so-called “fire sales” after the 1997 and 2003 World Series victories, the fact is, the 2003 World Series championship was a direct consequence of the 1998 fire sale. No fire sale, no World Series in 2003. And now, thanks to the most recent fire sale this past offseason, the Marlins have an entire major league roster of outstanding young rookies that are locked up for another six or seven years. And with no reason for the Marlins to trade Dontrelle Willis or Miguel Cabrerra, who are still super-cheap, it is not inconceivable that the Marlins could win a couple of World Series with this squad in the very near future.

So maybe the Marlins are actually the smart ones after all, selling high and buying low every few years to gorge on the rest of the teams’ best young talents and reload for another World Series run, all the while paying one of the lowest payrolls around. But then again, looking at the nearly complete emptiness at Dolphins Stadium tonight, it reminds one of the obvious point that as effective as these fire sales are at reloading for a Series run down the road, they devastate the fanbase and drive people away from the ballpark.

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