Florida Marlins Off Season Report

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Season Wrap Up

Although the Marlins finished 7.5 games out in the NL East in 2008, they didn’t have a bad season. After trading away Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera to the Tigers last off season, no one expected a lot from them in 2008. For starters, second baseman Dan Uggla had a monster first half of baseball! His average was way up and his power numbers were looking to be ncreasing as one wou expect after a few years under his belt. But just as Uggla started to come down to earth, the pitching staff was beginnig to draw attention to itself from the names of players like Rickey Nolasco and Scott Olsen. 1B/3B Jorge Cantu also had an unusually good year given his previous accomplishments.

Holes to Fill

They will need to fill the holes left after the recent trades of closer Kevin Gregg, SP Scott Olsen and OF Josh Willingham. It looks as if Cameron Maybin will get his chance right from the start in CF and they probably will fill in the holes in the pitching from within, but they still need a catcher and it won’t be Matt Treanor (see the reson below). They may bring back Pudge Rodriguez as a stop gap at that position.

Free Agents

The Marlins have 6 free agents this off season and they are: LF Luis Gonzalez (41) Type B Free Agent, SP Mark Hendrickson (34), LF Jacque Jones (33), C Paul Lo Duca (36) Type B Free Agent, RP Joe Nelson (34), RP Arthur Rhodes (39) recently signed with  Cincinnati for 2 years and $4M.

The Outlook

Now that the Braves have lost out on both former Marlin SP A.J. Burnett and former Brave SS Rafael Furcal, the Marlins have a chance to stay in third place in the East in 2009 as things stand right now, but it will be difficult due to who they’ve already traded away. Maybe ownership will rethink their philosophy once they get a new stadium.

Off Season Moves Made So Far

In November, they acquired RHP Jose Ceda from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for RHP Kevin Gregg and then acquired INF Emilio Bonifacio, RHP P.J. Dean and INF Jake Smolinski from the Washington Nationals in exchange for LHP Scott Olsen and OF Josh Willingham. Before then, they claimed LHP Dan Meyer off waivers from the Oakland Athletics. Then more recently, they selected LHP Zachary Kroenke from the New York Yankees in the Rule 5 Draft and released C Matt Treanor (husband of beach volleyball star Misty May-Treanor).