posted
Now, now, Elizabeth, it's PRIDE that goes before a fall... Remember the last time you posted nasty wishes for the Red Sox to crush the Yankees? And remember what happened? Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I hope you're watching the NLCS game because no matter what happens this has got to be the one of the greatest series of all time. In fact this is probably already the greatest playoff run of all time by the Marlins. Five going on six comeback wins.
posted
I was somewhat sympathic with the Cubs, because of the long time it has been since they won anything, and because frankly I had never even heard of the Marlins before. But after learning a few things about the Marlins, I am glad they won. The owner did the best he could to put together an excellent team, continuing to pick up guys who could help them throughout the season. They had the best record in Major League Baseball from the end of May onward. What I particularly like is that the owner hired a 72-year old "past his prime" retired manager to be his manager, and he proved that old guys can still do it. Age discrimination took one right in the chin.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Yankees in 5, the only reason not in 4 is because they'll have to use contreras or weaver as a starter tonite so I figure theyl'l lose.
Posts: 348 | Registered: Dec 2000
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I will say Marlins in 5. I don't say in 4, because the Yankees are too good a team to be swept.
Tonight's game should see the Marlins get off to a good start. They have had an extra day's rest, and the Yankees pretty much exhausted their pitching staff with that 11-inning final victory.
I also expect that whichever game Roger Clemens pitches, he will get beat. He is one of the all time great pitchers, but he is too far past his prime, and can't beat the really good teams any more. The Marlins will eat him alive.
With those two likely victories, the Marlins only need to win two more out of five. If they stay hot, they could come close to a sweep.
Remember, since the end of May, the Marlins have the best record of any team in Major League Baseball.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
That was a good game. The Marlins looked sharper than the Yankees, but that was only to be expected since they had an extra day's rest. That play where they caught the Yankee runner off third base was a classic, executed perfectly.
The series should be close, and could go longer than some of us have suggested. I noticed that the commentators repeated the info that since the end of May, the Marlins have had the best record in Baseball. But then they added that their record was only one-half game better than that of the Yankees. That is not a big difference!
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Of course the Marlins are a significantly improved team since May with the addition of Urbina, Conine, and Cabrera since then.
The Marlins also have a huge advantage with DH situation. With the extra batter in the lineup they improve in New York and of cource their pitchers are used to batting in Florida.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
The Marlins took one out of two in Yankee Stadium. Now they have the advantage of playing at home.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Before, I just said that it would be Marlins in five to counter the claim that it would be Yankees in five. But as I have said since then, the teams are very close to equal. The Marlins had the best record in baseball from the end of May onward (when their present team was finally constituted), but the Yankees were only a half game behind them.
I would seriously expect the series to go to seven games. And either team could win it. If these two teams were to play each other twenty times, the better team would win eleven. More likely they would each win ten.
Did anyone notice that the team salary for the Marlins is one-third that of the Yankees? ($53 million to $168 million.) Even if the Marlins do not take the series, they still got more bang for the buck!
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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With any luck this means they won't be dismantled this time.
I think a baseball-only stadium in Miami would truly be successful. Especially if they focused on the parts of Miami that are heavily latino. I think Huizenga really made a bad call when he moved all his teams, but especially this one, out to the middle of nowhere.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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No, they need to move the stadium to Fort Lauderdale so its accesible to the entire tri-county area. No one wants to go to Miami.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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They've tried the one-size-fits-all approach already, and look where it's gotten them.
The population center down there is Miami. As much as the people who fled to Fort Lauderdale might wish to pretend this is not true, it simply is. So putting the stadium in Miami is more convenient for more people. Also, baseball is extremely popular among Latinos, and the team will have more loyal fans if they locate closer to this fan base. Fort Lauderdale fans have already long shown themselves to be fairweather fans only.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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All I know is that if I want to go to Heat or Hurricane games I have to drive about an hour through slums. There's also a lot less room in Miami. Actually there are almost as many people in Broward as there are in Dade and if the stadium is in Dade you limit the amount of Palm Beachers significantly.
posted
I don't live in Florida (I live in the other penninsula, the one that hatches the snowbirds that go down to Florida every winter), but I hear one of the big problems facing the Marlins' management and others who want to build a baseball-only stadium is the lack of available land. Where they can find suitable land will probably be the major factor in determining where in southeast Florida they build.
I do wonder just how faithful the Florida fans will be. They don't strike me as being nearly as rabid as New York fans. Despite their excellent year, the Marlins did not draw that well during the season. The Detroit Tigers probably drew nearly as well, despite the fact that their only accomplishment this year was avoiding by one game tying the 1962 Mets' record for total losses in a season. What kind of fan support will the Marlins have in years when they aren't bound for the World Series? Granted, with their young team, they're going to be winners for years to come, but it won't last forever.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
There are two sites in Miami that have been proposed as viable stadium sites . . . this issue is the financing (and who will do it). The land is there.
The famous lack of loyalty of Miami fans is due to two main factors. First of all, Miami teams routinely go after the wrong market by trying to go after all markets. Baseball is very different from football, fanbase wise. A ticket to a regular season baseball game is much cheaper than a football ticket. Baseball stadiums will be more successful in urban population centers where you can easily take a bus to the game if you don't have a car. (If you plop the stadium down in a dangerous neighborhood, then it will fail, because people will be reluctant to go to games. Miami already proved this with the dramatic failure of the Miami Arena in Overtown, which was replaced with two new arenas within ten years or so of being built. But urban is not synonymous with unsafe.)
Wealthy people make good football fans, because football is an expensive ticket, and because football games are only weekly. Wealthy people are not such good baseball fans, though, because there are so many games and wealthier people simply have more entertainment options in an area like South Florida or New York. Poorer people are often more loyal baseball and basketball fans because, unlike football, it's not so expensive to go to a game once in a while, and because they don't have as many competing forms of entertainment.
The former owner of the Marlins, who also owns the Dolphins and the Panthers, made the mistake of trying to market all three teams the same way. (This one-size-fits-all approach even extends to the stadium, which is an absolutely lousy stadium for baseball and an absolutely lousy stadium for football.) This approach has had mixed results with the Dolphins, who struggle to sell out home games, even when they are in the playoffs. It has succeeded with the Panthers, because the main audience targeted by Huizenga is wealthy American whites, and it is absolutely true that blacks and latinos are not big hockey fans. It was an unmitigated disaster with the Marlins.
Another point that cannot be dismissed is that you must build a fanbase. After the 1997 World Series, Huizenga had what amounted to a fire sale, completely dismantling the team. Many fans saw this as a betrayal. This year's team was not bought like the 1997 Marlins were . . . while there were, of course some key aquisitions when the playoffs drew near, this is typical of a playoff team. But, by and large, this is a home-grown team, that developed talent instead of going out and getting a bunch of high priced superstars. Hence the disparity between their payroll and that of the Yankees. While attendance at Marlins games has been bad since 1997, it was up for the last half of this season, long before it was clear that the Marlins would be in the playoffs.
Fan loyalty needs to be earned, and it looks like the Marlins are now starting down that track.
Another good way to avoid the mistakes of the past is to court the minority fans, who are likely to be more loyal fans of baseball. The best way to do this is to put a stadium closer to them.
It takes a great deal of incompetence to make baseball fail in South Florida.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
By the way, to make a comparison, the Miami Heat has always enjoyed much more fan loyalty than either the Marlins or the Dolphins.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
AAA and the Orange Bowl aren't in slums, Ijust have to drive through slums to get to them. PPS is not in a slum. I know of no Heat fan loyalty at all. They give away free tickets no strings attached all the time. The Panthers gave you one free ticket per person per season one season but they ended that policy for what ever reason. AAA is a couple blocks from Miami Arena also.
Attendance at Marlins games has only gone up because Floridians are fair weather fans. Even if the team isn't dismantled you won't see many people in the stands half way through the season. There'll be quite a few for the first games and then it'll drop only to rise again near the end of the season if the Fish are still in playoff contention.
posted
No. Floridians are only fairweather fans when the sport is mismarketed. During the time I lived in Miami, both the Panthers and the Heat had wildly successful ticket sales. The Marlins don't have a lot of success with fans so far for the reasons I have detailed above. They will never be wildly successful on the Dade-Broward line.
AAA is a couple of blocks from the Miami Arena, but that couple of blocks makes all the difference. The Miami Arena is in the very worst slum in Miami, but by being on Biscayne, the AA has a totally different neighborhood. The Bayfront area is well lit, populous, and has a good police presence. I feel safe in that Bayside area any night. You shouldn't have to drive through Overtown to get to the AAA . . . take the 395 (is that the one that turns into the MacArthur, or is it 195?) to Biscayne from I-95.
(It's a shame about the Miami Arena, by the way, because, though the Miami Arena is too small, it is, in many ways, better designed than the AAA. The Miami Arena is entered at the mezzanine level, and has dozens of doors. From that level, there are ramps or stairs to go up or down to your own seat level. Easy in, easy out. After a Heat game at the AAA, it can easily take you a half hour just to walk out of the Arena. If there is ever a fire there during an event, hundreds of people will die.
I can't think of a reason why you should have to drive through a slum so get to the OB. Where are you getting off of the 836? As I recall, it was twelfth or fourteenth avenue, and this area is urban and not wealthy, but it is not a slum.
You're right, the area around PPS is not technically a slum . . . I am engaging in a fair amount of hyperbole in this thread . . . but it is a worse area than the OB and the AAA.
South Florida is full of badly designed pink elephants, like PP Stadium, the Metrofail, and the Miami Arena. People build things without fully thinking through who the intended customers/users are. Instead, they think about revitalizing slums, or having a pretty mass transit system to put on postcards, or building an arena that is "central" to two less populous counties . . . and inconvenient for all. Most of these can be blamed on bureaucratic stupidity, but the PP is all Joe Robbie's fault.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
See? I can find that button too. If you wanna drop it, then drop it. But is hardly a compelling argument. I've posted good reasons for what I believe, to which you have responded, basically, "Uh uh."
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You're kidding right? I absolutely loathe the Yankees, but this team will almost certainly go down as the worst World Series champion EVER. One quality pitcher, and about three good field players. They earned it, but they're right up there with last year's angels, as one of the luckiest, and one of the worst, if not worst ever World Series champs. And on top of that I lost a bundle of money as well. I need to stick to football, where I'm a master handicapper, betting on baseball just doesn't go well for me.
Posts: 752 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Like many, you are making the mistake of seriously underestimating this World Series Championship team. But we're used to that here in Florida. Everyone has been underestimating the Marlins since the beginning.
[ October 26, 2003, 12:28 AM: Message edited by: Ela ]
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Self fulfilling prophecy. That and the Marlins have the best speed and feilding in the majors. The Marlins have the best 3B in Mike Lowell. The next great hitter in Miguel Cabrera and a pretty good one now, another good pitcher in Mark Redman even if he didn't shine against the Yankess, Brad Penny is very solid, Carl Pavano has played as well as anyone this post season, Juan Pierre has got be the fast guy on the planet and the hardest working, Pudge can do a lot for one guy, Encarnacion is the most underrated fielder in the MLB errorless with a great arm, Willis is going to be great if he isn't already, Conine was batting near .400 for the World Series, Alex Gonzalez and Luis Castillo combine to form the best middle infeild in baseball and both came up with big plays at the plate when they needed to, and Derek Lee is the best feilding 1B and a pretty good hitting one. There are others but I'll leave it at that.
Can't you people just admit you underrated the Fish?
posted
I'll go out on a limb and state this: The Marlins won't win a series next year not the NLDS, although I think they might make the playoffs again due to the weakness of the east (solid teams, but no great teams beyond maybe Atlanta whose staff isn't what it used to be, and whose hitters fold everytime they smell a big game).
I'm not underestimating I'm telling it like it is. There isn't a pitcher on that team besides Beckett that would stand a good shot at being a #2 in the rotation for any of the other say top 15 teams in the league (and I teach sometimes at Dontrelle's High School, so it isn't like I've got something against him, I love his success, it says a lot about Encinal). The staff is mediocre at best, and there hitters aren't anything special either.
But congrats, scoreboard is scoreboard, I'm just glad the series is over, boy was it ever ugly.
"Self fulfilling prophecy. That and the Marlins have the best speed and feilding in the majors. The Marlins have the best 3B in Mike Lowell."
Ummm, I don't think so. Pujols (who spends time at third) is infinitely better, so is Eric Chavez, Aubrey Huff, Hank Blaylock (when he plays third), Eric Hinske is close when he plays third, and Scott Rolen is better as well, though he wasn't much better, if at all this year.
"The next great hitter in Miguel Cabrera and a pretty good one now..."
Ummm, could be famous last words. He's been very nice since he was called up, but let's also remember Jaret Wright, who looked great as a rookie and even greater in his first post-season and then fell apart afterward. I'll wait on Cabrera, just as Soriano's awful post-season wasn't indicative of his talent level, we simply haven't seen enough of Cabrera to anoit him as a supreme young talent already on his way to greater things.
"Another good pitcher in Mark Redman even if he didn't shine against the Yankess, Brad Penny is very solid, Carl Pavano has played as well as anyone this post season..."
Redmen isn't bad and he isn't good, he's just blah. An inning eater, no better and no worse. Brad Penny was once a quality prospect with high upside. Now he's an average pitcher who came through big in his second World Series start, but his career numbers say he's no better than average. And Pavano, well, back in '97 (or late '96) when he was traded by Boston in a package for Pedro he was seen as a top of the line starter, a #2 with stuff that might be able to make him a #1. It didn't happen, after looking fairly good early he regressed, and regressed and regressed. He's at best a fourth starter on a good team. But who knows, maybe after failing for five years he'll finally live up to his once great promise, but somehow I doubt it.
"Juan Pierre has got be the fastest guy on the planet and the hardest working..."
Speed doesn't matter like it used to. Teams rely a lot more on power, and the days of stadiums like Busch, and the Metrodome and the Astrodome are over. People don't use the speed-friendly turf like they used to and as a result Pierre's speed is only truly noticeable in the playoffs when every bat and every pitch matters a whole lot, and in the field where speed is a huge asset. I like Pierre, and would toss him in with Pudge as probably one of you're most dynamic and reliable players.
"Pudge can do a lot for one guy..."
Pudge is awesome. You'll get no argument for me, it was his misfortune to be a free agent last year, rather than three years ago when the market was much better. In 2001 he would have commanded an offer nearly triple what he did get, but he's yours and he's HUGELY valuable.
"Encarnacion is the most underrated fielder in the MLB errorless with a great arm.."
That's a mighty strong opinion, and I believe Vizquel definitely is the most underrated. He lost the gold glove last year to the middling AROD, if that isn't a sign of underrated I don't know what is.
"Willis is going to be great if he isn't already..."
Could be, and he isn't already. Tailed off badly in the second half of the season as most young pitcher's do, unused to the heavy workload, and while August tends to help veteran pitchers as they get after tiring hitters, it doesn't help young pitchers as they tend to be adversely effected by the heat and fatigue that comes from climbing toward and beyond their 20-25th start, and there 150th inning pitched at that point. Willis could be great, he has very good stuff, but young pitchers are notoriously unpredictable. We'll see what he can do. Could be special, I'd love to see him represent my town's high school to the north.
"Conine was batting near .400 for the World Series"
Connine is very old, and a big game player. A sort of bittersweet combo. He still has some good hitting left in him, but he's been terribly inconsistent for a long time. I dont expect that to continue next year, though it might.
"Alex Gonzalez and Luis Castillo combine to form the best middle infeild in baseball and both came up with big plays at the plate when they needed to..."
There good, but there not the best, and they were fairly solid during the playoffs.
Derek Lee is the best feilding 1B and a pretty good hitting one. There are others but I'll leave it at that."
Ummm, no he isn't. He is a pretty good hitting prospect though.
The problem you've got, is that while your team isn't bad anywhere, it doesn't have any greatness either beyond Pudge and Beckett. The rotation is merely mediocre, the relievers are nothing special, you're hitters lack power all through the lineup and don't intimidate, and while you have team speed, that's more of an asset on the field then when hitting. On the positive side, the Braves, while great as usual in the regular season, failed in the playoffs and don't have the pitching in the minors to take over for their tiring older arms. The Phillies still lack much talent in the rotation in the Expos have essentially been the league's farm team for a decade running. The Central boasts a good Cubs team, and interesting Cardinals and Astro's teams but both are a bit weak. In the West the Giants have a nice rotation with no #1 pitcher, and aging hitters, the Dodgers don't know what they're doing, the Rockies will never compete, and the Padres will spend some money in the offseason but they are lost as well.
You've got an in in the N.L., there are two aging formerly great teams in Atlanta and San Francisco and then a few good teams and not much else, so you might surprise, but I don't see a return visit to the World Series let alone the NLCS. But it's possible. The A.L. should be interesting, the A's will start to be disected again, the Mariners finally have a good G.M. supposedly, the Twins and White Sox might be good, I don't know what to expect of the Royals and the Indians will contend in '05 if they're young pitchers are ready and healthy and if they're young hitters get on track and the OF is figured out, the Red Sox have the hitting but not the pitching, the Yanks need to reload, the Blue Jays are just confusing.
It's interesting, but baseball has always been a rigged game to me anyway, without absolute sharing of tv revenue the fix is in. So I don't take it too seriously, but I do like sports and this Florida incident, while enjoyable (I love anyone sticking it to the Yanks) seems to have inflamed florida fans to the same level of unreasonable expectations that last year's flukey win for Anaheim did.
However, Anaheim didn't have Josh Beckett. So you have that on them. But Anaheim also had much, much better hitting. 2004 will tell the tale. But congrats on being the Evil Empire.
posted
First the East is not weak. The Braves are a perennial power, the Phillies would have been wild card had the Marlins not won virtually every game they played against them, the same is almost true of the Expos, and the Mets are pretty good for a last place team, and is there a team I'm forgetting...oh yeah, that team that won the World Series.
Mark Redman is not blah, he was 14-9 with a 3.59 era, and three complete games. Next year watch out for Willis, he may have lost his deceptive ability but he can still light up the radar gun and place that ball anywhere.
Pujohs is not a 3B, he's an outfielder. Chavez, Blaylock, Hiske, and Huff don't come close. Rolen's stats were still worse than Lowell's even though Lowell missed like 20 games or more and he survived a cancer scare.
To say that speed doesn't matter is to deny the Marlins won the World Series. Speed turns singles into doubles, speed moves guys from 1st to 3rd when they have no right to, speed creates havoc. Of course with Lee and Lowell there is some power in the Marlins' lineup as well.
All I know is Encarnacion hasn't made an error all season, gets an ESPN web gem every other week, and gets outfield assists like very few. I didn't say he was the best, just the most underrated.
Conine isn't that old and he's playing better than I've seen him in these past few months with the Fish. He's also made some spectacular plays in left field which he hasn't even played in over 6 years.
Where's a better double play combo? Why do the Marlins lead the league in double plays.
Again where's a better 1B fielding wise. I think there's a reason why he's being mentioned for a gold glove and the all star game has consistenly proven you need to be very special to be on the Marlins and be recognized by major league baseball.
Schmidt's not a number one pitcher? Did he retire or get traded while I was sleeping?
If baseball was rigged then why weren't the Sox battling the Cubbies last night?
If you are the big tree, We are the small axe Sharpened to cut you down, Ready to cut you down.
"Small Axe"
Whether the Marlins had no pitchers, and only fast runners, or however you want to diminish their good effort, does not change the fact that they won the World Series.
Congrats, Marlins fans.
I am (truly) sorry, Yanks fans. I wanted them to go all the way to 3 and 3, get into the twelfth inning, and lose when one of the shlumpiest Marlins guys hit a single home run to win the game. Dang, can't we Sox fans even have decent revenge??? (kidding)(I am always sad for the losing team)
Posts: 22 | Registered: Mar 2001
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