Ex-Marlins Populate World Series Stage
Ex-Marlins Populate World Series Stage
ALSO: CAN RAYS FIND CLOSE-TO-HOME BALLPARK FOR 2025 SEASON?
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Sneak Preview!
This is the cover of the forthcoming Here’s The Pitch 2025, available Nov. 15 from ACTA Publications. It contains 35 essays written exclusively by IBWAA members. We’ll reveal who they are in this space next Friday.
History Repeats
Channeling Kirk Gibson: A hobbled slugger who joined the Dodgers as a free agent delivered a two-out walk-off home run to reverse a Game 1 deficit in the first game of the World Series to give his underdog club a victory. This time, it was Freddie Freeman, who hadn’t had an extra-base hit in a month, connecting against Nestor Cortes, normally a starter, for the first game-ending grand slam in Fall Classic history.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Hard to believe Christian Walker, the free-agent first baseman most recently with the Arizona Diamondbacks, has never been an All-Star — even though he’s a slugger virtually certain to win his third straight Gold Glove this fall . . .
Another All-Star snub, catcher Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, is the first backstop since Mike Piazza in 2001 to have 30 homers and 30 runners erased in the same season . . .
Before they met in this year’s AL Division Series, the Houston Astros had played in 103 post-season games — 103 more than the Detroit Tigers did since their last one in 2014 . . .
The Tigers and Astros were both 10 games out at different stages of this season . . .
Daring Detroit manager A.J. Hinch pinch-hit for his cleanup hitter in the fifth inning of his team’s first playoff game in 10 years . . .
Knocked out of the playoffs early, the Phillies are counting on 6’7” rookie right-hander Andrew Painter to join their rotation next year . . .
Anyone who predicted Tommy Edman would be MVP of the NL Championship Series must own a crystal ball.
Leading Off
It’s A Rough World Series For Baseball’s Have-Nots, But Especially The Marlins
By Sean Millerick
In case you missed it, this year’s World Series showdown doesn’t exactly feature a rags-to-riches story.
No scrappy underdogs. No little engines that could. Moneyball only in the sense that it took oceans of cash for these two teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, to get to this point.
Two of the top five payrolls in the sport are gearing up to battle it out for a championship…and the only reason the Dodgers payroll doesn’t qualify for the Top 3 is the fact that the best baseball player on the planet was nice enough to defer $68 million of his contract.
In other words, not exactly what you want to see if you’re a team that isn’t regularly in the habit of dropping north of $200 million on payroll. In fact, if you’re not a fan of a club capable of regularly placing in the payroll Top 10…things probably feel pretty hopeless right now.
Especially if you’re a Miami Marlins fan.
Why the Marlins above the rest of this year’s poorer also-rans?
Well, it is pretty hard to look past the team’s financial woes. There might not be a perennial Bottom 10 payroll team that feels more firmly stuck there than Miami.
Long gone are the days when original owner Wayne Huizenga once spent with the big-boy markets and “bought” a championship before the practice had become, if not cool, then at least commonplace.
Even Tampa Bay and Oakland/Sacramento/Las Vegas fans can reasonably dare to hope payroll surges somewhat once their new ballparks open, and even if it doesn’t, those organizations have had far more recent success at the whole doing-more-with-less approach to team building.
The Marlins have merely known progressively-cheaper owners, and can boast only two playoff appearances in the 21 years since their last World Series win.
Which only makes it all the more galling to see this 2024 Yankees team competing.
And not just because of the certain Derek Jeter coverage, though that is going to sting. As the saying goes, one team’s venerated Captain is another team’s abysmal failure of an executive.
It’s also not just about the high number of former Marlins players suiting up for them.
Seeing the odd former Fish competing in October is nothing new for Marlins fans.
Big names too: from Zac Gallen and J.T. Realmuto in recent years all the way back to Josh Beckett and Miguel Cabrera.
The fact the Yankees have turned in a post-season lineup card with three former Marlins on it does stand out, but not nearly so much as the fact that two of those three players were essentially the last two faces of the franchise. There’s no denying that’s what Jazz Chisholm, Jr. and Giancarlo Stanton were, at least in terms of perception.
It’s just another glaring reminder of Miami’s inability to be able to keep their brightest stars, including just-retired future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera years ago.
Certainly that’s not a problem unique to the Marlins.
Heck, even plenty of Angels and Braves fans are going to be very grumpy watching the Dodgers over the next week. Yet those teams either win or spend often enough to be forgiven for the odd case of being outbid.
The Marlins are always outbid, unless it was a bidding war against themselves for past-their-prime talent.
Neither Chisholm nor Stanton qualify as even the third most talented player on the Yankees roster. Yet the Yankees can afford to pay Stanton’s massive contract anyway, and the same goes for whatever Chisholm will demand once the time comes to extend him.
Miami couldn’t and never will.
This payroll disparity is a fact that would be just as true for the Marlins (and many other teams) if the Astros and Mets or Cubs and Blue Jays were facing off this weekend. But the fact that so many recently-relevant Marlins are playing for these two teams? That just makes it stand out all the more.
Oh, about that relevant former Marlin on the Dodgers: former team captain Miguel Rojas.
A player the Marlins actually actually acquired once upon a time in a trade involving another key 2024 Dodgers contributor, Kike Hernandez.
Plenty has already been made, and assuredly will during this World Series, of the feud between Rojas and the aforementioned Chisholm during their time together in South Florida.
Eyes should roll every time that comes up. Rojas was a Gold Glove caliber defender with an old school mentality who unfortunately had started to hit like an old man just as Chisholm was coming into his own.
Showing Rojas the door following the 2022 season was every bit about appeasing and empowering Chisholm as it was legitimately trying to upgrade offensively at shortstop.
Well that, and moving on Rojas’ burdensome $4-$5 million salary. That’s a figure the Marlins struggle to pay their regulars, and was far too much to spend on a player they were planning to consign to the bench.
Meanwhile, that kind of money is a drop in the bucket for baseball’s 1 per cent, and both players are now long gone from Miami just two years later.
Bottom-line: the Miami Marlins are going to come up a lot over the next week, whether it be explicitly discussed by commentators, or just on the screen to contemplate every time an ex-Marlin steps to the plate.
It was 21 years ago this past Friday that the Marlins prevailed over the Yankees in the World Series, despite a roughly $100 million difference between their respective payrolls. This year the difference was over twice that.
A third World Series championship for the Marlins has never felt further away.
Sean Millerick is a diehard Miami Marlins fan but still finds cause for hope every Spring Training. He currently writes for @CallToThePen. You can find him on Twitter, or whatever Elon wants to call it, @miasportsminute.
Cleaning Up
Rays Search For New Ballpark While The Trop’s Roof Is Repaired
By Dan Schlossberg
In the wake of Hurricane Milton, which ripped the roof off Tropicana Field, the Tampa Bay Rays are again a team in search of a park.
They lost their spring training facility, Charlotte Sports Park, in 2023 after Hurricane Ian but played there last year and plan to do so again in 2025.
But Disney World offers a much better target for regular-season games.
Its ballpark, now called The Stadium, has 11,000 seats — many more than Port Charlotte — plus good parking and easy access. It’s a straight shot across I-4 from Tampa Bay [68 miles from downtown Tampa and 90 miles from Tropicana Field].
There’s also precedent: the attendance-challenged Rays played a pair of series there in both 2007 and 2008 in an effort to expand their fan base.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred already said he wants the team to find a facility close the home of its fan base. So that rules out a co-share with the Miami Marlins at loanDepot Park.
Enter Disney.
The double-decked facility, which housed Atlanta Braves spring training for 20 years, has 9500 seats, four suites, several open-air suites, and lots of space on the outfield berm.
No longer used on a regular basis during spring training, the park last hosted major-league baseball teams when the Rays used it for some of its exhibition games when Charlotte Sports Park was rendered unusable by Hurricane Ian.
If that doesn’t work out, there are other spring training facilities that could be suitable. A half-dozen clubs train in or around Tampa Bay, including the Phillies, Blue Jays, and Yankees, with the Tigers not too distant in Lakeland.
The Blue Jays even played some regular-season games in Dunedin during the Covid lockdown of 2020-21.
Tampa Bay is getting a new ballpark — it’s about time — but not until 2028, the same year the Athletics will move into their new Las Vegas facility.
Whether the team or the City of St. Petersburg want to invest millions in roof repair now is subject to conjecture, especially since the Trop might just become the biggest empty shell on the shores of Tampa Bay.
As for playing at The Trop without a roof, the summer heat, humidity, and rainfall are three huge negatives to consider.
At least the Marlins have a dome that still works, which is more than can be said for any of the spring training parks.
With the winter holidays approaching and spring training close behind, a decision needs to be made immediately if not sooner.
And no, the Rays are not about to occupy the vacated Oakland Coliseum.
It’s hardly close to home.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers baseball for forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, Here’s The Pitch, and many other outlets. He’s also the author of 42 baseball books, including collaborations with Ron Blomberg, Al Clark, and Milo Hamilton. Email Dan via ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
Before the 2024 Chicago White Sox killed all respect for respectability with 121 losses, we had the 2023 Oakland Athletics . . .
According to star trivia finder Jayson Stark, that team not only lost 112 games but used 24 different starting pitchers — two more than Tony La Russa used when he ran the A’s from 1998-92 (five seasons if you’re counting) . . .
The 24 starters tied the ignominious mark of Connie Mack’s 1915 Philadelphia A’s, who sold all their stars to keep afloat when the Federal League challenged its survival . . .
Oakland starters went 20-72, while the pitching staff as a group posted a 6.10 earned run average on the road, hit more batters (100) with pitches than any previous team, and yielded 200 home runs . . .
The next-to-last team to represent Oakland had an earned run average of 9.52 in their losses and allowed opponents to hit .331 in those contests . . .
Maybe things will get better in Sacramento next summer.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.