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All-Century Roster: Marlins
By Gary Brooks
SportsLine Baseball Editor
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The Marlins organization made a quick ascent up a tough mountain then
failed to stay on the trail and fell off a cliff, diving to
worst-in-baseball proportions that have made the franchise an interesting
study in how to buy a champion and how to dismantle it in favor of
collecting an abundant supply of "potential."
 | | | Alex Fernandez still carries the torch for the fledgling Marlins.(Allsport) | |
As an expansion team in South Florida, providing the state with a
baseball presence after spring training ends, the Marlins became a model of
free-agent success. With owner Wayne Huizenga spending freely, Florida
developed a team with a strong combination of been-there, done-that stars
and emerging youth by its fourth season in 1997.
That the team reached the playoffs wasn't a major surprise but that they
dumped the Atlanta Braves and went on to become the first wild-card entry
to win the World Series was. But it was just the first. The next surprise
sprang out of an ugly decision to trade off the high-profile players to
meet financial demands of selling the team.
The reversal from World Series champions to 108-loss team became the
sickest turnaround in baseball history. The ascent to playoff success the
next time won't come as fast but the organization does have a solid group
of prospects that just might be able to climb the standings ladder early in
the next century.
Lineup
| Charles Johnson, Catcher, 1994-98 |
| Johnson became the first catcher to win three consecutive NL gold gloves since Johnny Bench was the premier catcher in the 1970s. He added a fourth in 1998 when he was a Marlin until May 15 when he was shipped to the Dodgers. Johnson was outstanding both at picking pitches out of the dirt and throwing out baserunners. He homered in Game 1 of the '97 World Series following Moises Alou's homer to give them the first back-to-back World Series HRs since Dwight Evans and Rich Gedman of the Red Sox went deep in 1986. He was an All-Star in 1997. |
| Greg Colbrunn, 1B, 1994-96 |
| Colbrunn missed the World Series season but provided fairly consistent
production as the regular in 1995 and '96. In 1995, he hit .277 with 23
homers and 89 RBI, all career highs. |
| Kurt Abbott, 2B, 1995-97 |
| Abbott never completely had the second-base job to himself but he's the
best of a collection of players who failed to secure the position over the
first seven seasons in team history. In 1995, when he played 120 games,
Abbott hit 17 homers and drove in 60. |
| Edgar Renteria, SS, 1996-98 |
| Renteria provided the team's signature highlight with his two-out,
bottom-of-the-eleventh single in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series scoring
Craig Counsell. He became the first All-Star from Colombia in 1998 when he
hit .282 and stole 41 bases. |
| Bobby Bonilla, 3B, 1997-98 |
| Bonilla spent little more than a season with Florida as he was also dealt
to the Dodgers early in 1998. But his 1997 production was a key element of
the team's World Series run. Bonilla hit .297 and drove in 96 runs and set
the club record with 39 doubles. In Game 7 of the '97 Series, Bonilla hit a
462-foot homer and started the winning 11th-inning rally with a single. |
| Gary Sheffield, OF, 1993-98 |
| Sheffield, though injury-plagued, has to be considered the best Marlin
ever. Jeff Conine played in 160 more games than Sheffield and had 42 more
Marlins RBI but Sheffield holds the club record for runs (365), homers
(122), on-base percentage (.426) and slugging percentage (.543). He too was
dealt in the May 15, 1998 deal that stripped the club. |
| Moises Alou, OF, 1997 |
| Alou was a clutch playoff performer in '97 driving in 15 runs, nine in the
World Series. He scored the tying run in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7
to extend the game and eventually allow the Marlins to win. He homered in
his first at-bat as a Marlin and was selected to his second All-Star Game
in '97. He hit .292 with 23 homers and 115 RBI. |
| Jeff Conine, OF, 1993-97 |
| Conine is the franchise leader in games (718), hits (737), RBI (422) and
batting average (.291). He appeared in the 1994 and '95 All-Star games and
was the MVP in 1995. He hit a club-record .319 in 1994. |
Pitchers
| Kevin Brown, SP, 1996-97 |
| Brown's heavy sinking, but still swift fastball was tough to hit in 1996
when he went 17-11 but had a terrific 1.89 ERA. Then in 1997 he went 16-8
as the ace of the World Series staff. He was an All-Star each season and
pitched a no-hitter in '97 against the Giants. |
| Alex Fernandez, SP, 1997-99 |
| Fernandez became an emotional leader of the team upon his return to his
home city after seven seasons with the White Sox. He won 17 games in '97,
and won the clinching game of the Division Series, before having his season
ended in the playoffs due to a torn rotator cuff after Game 2 of the NLCS.
He missed all of 1998 and returned in '99 to go 7-8 in 24 starts.
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| Livan Hernandez, SP, 1997-99 |
| The '97 playoffs made Hernandez a star. He was named MVP of both the NLCS
and World Series becoming the fourth player to double up. He was 2-0 in
each series and in beating the Braves in Game 5 of the LCS set a record
with 15 strikeouts. He had gone 9-3 in 17 starts during the season to
finish second in NL Rookie of the Year voting. In 1998 he went 10-12 with a
club-record nine complete games. He faded in '99 and was traded to the San
Francisco Giants. |
| Al Leiter, SP, 1996-97 |
| The '97 Marlins were Al Leiter's third World Series winning team in six years. Florida won three of the four postseason games he started. He was 11-9 in 27 starts after going 16-12 with a 2.93 ERA in 33 starts in 1996. He was an NL All-Star in '96. He finished third in the NL in ERA and on May 11 pitched the first no-hitter in club history, beating Colorado. |
| Pat Rapp, SP, 1993-97 |
| Rapp went a respectable 14-7 with a 3.44 ERA in 28 starts for the 1995 Marlins. It was the high point of his career, which has seen him bounce around to three teams since. He was the first Marlin to pitch 100 innings in four consecutive seasons. |
| Robb Nen, RP, 1993-97 |
| Nen holds the Marlins record with 108 saves. He saved the first 15
opportunities of his career in 1994 setting a record streak to start a
career. His high 90s fastball continued to develop and he turned into one
of the best closers in the game saving 35 games in 1996 and 1997. |
| Bench |
| Terry Pendleton, Walt Weiss, Benito Santiago, Cliff Floyd, Devon White |
| Best season |
 | | | Livan Hernandez was the postseason MVP for the '97 Marlins.(Allsport) | |
The All-Stars acquired to make a run at the World Series in 1997 won 92 games then got hot in October and did just what owner Wayne Huizenga paid millions for, brining the World Series trophy to South Florida.
They disposed of the NL West champion Giants in three games in the Division Series then stunned the Braves 4-2 in the NLCS. In a tightly played World Series, the Marlins won in seven games thanks to the efforts of Moises Alou and Livan Hernandez. Al Leiter made up for a lackluster season with a solid start in Game 7, and the bullpen outlasted the Indians' relievers in extra innings.
Jim Leyland finally got his championship ring after coming up short in the playoffs time after time.
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| Worst season |
| Rare for an expansion team, the Marlins' first 100-loss
season didn't come until 1998 when the stars who formed a World Series team
in 1997 were shipped off. Florida lost 108 games in starting a youth
movement that does look promising, though the excitement of 1997 isn't
likely to return any time soon. |
| Best individual season, player |
| Gary Sheffield finally had a season that
didn't included long stops on the disabled list in 1996 and proved that he
was among the most talented players in the game. Sheffield hit 42 home
runs, drove in 120 runs, scored 118. He had a remarkable combination of a
.625 slugging percentage and .465 on-base percentage and finished seventh
in MVP voting. |
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| Best individual season, pitcher |
| Perhaps the best way to explain how
dominant Kevin Brown's 1996 season was is by looking at his earned-run
average (1.89) compared to that of Greg Maddux (2.72). Brown was nearly a
run better than the four-time Cy Young Award winner. Brown went 17-11, was
the only pitcher in the NL with three shutouts and placed second to John
Smoltz (24-8) in Cy Young voting. |
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