A Preview A Day Keeps the Winter Away, #14

For the month of March I will be doing a season preview, with a new team each day, going in alphabetical order by team so I can save the Yankees for last, because I am, in fact, that devious.

As this is a Yankees' blog, the previews for AL East teams will be more detailed than those of AL Central and AL West teams, and any AL team previews will be more detailed than NL team previews, save maybe for the Mets. Each preview will involve consideration of how much 'threat' a team is to the Yankees, for fairly obvious reasons.

Up today: The Florida Marlins

If there's ever been a team the victim of poor ownership and fan indifference, the Marlins certainly seem to fit the bill.

It's a team whose entire payroll is less than that of A-Rod's yearly salary, and just as they're about to win it all, they are broken up and shipped out. Hard to believe it was only five years ago that Beckett and Pavano won rings together.

This year's Marlins will have to do without franchise star Dontrelle Willis and power bat Miguel Cabrera, but they did receive two young, highly valued talents in return--Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin. While most seem to think that, for now at least, Detroit came off better in the trade, I'm going to go ahead and say that if not this year, than in a feew, the Marlins will have gotten the better end of the deal.

It's likely that just as last year, the Marlins will be fighting the Nationals to stay out of the NL East basement.


Threat to the Yankees: Green, proceed normally.

While I still haven't forgotten 2003, I do have to thank the Marlins for a) giving us Joe Girardi, and b) taking Hanley away from Boston.