Living and dying day-to-day by what the Chicago Cubs do, means I have an incredible amount of bitterness and resentment towards the Florida Marlins organization. Still to this day I vividly remember calling my buddy in the 7th inning of game 6 of the 2003 NLCS exclaiming....we're going to go....we're going to go to the World Series.....we've got Prior on the mound and he is lights out....nothing can stop us.....
Nothing that is except for a scape goat named Bartman, but really an awful error by A-Gon that opened some flood gates. As the story goes, the Marlins go on to win game 6 and game 7 and eliminate the Cubs' chances of a World Series for another 20 years minimum. I was ironically in Florida at an IT conference during the debacle, on the 12th floor....and I admit I looked out my window and thought about jumping....well not really, but you get the point.
Which brings me to my point with this post. The 2007 Florida Marlins just completed a sweep of the lowly Cubs last night. I couldn't help myself but think....maybe the Florida Marlins are a brilliant organization. After all, they've been in existence about 14 years now and have 2 World Series rings.....2 more than the Cubs have in 98+ years.
The Marlins were highly criticized for blowing up an exceptional team after a 1997 championship and again after the 2003 championship. I actually remember thinking going into the 2006 season that the Marlins might just be the worst team in baseball history. I really thought they'd have a hard time beating many AAA teams. They proved me and just about every other baseball fan/writer very wrong. Not only were they not the worst team ever, they were highly competitive in a strong division. The Marlins took the path of selling off all superstars for respective top minor league talent from each of the teams bidding on their superstars. This has provided them with blooming stars like Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla, Mike Jacobs, Josh Willingham, Jeremy Hermida, Sergio Mitre (maybe), Anibal Sanchez, Scott Olsen. They are not World Series caliber yet, but maybe in 1-2 years.
I think it may be coming time that the Cubs try this philosophy. I am starting to think that 2003 was the worst thing that could have happened to the Cubs. We got such a close taste that we decided to start spending all costs to acquire top talent (that may not fit with other players already on the team, but who cares). This top talent has gotten us no where. At the conclusion of May, the Cubs stand at 22-29 (5th worst in the NL, but only 1 game ahead in the win column of all 4 trailing teams). As of May 31, 2007, I am advocating a fire sale of the team. I never thought it would come to this. I'd say, let's adopt the Marlins approach. Let's (gulp) sell off Zambrano, Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Barrett, Jones, etc.... Let's bring in top flight minor league talent and let them mature over a few years. After all, can a AA team really baserun any more poorly, or be worse at situational hitting, make more errors, or score less runs in the majors than this crew of "superstars" is averaging so far?
I know its still early in the season, and I still hope my Cubbies can turn it around like the Tigers or Twins last year, and I hope I look like a fool for posting this at the end of 2007.
