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Buoyed by an offseason spending spree that included a long-term agreement with star Giancarlo Stanton, most expected the Miami Marlins to compete for an NL East title. A disappointing 3-10 start apparently has management reconsidering the status of manager Mike Redmond.  

Continue for updates.

Redmond on Hot Seat

Monday, April 20

Clark Spencer of The Miami Herald reported that not only is Redmond standing on thin ice but the team is considering Mets Triple-A manager Wally Backman as a potential replacement.

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal provided additional details on Redmond’s status with the team:

Backman, 55, is in his third season with the Las Vegas 55s, leading them to the playoffs during his first two campaigns. He has been with the Mets organization since 2010 and also has minor league managerial experience with the Chicago White Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Should Backman wind up replacing Redmond, he’ll be taking over perhaps baseball’s most disappointing team. Miami is coming off of a four-game sweep at the hands of New York and has completely fallen apart amid struggles on its pitching staff. Only the Texas Rangers have given up more runs through their first 13 games.

High-profile acquisitions, such as starting pitcher Mat Latos and outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, are off to miserable starts, and the Marlins are looking for any way possible to jump-start their roster. If he’s let go, Redmond will be the fourth Marlins manager to either be let go or resign since 2010. (The Marlins also had two interim managers in 2011.)

Overall, he has compiled a 142-195 record since arriving in 2013.

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Hey, the Miami Marlins are 1-0 and are in the first place in the National League East.

At this rate, they will go 162-0 and win the World Series.

Too much, too soon?

Yeah, it probably is, but that’s what happens when the Marlins score 10 runs in their season opener Monday to back a nine-strikeout, six-inning gem from 21-year-old pitching phenom Jose Fernandez. The win marked the first time the franchise has been above .500 since June 16, 2012 when they beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in 15 innings.

While some might actually be naive enough to think the Marlins will go 162-0 and win the World Series, few are predicting the Marlins to go from worst to first, let alone get to .500. That said, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the 2014 season. Why else would one of the bigger dirty secrets in sports media is to write as many feel-good stories as possible in the offseason? Because no team can lose games when there are no games to be played.

But now that there has been a game played and won, some Marlins think there is a reason to be hopeful about 2014 despite losing 100 games last year and finishing last in the NL East three consecutive years.

I hope so, because this team is special,” Fernandez told MLB.com after the opener. “I see that. Not because we scored 10 runs (Monday). We’re going to lose a couple, but this team is going to fight. That’s the only thing we want. We want to go out there and fight.

Well, we’re not going to stop at one reason, are we? In lieu of Fernandez’s fighting spirit, here are three more reasons to be optimistic about the Marlins’ 2014 season.

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Last week, we took a look as to what players might not be with the Miami Marlins in 2014. 

Today, based on who we think will still be here, we’re going to take a look as to what the Marlins starting lineup will be next season.

The rules are simple. The Marlins chosen to start next season must be under team control in some fashion for the 2014 season. This means guys such as Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco, who signed one-year deals  with the Marlins in the offseason, were not selected because they had little to no shot of starting next year, especially considering their current roles as bench players. Also, this means free agents such as Brian McCann, Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury and Matt Garza will not be coming to South Beach anytime soon.

While you might be very familiar with the names on this list, keep in mind these players have earned the starting nod either through outstanding production or merely by default. 

Without further ado, let’s present the starting nine for the 2014 Miami Marlins in lineup card fashion.

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For a team that’s probably going to finish last in the National League East for the third consecutive year, the Miami Marlins don’t have many issues thus far. 

Ricky Nolasco has already been named the Opening Day starter—shocking. Jacob Turner, Nathan Eovaldi and Henderson Alvarez are still slated to follow Nolasco while Wade LeBlanc continues to make his case to be the team’s No. 5 starter after throwing four shutout innings Sunday against the Atlanta Braves. 

Among position players, second baseman Donovan Solano has hit .480 in 25 at-bats and Casey Kotchman is batting .435 in 23 at-bats. Kotchman is trying to win a spot on the team which, in his case, comes with the designation of starting first baseman if Logan Morrison isn’t ready when the season begins.

According to Morrison’s agent, Fred Wray, Morrison could be playing by April 15 after having surgery to repair a torn patella tendon in his right knee.

Meanwhile, with Team USA at the World Baseball Classic, slugging outfielder Giancarlo Stanton is hitless in seven at-bats, but he’s broken a windshield with a home run during batting practice.

Stanton’s teammate, closer Steve Cishek has two scoreless appearances, which includes the biggest out of Sunday’s 9-4 win against Canada when Cishek induced Tim Smith to ground out to second baseman Brandon Phillips to end the eighth inning with the bases loaded while preserving a one-run lead.

And as far as the kiddies go, they have impressed as well. Future ace Jose Fernandez struck out two in two scoreless innings in his only spring training appearance while the Marlins’ other star prospect, Christian Yelich, has been scorching hot as he’s batted .375 with three home runs and 11 RBI in 32 at-bats. Yelich has been so good, it’s prompted first-year manager Mike Redmond to sing his praises to MLB.com:

I’ll tell you, man, I love putting him in that lineup. Every opportunity I have to put him in there, I get him in there. He gives you a great at-bat. It doesn’t matter who he faces. Believe me, we go around and around [on where he’ll start the season]. That’s something that we’ll have to talk about.

But not everything has been rosy with the Marlins…

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A bizarre phenomenon has been occurring over the past decade in Major League Baseball regarding the hiring of ex-MLB players over experienced managers.

Most of these decisions to hire managers who have played in the past 15 to 20 years have been initially controversial, but the majority have actually benefited teams over the past few seasons.

Third baseman Robin Ventura was just eight years out of baseball when the White Sox hired him as their manager last year. Ventura transformed the previously sub-.500 White Sox to a legitimate contender in the AL Central with a relatively unchanged roster from 2011.

Guys like Alex Rios, Adam Dunn and Gordon Beckham showed vast improvements over their 2011 numbers as a product of the coaching change.

Take another guy like first-year manager Mike Matheny, just six years removed from the majors, and look at the results of his St. Louis Cardinals this season. Matheny’s Cards returned almost all of the players on their 2011 World Series-winning roster, except for one key piece: one of the best hitters in the league, Albert Pujols.

In what was one of the more criticized hires of last season, Matheny dealt with the substantial loss of Pujols and took his Cardinals to a place few thought possible: the seventh game of the NLCS.

Guys like Allen Craig, Carlos Beltran and Yadier Molina had some of their best seasons on record under Matheny.

Even the Yankees hired Joe Girardi just five years removed from baseball in 2008. While “Binder Joe” has taken some deep criticism over the state of his team during his tenure, you cannot overlook his four playoff appearances and one World Series title.

So what’s the secret behind this hiring strategy? Why does upper management take the risk on guys with no professional coaching experience?

The game of baseball has changed significantly over the past two decades, and players and managers have no choice but to adapt.

In 2000, the league’s average ERA was 4.77, with no teams having an average ERA below four. The league’s batting average was .270.

Today, more than half of the teams in the league own ERAs under four, and teams are scoring less runs as a whole.

Guys like Girardi, Matheny and Ventura played in the heart of the 2000s, experiencing and adapting to the change in pitching talent.

Catchers are specifically familiar with the shift in pitching talent and have observed the league in its bloated offensive days as well.

That’s what the Miami Marlins were thinking when they went out and signed 13-year veteran catcher Mike Redmond as their new manager.

Redmond, just two years removed from baseball, is the next managerial experiment in MLB that has a chance to really pay dividends for the long term.

These young managers have evolved along with the game and are familiar with modern day pitchers’ tendencies.

For example, having pitchers go the distance and pitch complete games is a trend that’s beginning to fade away in MLB. Older coaches like Jim Leyland, Dusty Baker and Terry Collins are more prone to having their guys pitch seven or eight innings, while guys like Bob Melvin and Bruce Bochy are traditionally more conservative.

Signing a manager with no MLB coaching experience is a risk, no doubt, but it can have a unique effect on a team.

Focusing on St. Louis, Matheny had a similar path through the majors with some of the veterans on last year’s team such as Beltran and Berkman. Matheny also played in a somewhat similar league to everyone on the team. Like the Marlins’ Redmond, Matheny played in the conservative pitching era’s infancy in the mid-2000s, winning four Gold Gloves along the way.

Hiring younger managers allows players to relate to their skipper and will usually strengthen a team’s chemistry.

In regards to the Ventura hiring last year, White Sox GM Ken Williams said, “I wanted someone who met very specific criteria centered around his leadership abilities. Robin Ventura was that man. His baseball knowledge and expertise, his professionalism, his familiarity with the White Sox and Chicago and his outstanding character make him absolutely the right person to lead our clubhouse and this organization into the seasons ahead,” reported Doug Padilla of ESPN Chicago.

Williams was looking for Ventura to transfer his leadership and success on the field to the manager position, and he did just that.

MLB GMs are targeting players who not only display apparent knowledge for the game, but also were leaders on and off the field when they played.

The Marlins signing Tino Martinez as their hitting coach and the Rockies signing Dante Bichette as their hitting coach and Walt Weiss as their manager are more examples of MLB organizations taking this approach to hiring.

Don’t be surprised if former Astros catcher Brad Ausmus becomes the next recent MLB player to take over the reins of an organization, as this trend will most certainly continue in the years to come.

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