They have a new, outspoken manager, a pouty shortstop turned third baseman and a pitcher who has been such a clubhouse cancer that the Chicago Cubs are paying $15 million to watch him throw for somebody else.
Ladies and gentlemen, the 2012 Miami Marlins. They will be more talented than they have been in years, but it could be like a car going 100 mph with bald tires. You just know the blowout is coming.
Last week, Hanley Ramirez said he's fine with the change to third base, at least publicly. With that move, the enigmatic 28-year-old is acting mature and not like the guy who doesn't always run out plays. He's led the NL in errors at shortstop twice in his career, and the Marlins have a huge hole at third base. It could be the greatest move of his career, as the 6-foot-3, 230-pound Ramirez was getting a little big to be effective at shortstop. But just a little adversity could give him his ticket out of town if he pouts. Could go either way.
Then on Wednesday, the Marlins traded pitcher Chris Volstad to the Cubs for Carlos Zambrano, who famously cleaned out his locker and "retired" on Aug. 12 last season after throwing two pitches at Chipper Jones and getting ejected. They were Zambrano's last pitches of the season. He's just 30, but at times acts like he's going on 13.
And now he's a Marlin, too. He's owed $18 million this season, the final year of a contract he signed in 2007, and the Cubs are picking up 80 percent of it just to be rid of him. He's been close to Guillen, a fellow Venezuelan, throughout his career. Now it's Guillen's job to keep him happy. And Ramirez. And the rest of the Marlins.
Wrote Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal: "The Fish are about to make the old Bronx Zoo look like a petting zoo, turn Little Havana into their very own baseball asylum."
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