As an ex-New Yorker, I have come to realize that each moment I spend in Florida and endure the garbage sports talk radio, I am compelled to move back in a heart beat. I am embarrassed that I call myself a resident of the sunshine state.

The callers, the hosts, specifically the wannabe replacement for Sid Rosenberg, has it in his brain that the Florida Marlins are “the best team in baseball”, that they will win 90-100 games this year, and that karma is on their side because they win the World Series every six years. I am not just some Mets fan that is disappointed in their 4-5 start, and I am not a Marlins hater, and I am surely not a homer. Here are the facts.

The Florida Marlins have a solid one two punch in baseball. The Mets and Phillies do not. Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco are dominant. Josh Johnson out-pitched perhaps the best pitcher in baseball….once! Ricky Nolasco put in a season last year that vaulted him to a top ten starter. I honestly believe he will repeat it, and the Johnson-Nolasco tandem will rival the Webb-Haren, Beckett-Lester, Sabathia-Burnett, and eventually Kazmir-Price duo this season. After that, just like the Mets rotation, its suspect. Chris Volstad has the makeup of a solid, above average starter. But the reality is this. He hardly strikeouts batters (seven strikeouts against a Nationals team is no great feat), and his defense this season will let him down. Anibal Sanchez is coming back from a serious injury, and Andrew Miller is average at best.

And Marlins fans, the Mets rotation is just as suspect. Yes, Johan is one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. The Johnson-Santana game a week back was classic, and I can’t wait to see another one. But after Santana? John Maine clearly is not all the way back from his injury, Mike Pelfrey could be injured, and you never know what you get from Oliver Perez. Livan Hernandez is throwing wiffle balls out there, and he is just the stop gap for Jon Niese. So if you want to call the Marlins pitching staff slightly better than the Mets, I say… it is better. But not the best rotation in baseball. I think the other Florida team has that, once they decide to get rid of their 5th starter for the one rotting in the minors.

The Mets bullpen was revamped this season. The Marlins bullpen is awful. The Mets have the exact same team they had last season offensively, and the same rotation as well. So if the problem was the bullpen, and you now have Green, Putz, and K-Rod to shorten the game, can someone in Florida please tell me why the Mets cannot duplicate their record from last season? And then win half of the games they blew with the new bullpen?

Florida’s bullpen has players you wouldn’t even recognize in the box scores. So the Marlins need their starters to go seven plus innings every night, and unfortunately, after Johnson and Nolasco, it won’t happen. The Marlins bullpen is a tremendous disadvantage to their season, and they will fade away just like they did last season.

Another factor is money. While Florida will be in the thick of things throughout the summer with the Mets and Phillies, the Mets will make the moves to improve. If the Mets need another starter, they will go out and get one. Florida will not spend the money, as usual, and the team will fold. Until the Marlins man up, spend some cash at the deadline, and improve their 4-5 starters, their weak bullpen and procure a corner man, which will end up being their Achilles heel, I see them as a third place team at best. Emilio Bonifacio is a façade.

I realize that it’s early in the season and the Marlins have the best record in baseball. I realize they just swept the Atlanta Braves, took two of three from New York, and swept the Nationals.  It’s early. I realize that the Marlins ended the Mets season two years in a row, and Florida is walking tall from last year and the start of this one. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. These are the facts, and they are indisputable.

Tags: Atlanta Braves, Florida Marlins, New York Mets, NL East, Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals