I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about the other sports, so I can’t speak to situations more messed up than what we’ve got in baseball. But in baseball — little details aside — we’ve got the A’s, and we’ve got the Marlins.

The A’s consistently try really hard to win, despite the odds being stacked against them. Oakland has a brilliant front office, and they play in a ballpark plagued by sewage leaks in the clubhouse and in the dugout. The Marlins are crooks. Money-hungry crooks. They play in a brand-new ballpark they didn’t pay for — a ballpark they’ve made no effort to fill after a disappointing debut season. The Marlins did what the Marlins do: They got some people excited, then they undid the goodwill and more.

Some baseball teams have reputations. The Yankees are the big spenders. The Dodgers are the other big spenders. The Twins are lovable throwbacks. The Braves are slightly less-lovable throwbacks. The Royals are run by people who shouldn’t be running the Royals. And so on. The Marlins’ reputation is that they’re run by criminals who deceive with every word. Two offseasons ago, it looked like they were trying hard to turn the page, to create a new identity. Two offseasons ago, the Marlins tried to spend to build a powerhouse. But their identity is still their identity. You know how it went. The Marlins are as the Marlins have been.

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It isn’t often you can say this, but the best show in baseball Wednesday took place in Miami. Though it was a game between the going-nowhere hosts and the certainly-going-somewhere Braves, the hosts had Jose Fernandez on the mound, and before the Marlins equivalent of a full house, Fernandez did everything in what would be his final start of the season. There were twists, there were turns. There were big swings and big pitches. There were players yelling at one another, and there were fans yelling louder. Wednesday night, Miami and Fernandez had it all.

Fernandez was dominant, but Fernandez has often been dominant, and the game was so much more than that. He got involved not just on the mound, but also at the plate and on the basepaths. Everybody knew it would be his last turn, and it doesn’t seem like he left anything on the table.

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Lately, Yasiel Puig has been in one of his slumps. For really the first time in his professional career, he’s been the target of a lot of criticism, some of it warranted and some of it over the top. Most significantly, he’s had some struggles at the plate, with his aggressive approach backfiring. Thursday afternoon, the Marlins pitched to him accordingly. The first four times Puig stepped up to the plate, he saw a first-pitch slider. The fifth time he did get a sinker, but by that point it was 6-0 in the ninth so for all I know the plan was ignored.

The first time Puig got a first-pitch slider, he popped it up. The third time he got a first-pitch slider, he fouled it off. The fourth time he got a first-pitch slider, he swung right through it. But the second time he got a first-pitch slider, he beat the living crap out of it. All four times, Puig swung at the slider. One of those times, he gave the ball a ride, or a punishment, depending on how you feel about balls and what they enjoy. There was something remarkable about that ball in play. Something potentially remarkable, at least.

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Any other year and Jose Fernandez would be getting a lot more attention. The Marlins’ rookie starting pitcher recently turned 21 years old and he was promoted to the major straight from Single-A. It was, at least, advanced Single-A, but his experience there was all of 55 innings. Now he’s up to 24 big-league starts, and he has baseball’s third-lowest ERA. Worse than Matt Harvey and Clayton Kershaw but not worse than any others. Fernandez has averaged better than a strikeout an inning, and he’s seen the Marlins go 15-9 in his starts. In all other starts, they’ve gone 33-66.

Young and dominant, Fernandez regularly runs his fastball up to the plate in the mid-90 mph range; occasionally, he scrapes 98 mph and 99 mph. Off of that heat, he throws a breaking ball he’s in love with, and he also mixes in a changeup that’s generated strong results through its first several months. Fernandez was promoted with more or less a complete, big-league-caliber repertoire, so you wouldn’t think he’d need to add yet another weapon. But starting against the Dodgers in Miami Monday night, Fernandez threw a thing he hadn’t thrown before, to the surprise of many.

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A July 8 article in the Sun-Sentinel by Juan C. Rodriguez asked, “Is Justin Ruggiano the next Marlin to go?” The same things that made him desirable to Miami made him desirable to contenders. He was versatile, he could hit a little bit, he was inexpensive, and he was under team control. The Marlins might’ve been motivated to move him on account of their upcoming outfield prospects. The Marlins additionally might’ve been motivated to move him on account of being the Marlins. It made sense to ask the question about Ruggiano, but the trade deadline came and went, and Ruggiano stuck. He made an appearance for the Marlins just Sunday.

Another thing about this past July 8 — that’s the last day Justin Ruggiano had a hit. In the fifth inning of a game against the Braves, he singled to left off Mike Minor. It was a liner, and it drove in a run. Sunday, Ruggiano pinch-hit and faced Minor, and he grounded out. His hitless streak is alive, and it’s up to 42 at-bats. Ruggiano doesn’t have a hit in more than a month. He’s not a starter anymore, but he’s still on the team, playing sometimes, and he probably can’t remember the last time he had fun playing. This streak is approaching a record, and to Ruggiano, it feels like it.

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As good as Jose Fernandez is, there still exists a critical angle. Fernandez, of course, pitches for the Marlins, and the Marlins get a lot of things wrong. The Internet usually doesn’t let those things go by unacknowledged, and the Marlins, this year, placed Fernandez on their opening-day roster. Fernandez was coming straight from Single-A, and had the Marlins waited even just a couple weeks, they could’ve preserved an extra year of team control. Instead, Fernandez is due to become a free agent in five years, instead of six. Viewed objectively, viewed just on paper, that decision is needlessly wasteful. The Marlins had no plans to contend. Fernandez didn’t need to be up that quick.

But there’s no sense in letting that dominate the conversation, because let’s revisit the beginning of that paragraph: “As good as Jose Fernandez is.” Fernandez just, and I mean just turned 21, and he’s outstanding. It’s fine to talk about contracts and service time, and those details are important, but that’s not nearly as interesting as on-field performance. Though Matt Harvey’s drawn more of the headlines, Fernandez has more quietly exceeded most reasonable expectations, and in the interest of better appreciating what he’s done, I thought we could take a few minutes to dig in. Let’s go beyond “Jose Fernandez is great.” What are some of his defining characteristics?

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I would say we are watching history, but the “we” who is actually watching the Marlins has to be limited to just about the 50 players present at any game, the managers, the broadcasters, and the odd Florida resident who fell asleep during the SunSports “Inside the Rays” special on Sam Fuld and then awoke to find a Marlins game on television.

The Marlins offense is bad. It is very bad. If you want to hear about the redeeming elements of the Marlins offense, this article may not be much help. Yes, Giancarlo Stanton is to home runs what Moses is to water-spewing rocks — he hits them — but the remainder of their eclectic crew of rushed prospects and aged veterans has offered little praiseworthy bat-action.

And if the situation deteriorates even a little, if their narrow balance of awful totters or teeters just a bit worse, this offense has a chance to engrave its poor results in the most inglorious stone of history: Worst offense of modern times.
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The Miami Marlins organization made a bold move on Monday night when it was announced that outfield prospects Christian Yelich and Jake Marisnick were promoted from Double-A to the big league squad. In return, 2013 rookies Derek Dietrich, an infielder, and Marcell Ozuna, an outfielder, were returned to the minor leagues. Interestingly, Ozuna checks in with the highest WAR (1.9) of any Marlins hitter in 2013. On the recent Top 50 prospects list at FanGraphs, Yelich came in 12th overall, while Marisnick checked in at 46.

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Carlos Delgado’s official retirement in 2011 sort of slipped under the radar. It was understandable, since it came in April right after the beginning of the season. It was a bit unfortunate, though, because Delgado had an wonderful career. Yesterday at the Rogers Centre, the former Met and Marlin slugger was recognized by the team he was most closely associated with, the Blue Jays, during a ceremony in which he was inducted into the Jays’ “Level of Excellence.”

[It’s a tremendous name, isn’t it? I can imagine the brainstorming that went into it. Team President: “You need to come up with a name for our version of a Ring of Honor that is a bit different. Something like, ‘Level of Excellence,’ but, you know, better.” {President leaves rooms.} Marketing Person to others: “‘Level of Excellence’ okay with everyone?” {Others shrug in assent.}]

Delgado was outstanding, but he was no Hall of Famer. He move from catcher to first base early on, and even that position was a stretch, no matter how hard he tried. He was bad on the bases. But the guy could hit. From 1997 to 2004, he was one of the best hitters in the American League. His 148 wRC+ over that span was the equal of Alex Rodriguez and better than Edgar Martinez and Frank Thomas.

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The last time I wrote about Edge% it was in the context of the Tampa Bay Rays using it to get their pitchers into more favorable counts on 1-1. But now I want to take that topic and drill a little deeper to understand how often edge pitches are taken for called strikes.

Overall, pitches taken on the edge are called strikes 69% of the time. But that aggregate measure hides some pretty substantial differences. Going further on that idea, I wanted to see how the count impacts the likelihood of a pitch on the edge being called a strike.

Here are the results:

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