Loria: “I expect us to make the playoffs”

Marlins owner Jeff Loria has high expectations:

“How may wins am I expecting? I never predict but I will say we’re working off an 87-win season last year and I expect us to make the playoffs. Whatever it takes for us to make the playoffs is what we need to win . . . They are well-positioned to make the playoffs. We have all the ammunition we need.”

It doesn’t take a tremendous leap of faith to imagine the Marlins making a run at the wild card. As Loria himself notes in the interview an extra win a month last year would have put them in. That’s baseball of course,* but Loria is right to think that the Marlins should be competitive.

But being competitive has only rarely been a problem for the Marlins. The real problem has been their parsimony. The real question being, if the Marlins find themselves in a close race , whether Loria will allow the team to take on a bit of payroll to put them over the top.

*See “one extra flair a week, just one. A gork, you get a ground ball, you get a ground ball with eyes! You get a dying quail, just one more dying quail a week and you’re in Yankee Stadium.”