Marlins Revert to Strange Ways with Abrupt Dismissal of Manager Mike Redmond

On the bright side, the Miami Marlins didn't get no-hit on Sunday. Atlanta Braves right-hander Shelby Miller came very close to doing the deed, but Justin Bour denied him with two outs in the ninth inning.

But on the not-so-bright side, the Marlins reacted to the loss—their third in a row and sixth in seven games—by pulling a page out of their old playbook.

After watching the club nearly get no-hit on Sunday, the Marlins brass decided that it'd had about enough of manager Mike Redmond and bench coach Rob Leary:

The Marlins have not yet named a replacement for Redmond but did announce a Monday morning press conference for the occasion.

So, just like that, Redmond is done after two-plus years as Miami's skipper. Add in this season's 16-22 record, and he's departing with a 155-207 record since the start of the 2013 season.

Now, as sudden as it was, Redmond's dismissal is hardly the most surprising managerial firing the baseball world has ever seen. 

For starters, there is the fact that a 16-22 record isn't a very good showing for a team that put a lot of work into building a winner over the offseason. The Marlins made a series of moves that included signing Michael Morse and trading for Dee Gordon, Dan Haren, Mat Latos and Martin Prado. 

That all came in the wake of the Marlins extending superstar slugger Giancarlo Stanton for 13 years in the early portion of the offseason, and he was really the one who put Redmond on notice after the Marlins got off to a slow start in April.

"We're not really giving ourselves a chance, it feels like," Stanton said, via Joe Frisaro of MLB.com. "We've got a positive vibe, but [something] is just not there. The fire is not there, it seems like. You always want to have it. But when you're out there, and it's game time, it's just nothing there -- it seems like."

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Stanton's words seemed to strike a chord with team owner Jeffrey Loria. Speaking with Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald, Loria essentially refused to give Redmond a vote of confidence, saying, “I’ve got one thing to say. I’m not interested in palace intrigue. We’ve got to win games.”

It was only after the Marlins won five games in a row at the end of April that Loria got behind Redmond, and he looked even safer after the Marlins had pushed their way back to .500 at 12-12 on May 2.

Since then, however, they're only 4-10 and have slipped to fourth place in the NL East. Ask Michael Hill, the team's president of baseball operations, and he'll say that new leadership is the key to turning things around:

Read a remark like that, and one's mind drifts back to Stanton's words. Maybe the Marlins getting things turned around really is as simple as finding a guy who can light a fire under the team.

It's either that, or the team's problems will prove to be due to a lack of talent rather than a lack of fire. And it's not hard to imagine that happening.

As easy as it is to pin everything on Redmond, it's not his fault that the Marlins have played much of the season without star left fielder Christian Yelich and steady right-hander Henderson Alvarez and all of the season without staff ace Jose Fernandez. The latter two absences have contributed to a modest 4.17 team ERA, and it's also obvious now that the team's loud winter skimped on pitching depth.

And in general, these Marlins just might not be all that good.

Some experts had them pegged as a contender coming into the season, sure, but they never looked like a real threat to the Washington Nationals in the NL East and were arguably not even a threat for a wild-card spot. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus projected them to finish under .500.

So rather than the Marlins making a wise move, firing Redmond looks like a case of them doing something else: It looks like a decidedly Marlins move.

Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

There's not a team in baseball that jerks its knee quite like the Marlins, and that has everything to do with Loria. Committing to things is just not his style. 

His collection of managers over the years can vouch. Loria has now gone through seven managers since 2010, which, as Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times points out, is arguably the most the Marlins have gotten done in the current time frame:

Adding to the hilarity is that the Marlins are now about to become a rare (the first?) team to have three managers on its payroll. In addition to whomever they hire next, they're still on the hook for Ozzie Guillen's four-year, $10 million contract and the remainder of Redmond's two-year extension.

That's an odd look for any team. Certainly, it's an even odder look for a team that's well-known for doing seemingly whatever it can to avoid spending money.

There was the post-championship fire sale in the wake of the 2003 season and then another following the much-hyped-turned-disaster season of 2012. And even after going all-out over the past winter, the Marlins still entered the season with the smallest payroll in the majors.

In all, what you get when you look at the Marlins is not a picture of an organization that has a clear direction and a philosophy for executing it. It's more like an abstract with a bunch of shapes that don't fit together, painted by a man who can never decide which colors to use.

Maybe it'll all start to make sense in the coming months. Maybe Miami's new skipper will indeed light a fire under the team and lead the Marlins to where they think they should be. In other words, maybe it'll be Jack McKeon in 2003 all over again.

But the smart money is on the status quo holding strong. In all likelihood, the Marlins' place as Major League Baseball's most befuddling organization is safe.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.

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