Miami Marlins

Miami Marlins, American professional baseball team based in Miami that plays in the National League (NL). The Marlins have won two NL pennants and two World Series championships (1997 and 2003).

Founded in 1993 as an expansion team alongside the Colorado Rockies, the team (which was known as the Florida Marlins until 2011) unsurprisingly got off to a slow start, posting losing records in each of their first four seasons but improving each year. The Marlins had their first winning record in 1997 and qualified for the postseason as the NL Wild Card winner (as owner of the best record for a non-division-winning team in the NL). Led by the play of pitcher Livan Hernandez, outfielder Gary Sheffield, second baseman Luis Castillo, and catcher Charles Johnson, Florida defeated the San Francisco Giants and the Atlanta Braves in the NL playoffs to earn a berth in the World Series in the team’s fifth year of existence. The Marlins then beat the Cleveland Indians in a seven-game series that was won by a single in the bottom of the 11th inning in the deciding game. Despite winning the series, the Marlins claimed to be losing money, and a great number of the key players on the World Series-winning squad were traded away by the middle of the following season. The Marlins lost 108 games in 1998, and they continued to field low-payroll teams that struggled on the field through the beginning of the 21st century.

In 2003 the Marlins again qualified for the postseason as the league’s Wild Card entrant and advanced to the World Series. Young pitchers Josh Beckett and Brad Penny starred for the Marlins in their second World Series, and the team defeated the favoured New York Yankees in six games to win a second title. Florida again cut its payroll after winning the championship, and, while the team’s slide was not as precipitous as it was in 1998, the Marlins nevertheless missed the playoffs in 2004. The Marlins of the first decade of the 21st century developed a reputation for cultivating talented young players, such as outfielder and third baseman Miguel Cabrera, shortstop Hanley Ramirez, and outfielder Giancarlo Stanton, but success continued to evade the franchise.

Britannica Quiz

Great Moments in Sports Quiz

In 2012 the Marlins opened a lavish new $500 million ballpark and began the season under brash new manager Ozzie Guillen in an effort to find more success on the diamond and, perhaps more important, build excitement among the seemingly predominantly uninterested South Florida sports fans. However, the first season of the revamped Marlins franchise was not a success, as the team again finished in last place and attendance was disappointing, which led to the firing of Guillen after just one year of managing the team. Both before the 2012 mid-season trade deadline and during the following off-season, the Marlins traded away almost every one of their best and highest-paid players in a massive salary dump. The moves angered much of the franchise’s fan base, who had hoped that the expensive publicly funded new ballpark and acquisition of high-profile players were indications that the team was changing its tightfisted ways and focusing on fielding a winning team over making a profit. As a result of the talent jettison, the Marlins fielded one of the worst teams in the NL before finishing just three games under .500 in the 2016 season.

That minor resurgence was short-lived, as the team was sold in 2017 and the Marlin’s new head of baseball operation, Derek Jeter, then traded away most of the team’s young stars in order to spur another rebuilding effort. In 2019 the Marlins posted the worst record in the NL (57–105). The following season, which was shortened because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team surprised many observers by returning to the playoffs after a 16-year absence. The Marlins won in the Wild Card round before being swept in the division series. Amid heightened expectations, the Marlins had a disappointing 2021 season, finishing near the bottom of the AL.