3 Miami Marlins droughts that will thankfully end in 2022
The Miami Marlins will be better…for three years in a row
In 2022, the Miami Marlins have an excellent chance to do something they used to do quite consistently, but haven’t done since 2009:
Be better for three consecutive seasons.
To be clear, this is win-loss wise better. In terms of straight-up talent, you can make the case that bar has been cleared already by this roster. Certainly that case can be made for the 2014-2016 teams.
In terms of bottom-line, total wins progress though? Yeah, that’d be 2009, when Miami finished going from 71 to 84 to 87 wins, before falling back to 80 in 2010. Obviously, there is some cheating taking place here be counting 2020 as the starting point. Still, a season is a season- there are two strike-shortened ones in Marlins history already, and a third could be well on the way. Miami did improve steadily in three year spurts from 94-96, 95-97, 98-00, 01-03- with some championship success at the end of a couple of those runs.
Even with that sixty-game campaign in 2020, three years of progress would really be something to build upon. Reaching it would only take 68 wins, a bar that gets cleared with just slightly better health than the 2021 team enjoyed. And as you can see above, both the 97 and 03 title squads were the result of a pair of nearly consecutive three year growth spurts if you will. No one is pegging the 2022 Marlins as championship material, but everyone is pegging it as perhaps being the foundation for that.
What’s more, for over a decade now, every single time it has looked like the franchise is turning the corner, the bottom has fallen out. Be it firesale, tragedy, or just a slew of injuries and poor roster moves, something has always seemed to happen to trip the Miami Marlins up for far too long. Three straight years of winning more games than the year before would make it a lot easier to buy into this rebuild, and set the team up to do something they’ve never done before in their history in 2023: be better a fourth time.
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Of course, as mentioned at the top, all of this depends on a season being played at all. Fingers crossed, because the Miami Marlins should turn a lot of heads this year if they get the chance to do so.