Are the Marlins a lock for the playoffs?

Yes, the Florida Marlins have essentially clinched a postseason berth. With a magic number that’s already down around 150, it’s time to get the champagne on ice.

Alright, that’s probably a bit strong. But based solely on their sizzling 11-1 start, the Marlins might be a lot closer to the playoffs than most of us would imagine.

And you know, I am not a Marlins’ fan. Sadly, I am a faithful (okay, faithless) Chicago Cubs’ backer, one who becomes infuriated any time someone mentions the tragedy of the Marlins’ post-championship dismantlings. I could stomach several decades of consecutive last-place, 100-loss finishes as long as they followed a World Series title. And yet I’m supposed to sympathize with the Marlins’ four diehards? Their team didn’t even exist when the ’84 Cubs crushed my tender, youthful soul.

Nonetheless, thanks to Larry Beinfest’s sublime machinations, the Marlins in their non-World Series years are never quite that bad anyway. In fact, during his tenure they have lost 90 games just once, in 2007 when they went 71-91 for his only last-place finish.

The man – or at least his scouting department – is just adept at spotting major-league ability at the minor-league level, a fact made apparent by his anal insertions on Cubs’ Jim Hendry. I really like Larry Beinfest, and am completely in awe of his ability to assemble talent. In fact, I think the Marlins might be on to something with their nostalgia-free, post-World Series, contributors-for-prospects swaps. With the almost instantaneous restocking, the last cycle resulted in a second title just six years later. And with this surprising start, the Marlins at least look like they might continue the once-every-six-years trend.

In order to sustain the pattern, the Marlins first have to make the playoffs, a possibility that seemed remote just a few weeks ago. Sure, they got some mention as a potential sleeper in spring training, but in a division with the World Series champion Phillies and the perennial preseason-favorite Mets, not many people gave them much of a shot of winning anything; even Baseball Prospectus typically-reliable PECOTA had them projected at 72-90. So while their start at least temporarily made some prognosticators look not all that prognostic, does it really say anything about their postseason chances?

Well luckily, with plenty of free time to investigate such things, I set out to examine every hot start in the divisional era. Since win-loss record isn’t entirely representative of a team’s quality – and using exactly 12 games to define a good start is a tad arbitrary – I decided to look at teams that began within a game of 11-1; that is, any team with 10 or more wins after 12 games. And here they are:

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Eliminating the 1994 Braves – who I’m not really sure what to do with, as they were in position to win the wild card before the players’ strike cut the season short by about 50 games – there are 27 teams. 18 of them made the playoffs,* or a tidy two-thirds..

* The expanded 1981 postseason precipitated by the strike skew the results a little, but I figure that eight teams made the playoffs that year, the same number as now, so I’ll leave it be. Plus you could throw in those troubling ’94 Braves – who were probably a pretty good bet to make the postseason, seeing as how they did so every other year between 1991 and 2005 – and the star-crossed, worn-down-by-an-entire-(half)-season-of-playing-under-that-accursed-Chicago-sun 1969 Cubs, as both would have won the wild card had it existed those seasons. That would raise the playoff ‘qualifiers’ to 71.4% (20 of 28).

Finally, although there is some difference between the two leagues – the National League is 10-for-13 (or 12-for-14 if you apply my previously-explained wild-card ‘logic’) and the American is 8-for-14 – I think it’s better to look at them as a whole, because I can’t see why the NL would inherently be less volatile. While relative league strength certainly varies, adding a wild-card has had little impact on the overall numbers: 7-of-11 (63.6%) have made the playoffs since 1994, with 11-of-16 (68.8%) doing it before.

However, I still wasn’t satisfied and I still had too much time on my hands, so I approached this from a second, albeit similar, angle. In this go-round, I accounted for equally fasts start that might have been over a shorter duration, settling on teams that opened at least 8-1. A group which looks strikingly like this:

This time there are 29 teams, 28 if you again eliminate the ’94 Braves. The 18 postseason entrants mean a slightly worse rate, at 60.7%, but still pretty comparable.*** Again, there’s not much difference between the wild-card (7-of-10) and two-division eras (11-of-18, 61.1%), though the insignificant advantage has shifted to the former.

** Using the patented Mr. SKIA If There Had Been a Wild Card Method, 20 of 29 would have qualified for the playoffs, a more-congruous 69%.

Let’s spotlight the teams most similar to the Marlins, which I’m going to define as those that appear on both lists. There are exactly 20 (non-Braves) teams. 14 of them made the playoffs, including a wild-card era seven-of-nine (in a subtle tribute to the multi-talented Jeri Ryan.)

So what does all this mean for the Marlins’ chances? Well, of the six most recent teams from each list, three did not even make the playoffs; in fact, two of them finished with losing records. The worst team on either list – the 2005 Dodgers – went 61-89 the rest of the way; if the Marlins do that, they will finish (surprise!) 72-90.

But with such a limited recent sample size, I’m going to focus on the long-term trend instead, putting the Marlins’ chances at roughly 2-in-3 to make the playoffs. And since they are 2-for-2 when making the postseason, their World Series odds are looking much better than Vegas’ current 40-to-1.

Now do I actually think the Marlins will make the playoffs? No, probably not. They’d have to finish ahead of at least two – and possibly all three – of the Mets, Phillies, and Braves, and I’m not sure they’ll even top one of them. Their lineup has too many holes and their pitching staff too many question marks to make them even a moderate favorite, and their recent three-game slide might be a harbinger of things to come.

But I sure as hell wouldn’t bet against Larry Beinfest. He probably already has that champagne on ice.