Know Your Enemy: Miami Marlins

Every year, the Marlins seem to do something wacky.

If it's not hiring Ozzie Guillen then quickly firing him, it's naming a manager (Dan Jennings) who had never managed before -- anywhere -- before coming from their front office to finish he season. Then they fired him, too.

Yikes. It must be hard to be a Marlins fan. The few of them that are around, anyway -- they finished last in the National League in attendance in 2015 (1.7 million). It was the third straight year (and ninth in the last 10, the only exception was the first year in Marlins Park in 2012, when the curiosity factory got them all the way up to 12th in the N.L.) they finished last in the league in attendance.

They do have one of the best baseball players on the planet in Giancarlo Stanton, who should be recovered from the broken hamate bone he suffered last year that ruined what could have been a huge season. He hit 27 home runs and posted 3.7 bWAR in just 74 games, and at 26 (he's three months younger than Anthony Rizzo) should be entering his best seasons.

The Marlins have a number of young players who are exciting or should be soon, such as Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna. Martin Prado continues to play the role of "stabilizing veteran" at third base, and "Big Bad" Justin Bour, someone who seemed to have little chance of making the majors while he was in the Cubs system, hit 23 home runs with an .800 OPS last year for the Marlins, which certainly surprised me.

Jose Fernandez returns from Tommy John surgery to anchor the rotation. He had success so young that it's interesting to note that even after a year off for TJS, he's still just 23 and could have a long successful career. The Marlins signed former Oriole Wei-Yin Chen as a free agent, so the top of this rotation should be pretty good.

The rest of it is filler, and there's no better example of that than telling you that Edwin Jackson is their likely fifth starter. Perhaps he can serve up some more home runs to Cubs as he did last August 22 to help earn some of the salary the Cubs are paying him this year.

A.J. Ramos returns as closer, set up by, among others, Carter Capps. Whose delivery can't possibly be legal:

I'd love to hear how a MLB official can justify that delivery when he's clearly not on the rubber when he throws.

The Marlins will likely finish third in the N.L. East by default, because the Braves and Phillies are just horrid.

The Cubs will visit the Fish for a four-game series beginning June 23, coincidentally, exactly when the band Phish will be playing at Wrigley Field, and the Marlins will be in Chicago August 2-3-4