Some may say the Florida Marlins closed their fate when they decided not to keep key 2003 season contributors like Ivan Rodriguez and Derek Lee for 2004.

Some say the Marlins didn’t have enough time to gel as a team because they didn’t make the Paul Lo Duca trade earlier.



Others even attribute the reason the Marlins failure to reach the postseason to Hurricane Frances and its affects on the Marlins schedule.

Whichever reason you tie in to the Florida Marlins inability to defend their Championship title, the fact of the matter is that the fish have blown a big opportunity.

The Florida Marlins could have very well of had more talent at this point in the season than they did this year but they couldn’t capitalize.

The Marlins had a much better closer in 2004 thanks to the acquisition of Armando Benitez.

The Marlins had a much better version of Carl Pavano in 2004 as he became a Cy Young candidate not to mention Miguel Cabrera who drove in over 100 RBI’s and over 30 HR’s.

The Marlins even had a much better bullpen and overall pitching staff in 2004 with the additions of Rudy Seanez, Billy Koch, Guillermo Mota, Ismael Valdez and David Weathers.

Yet Florida squandered their chance to win the championship for a second consecutive year. The Marlins even had help in winning their division this season.

The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets both had major disappointing seasons and while the Atlanta Braves ended up pulling away with the NL East division crown by a major margin, there was a time in the season that the Braves struggled and Florida failed to increase their lead over them.

Normally, almost any team would not worry about finishing a season like this one if they were in the Marlins position, but the problem is that unlike most teams, Florida will have a tough time keeping all of their superstar players for yet another season.



Since the Marlins will be unwilling to spend more than 50 million dollars on payroll, Florida will have to part ways one or more of their high talent players including Armando Benitez, Carl Pavano, Mike Lowell, Paul Lo Duca, and even the very productive Damion Easley.

That’s not to mention the Marlins have yet to finalize a deal to secure funds for a new stadium, which is vital for their future in South Florida.

We all knew the Marlins would have problems keeping their main players for many continuous years, but Florida might have just lost their best chance to win another World Series in 2004 because they had better players this year than last.