MLB – History of the Florida Marlins franchise, highs and lows.

One of the newer franchises in Major League Baseball is the Florida Marlins.  They are a professional men's baseball team and are based out of Miami, Florida.  The team was first created back in 1993 as an expansion team and they play in the Eastern Division of the National League (NL).  When they were first formed they played all of their games in the Pro Player Stadium but have since moved to the Sun Life Stadium.  This is the same stadium that the Miami Hurricanes and Miami Dolphins play in.  The Dolphins boast a record of two World Series in the 17 years that they have been around.  One interesting fact is that they have only reached the post season twice, and both times they ended up winning the World Series (1997 and 2003).  They have a perfect record in the post season and are the only team to have ever done so.

The Marlins began their franchise play in 1993 and ended their first season with a decent record of 64-98.  Overall they were sixth place but for a first year team this wasn't that bad.  In 1994 they took a step back and finished last in the division but bounced back up to fourth place in 1995.  John Boles stepped in as manager in the 1996 season and it paid off in 1997 when the team ended up finishing the season with an 80-82 record.  With this record they were still only third place in their division but they ended up getting the wild card berth in the National League. 

Rallying behind pitchers Alex Fernandez, Livan Hernandez, Kevin Brown, and Al Leiter the Florida Marlins would end up dominating the post season and come away with their first World Series title. They played the Cleveland Indians in the World Series and won after playing 7 games.  They became the quickest expansion team to come away with a World Series title, having achieved that only five years after inception.

That season, Livan Hernandez was given the MVP award and established himself as one of the best players in Marlins' franchise history.  Around 1998 the Marlins fell into another one of their slumps, only coming away with 54 wins that season.  This was a phase of time for the franchise where the team was slowly declining.  Some changes were made to the management of the club when Huizenga sold the team to John Henry, and Leyland stepped back from his position as manager. 

This set the stage for the 2002 season where team management exchanged hands once again as Tony Perez came in as manager.  This change of ownership obviously did some good as they Marlins went on to win 79 games in the 2003 season and once again qualified for a wildcard playoff berth.  With players like Josh Beckett, Ivan Rodriguez and Brad Penny they made a name for themselves. They would eventually go on to beat the Giants, Cubs, and Yankees in order to secure their second World Series championship.

Since then the Florida Marlins have struggled to make much of an impact in the post season but as history has told, a few changes here and there can make a huge difference  to a team that can adapt and take advantage of opportunities.