Justin Ruggiano: A grinder among grifters

A journeyman says all the right things as the Fish sink instead of swim.

May 22, 2013, 8:19 PM UTC

USA TODAY Sports

Earlier today, the Miami Marlins tweeted:

"We just need to grind every at-bat and try to win every at bat. If we do that we'll start putting up some runs."- @justinruggiano
— Miami Marlins (@Marlins) May 22, 2013

Justin Ruggiano is 31 years old. It took him a long time to establish himself in the major leagues. He faced long odds from the outset as a 25^th-round draft pick, playing over 800 minor-league games in the Dodgers, Rays, and Astros systems before the Marlins took a chance on him. The glass half-full version of their acquisition of Ruggiano is that they are canny judges of baseball talent who saw a useful player that others had overlooked. The half-empty, and perhaps more realistic version, is that if the Marlins were a more serious organization they might not have had cause to go looking for someone like Ruggiano in the first place. In short, he owes his deliverance to their fecklessness.

That said, it’s probably not easy to play for the Marlins. No matter how cool your job, regardless of how much money you’re making, there are days that you have to motivate yourself to get out of bed. We’ve all been there at various times, and undoubtedly ballplayers are no different. If Ruggiano’s talk of grinding out at-bats seems naïve given a team on a trajectory for 116 losses, well, these are the kinds of lies we have to tell ourselves to get through the rough patches.

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The alternative is that Ruggiano really is that naïve. This possibility reminds me a bit of myself during a tragic occasion when I was a child. When I was about nine years old, my great aunt had what proved to be a fatal heart attack. I guess she didn’t go right away, though; I was left with a sitter while my parents went to be part of a long bedside vigil. Late that night, my grandmother called. I asked her if her sister had improved. “It doesn’t look good,” she said. She sounded so very sad. This was my first real encounter with death and I had never heard anyone sound quite the way they do when someone they love is dying. I felt that I needed to do something for her, to uplift her in some way, and so I made a long speech about if we just have hope and believe, perhaps things will be all right.

My grandmother didn’t sound moved. She said something like, “I don’t think it’s going to happen that way, Steven.” I found out later that my great aunt was already gone, they just hadn’t wanted me to find out on the phone.

Heading into Wednesday night’s action, the Marlins have a team OPS+ of 69, or 31 percent below average. This is the list of the worst team offenses since 1900 as measured by that statistic:

TEAM	YEAR	OPS+
Philadelphia A's	1920	69
Boston Braves	1901	70
Boston Braves	1909	70
Chicago White Sox	1910	71
Detroit Tigers	1902	72
Boston Red Sox	1932	72
Boston Braves	1904	73
Boston Braves	1922	73
Boston Red Sox	1922	73
Boston Braves	1924	73

Let’s restrict that to just the postwar period:

Pittsburgh Pirates	1952	73
New York Mets	1963	73
Houston Astros	1963	73
Houston Astros	1964	73
New York Mets	1965	73
Cincinnati Red	1951	74
Florida Marlins	1993	74
San Diego Padres	1969	75
Washington Senators	1948	76
Chicago White Sox	1968	76
Cleveland Indians	1971	76

What you see in the second table is that via the draft, international signings, the farm system, and the abolishment of apartheid baseball, it has become very, very hard for a team to field an offense as poor as those of the early 20^th century. The 2013 Miami Marlins have overcome those safeguards. Players like Ruggiano may be trying their utmost to win, but it seems abundantly clear that the organization is tanking it -- the only way you can be this bad is on purpose.

It seems clear that what Jeff Loria hath wrought is the worst offense of all time. In other words, Justin Ruggiano, your great aunt is dead: We thought it was time you knew.