Jeff Bagwell > Florida Marlins

This year, the Florida Marlins' team salary is $14,344,500. Most of their players are making minimum wage (327K), and only Dontrelle Willis and Brian Moehler are over 800K. The team with the second lowest payroll is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, with $35 million. In the last four years, the lowest payroll besides this year's Marlins was the 2004 Milwaukee Brewers, with a $27 million team salary. To me, these numbers are staggering. Here's a major league baseball team, playing with a total team salary, lower than each of the salaries of 12 players (which includes Jeff Bagwell at $19 million this year).

The Marlins do have a few very good players in Dontrelle and Miguel Cabrera. However, I don't see how Dontrelle could win more than 15 games with this run support, or how Cabrera could get to 30 homers considering the bats around him. I know that Florida has gone through this before, between 1997 and 1998, and won the World Series in 2003. Maybe they could do that again, but, frankly, I don't see how that can happen again any time soon. The Marlins' average age is just below 26, two years younger than the next youngest team. With only 4 guys in their 30s, I don't see any sort of veteran leadership ushering the team through what will definitely be a dark period, especially since those four guys are Joe Borowski, Matt Herges, Matt Treanor and Moehler — all first-ballot Hall of Famers.

Frankly, I just feel sad for the franchise. I would feel sad for the fans, too, but their state hosts Spring Training, and I'm quite jealous. There is discussion of them moving, but I really don't see how that could help them. I mean, if they traded their entire team for one player, they could have a higher payroll.