This is been a very interesting season for the Marlins, and I could easily put ten stories in this article.

1. Hanley Ramirez proving he is the best fantasy player. It seems that Hanley has essentially changed his approach at the plate, with a 78% contact rate versus 85% last year, increasing his home runs and fly balls at the expense of contact. One may think that he has diminished steals capacity, but in fact his stolen base opportunities taken figure has dropped from 36% to 26%. He has simply become the best five tool player in the fantasy arena and given his consistency on a monthly basis he rises to the top of the fantasy heap.

2. Jeremy Hermida’s failure to blossom. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge story, but fantasy owners have been waiting for him for a few years. We have to keep in mind that expectations have been far too high; he is still only 24 years old and no matter what happens the rest of the year he should still be on your sleeper lists next year and should not be viewed as a disappointment. That said, he has definitely seen some skills erosion this year with lower FB rates, power, batting eye and walks and contact rates.

3. The powerful infield. Fantasy owners could have had 100 home runs from this infield, and aside from Hanley everyone else could have been gotten in later rounds or in free agency in Cantu’s case. Yet, they are angling to become the first team ever to get 25 HR out of each infielder. They are the only NL team to accomplish the trick. On a related note….

4. The comeback of Jorge Cantu. Fantasy owners that subscribe to Baseball HQ know their dicta that once a player owns a skill he owns it. Cantu is a good example of this. He had 28 HR in 2005, 14 in 2006 and one last year. This year he has hit 20 to date and should get to 25 by year’s end. With only one home run in August, he may be slowing down but prior to that he has been consistently thwarting predictions of his downfall.

5. How about that rotation? Led by the comeback of Ricky Nolasco, who has been very solid with a 121/35 K/BB ratio in 149.1 innings and a 3.92 ERA, somehow the Marlins have cobbled together a rotation. This is nothing short of a miracle, as they now are featuring a rotation of Nolasco, Olsen, Volstad, Sanchez and Josh Johnson; it is not a stretch to say that fantasy owners may well have expected zeros from all five in the dollars earned department. They have somehow survived Mark Hendrickson and Andrew Miller’s disastrous performances in the rotation and giving starts to Burke Badenhop and Rick VandenHurk

Their record seems to be built on a house of cards; they have let up more runs than they have scored and are fourth in the division in their Pythagorean run record. They could still win the division but they could still finish fourth. Nolasco will likely continue on his current pace, and it will be interesting to watch how Volstad, Johnson and Sanchez handle things down the stretch.