The Florida Marlins have been one of the real anomalies in sports. This squad has consistently been the lowest spending team in all of baseball betting yet time and time again when August rolls around they are generally still very much in the MLB odds playoff hunt.

Granted this team hasn’t been in the baseball betting post season since 2003 when it won the MLB Odds World Series with a team of mercenaries. But much has changed since then, including the ownership, which refuses to spend money on talent. That is until the MLB, in an unprecedented move, had to call them out publicly this summer and force them to increase their payroll as the team’s penny pinching went against the collective bargaining agreement.

In a nutshell, the Marlins were getting off revenue sharing but failing to reinvest that on the field and as required by the agreement. That’s all well and good but it’s hard to argue with the results of the Marlins baseball betting success even if you are disgusted at the miniscule payroll. The Marlins are team that won 84 games in 2008 and 87 games in 2009, both while have the lowest payroll in the MLB odds.

In a league where tons of cash is wasted and dollars are equated with success the Marlins have proved otherwise wise by shrewdly developing talent and trading it away for draft picks to develop more cheap young talent to trade away for riches. It will be interesting to see if the forced spending will make this team any better. If the starting rotation is healthy this team should have a very real shot at perhaps winning the NL East and at the very least getting a wild card berth.