Marlins Trying to Buy Legitimacy by Following Angels Blueprint

In this Bizarro sports town of Miami, Dolphins fans are complaining about winning, the Heat are signing Eddy Curry, and the Marlins are spending money.

Lots of money.

Like hundreds of millions of dollars kind of money.

This is foreign to the fan base. Many Marlins fans are waking up in the morning looking to see who we signed and wondering if this is what it feels like to be a Yankees fan.

To be fair, this isn’t entirely new. After the 2003 World Series, the Marlins increased the payroll up to $90 million, but after a couple of 83 win seasons, they blew up the roster again.

But this is a new Marlins team. No longer representing the whole state, the Marlins have disbanded all claims north of the 305 and renamed themselves the Miami Marlins.

With this new stadium came new uniforms and the promise of a new business strategy, that they would pay out big time money for top free agents.

A lot of people saw this as a smokescreen to sell season tickets. Skeptics claimed that the Marlins would go out there, put in low ball offers to the top free agents, get rejected, and claim that they tried. They would pocket the revenue and laugh at the sucker fans.

This is far from what happened. At 12:01 AM on the first day of free agency, the Marlins were meeting with Jose Reyes’ and his agent. They placed a long term offer of over $100 million and reeled him in before the winter meetings got into full swing.

They didn’t stop there. After landing Reyes, the Marlins’ brass went all in after Albert Pujols, pushing his offer up to 10 years and some reports say over $275 million. (Other journalists say that figure is unfounded.) However, Pujols declined the offer and decided to sign with the Angels.

Regardless, the team has remade themselves. In a matter of weeks, the fans went from crying that the Marlins don’t spend enough money, to saying that they are spending too much money on dumb contracts.

Sure, the Marlins probably overspent on an aging closer in Heath Bell. And Miami probably overpaid for an above average lefty with no upside in Mark Buehrle.

But it is all part of the plan.

In Major League Baseball, perception is reality.
If you want to be viewed as a contender, a consistent winner, and an attractive place for free agents and season ticket holders, you need to spend.

While the Marlins were shining exceptions the past 15 years, in general, the winners in baseball are the teams with the highest payrolls.

There is a reason that the Yankees made the playoffs 13 seasons in a row by spending on marquee free agents, and the first year they decided to invest in the farm system and rely on young pitching, the streak was snapped.

Spending wins in baseball. Not every time, but most of the time.

The Marlins want to be seen as winners, so they have to be seen as spenders.

The only problem is, it is hard to gain momentum and change that initial perception from mid market team to big city spenders. That is why the Marlins had to overpay Reyes, Bell, and Buerhle to sign on to this new vision. They needed the rest of the league to look around and say, “Wait, this isn’t the same team anymore.”

You have to overspend to get the initial crop of talent into the team. Hopefully, that talent wins you more games, and changes players’ perceptions of your team, thus making it easier to bring in more big free agents in the future and sell more tickets.

The Marlins weren’t just buying a shortstop, they were buying legitimacy. They weren’t just overpaying for an old closer, they were overpaying to change how they are viewed. Miami wasn’t just filling out their rotation with starting pitching, they were trying to become one of the big boys.

Funny enough, the team that beat out the Marlins for two of their top targets, the Angels, have completed this transformation over the past decade.

In many ways, the Marlins are following the same blueprint that the Angels used in the early 2000’s.

In 2002, the Anaheim Angels won the World Series. After the season, Disney sold the team to Arte Moreno. Moreno wanted to make the team a bigger brand and a consistent winner to sell more tickets and generally be successful.

So what did Moreno do?

He changed the team name from Anaheim and claimed greater Los Angeles. He changed the uniforms, colors, and logo. He wanted to make the Angels a brand and settled on one logo (out of ten in use!), and focused on making red the Halos’ trademarked color.

His final step? Increase payroll.

Does any of this sound familiar, Miami?

He went out and pursued big time free agents and trade acquisitions. He landed players such as Vlad Guerrero and Mark Teixeira. Big names with big time talent.

After Moreno made these changes, the Angels became a perennial favorite in the AL West. They won their division five out of the next seven years. And the team had three consecutive winning seasons for the first time in franchise history.

More importantly than all of that, Moreno changed the perception of the Angels. No one still views the Angels as a joke, or a doorstep. When the Angels have a losing record, it is viewed as a surprise and a bump in the road, not the symptoms of a perennial loser.

Basically he transformed the Angels from losers to winners.

This change in the brand, change in attitude, and change in perception no doubt helped the Angels land land Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson this month.

So if you want to see where the Miami Marlins are going, look to the LA Angels. This the foundation that we are pursuing. The Marlins are trying to build a successful franchise pretty much from the ground up using the Angels blueprint. While they had to overpay for talent this month, in general I like the moves.

The Marlins are combining a young, talented, homegrown core, with big time free agents.

They are trying to buy respect.

Now let’s see if it works.