I bought in. I thought it would be different this time. I believed the press. I believed the hype. I believed that things had changed.
I was wrong.
When the Marlins rebranded, embraced Little Havana, and talked about spending, I was thrilled. They swaggered through the winter meetings, throwing around dollars, carrying notebooks with that flashy new “M” on it, and talking about championships.
The Marlins almost had Albert Pujols! The Marlins!
But it all went terribly wrong. Happiness is tied to expectations, and everybody’s expectations for this team were through the roof. The splashy signings bought the Marlins a Showtime series, and a sold out opening day, but in hindsight they didn’t improve their team a whole lot. Our expectations were off base. To think that a team that missed the playoffs last year could win a World Series just by adding a new short stop, closer, and middle of the rotation starting pitcher is a little premature.
We weren’t wrong to think that we were building something. This city was starting over with baseball and laying the foundation for a winner.
This is where the Marlins screwed up. Ownership expected to double attendance right off the bat. And maybe that wasn’t an outrageous expectation for a new ballpark, but to expect 30,000 people to show up everyday when you realistically had 1,000 people on a good day at the old park, is a lot to ask for over one offseason. Buying Jose Reyes can’t change that many hearts that soon.
What makes me so mad about this team, is that the Marlins brass gave up on the dream in only four months. It takes more to build a winner, build a fanbase, and build a tradition than four months! You need to overspend a little at first, commit to your homegrown players, put out a winning team with a relatively stable line up over a few years to buy some trust and win over some fans.
We’ve been screwed too many times by the Marlins to buy in this much, this soon. You need to put in some work before you expect the results.
But they didn’t. The Marlins threw around some money, paid some players that underperformed, saw a losing team, and an empty ballpark, and knew things had to change.
And that’s fine! So far, these moves don’t look so bad on paper. Anibal was going to leave in free agency, Infante was an average second baseman, and Hanley had been living off a fluky career year while underperforming and oversulking for years. But I don’t think this is it. If we trade a piece like Josh Johnson, or make another move to get rid of young Major League talent for prospects, then its the death toll.
I don’t think the Marlins cut their losses with a few bad players, and opened up some payroll to buy free agents next year. I think this was the Marlins giving up on the dream. Quitting on the city. And resigning to return to the small market business plan once again.
I could be wrong. If these are the only moves they make, and they reinvest the money into the team next year, then they were just trying to get out of some bad contracts and retool the team.
But I don't think that's what's happening. This past week, President of the Marlins, David Samson was on Dan Le Batard's radio show. Dan gave him chance after chance to tell the fans he was putting money back into the team. All Samson would say is that he would "reinvest in winning."
He's not putting the money back in the team.
This management group has put out one of the lowest payrolls in baseball for over a decade, pocketed the money from revenue sharing, and hoarded it. They wouldn't shell out all the millions saved over the years on a big contract or two, and they wouldn't contribute to the new stadium, making Miami pay to have these guys fleece them.
They are slaves to the bottom line. And absolutely WILL NOT lose money on this team. They don't understand that sports isn't a business for the fans. The best long term strategy is to create loyal fans to support the team. You don't do that by crapping on them every year, refusing to risk a profit loss and increase payroll, and putting out a cheap and terrible product every season.
You build a fan base by dipping into all that money you saved to keep players like Josh Beckett, AJ Burnett, Miguel Cabrera, and Dan Uggla. You keep your fan base happy by keeping your core of good players together and winning baseball games. Maybe you appease the fans a little more by going out and signing players like Jose Reyes, and over bidding to buy a Cuban specimen at center field like Yoenis Cespedes, but without 3 year opt out clauses that fool the fans.
The paradigm has reverted back to form.
The old Marlins are back. Just in a fancy new ballpark.
We will not see another hundred million dollar payroll again.
We will not see the Marlins act like a big market team, and chase big time free agents.
And if they do, who will sign with them? What players will take them seriously? What coveted free agents would give up their future to a team that clearly prioritizes profit margin over winning? If you think that David Wright or Josh Hamilton will come down to Miami for a big contract that I highly doubt the brass will offer, you're crazy. They won't trust this team that has made the playoffs twice. That has had one of the lowest payrolls in baseball for 17 of their 20 years in existence.
Miami won't be able to land any big time free agents any more. They will revert back to acting like a small market club. With a low payroll, while the ownership's pockets get fatter and fatter off of increased revenue.
They may have saved money. But its gone from the team budget. They won't spend it. And if they tried, they couldn't even get a player of Hanley's above average talent for it. Those kind of guys won't come to Miami anymore.
They reeled me in. This could just be a result of a losing season, but I feel like this was the plan all along. I believed them. Miami had the new stadium and a big payroll. I ignored that all the contracts had 3 year opt outs. I thought that was to protect the team from bad investments, but it was really just to pull off the ruse.
While this was probably going to happen either way. I didn't expect it to be this early, but three years down the line, if the ballpark wasn't selling out yet, guys like Jose Reyes would have been released while the team cried that they couldn't afford them anymore.
This team isn't willing to take some lumps, and shell out some of the millions that they have selfishly and miserly stashed away without knowing that they will be guaranteed to turn a profit.
Since that isn't the case, here is what the future will look like for the Marlins. All that money they just shed isn't the end. More money will be shed. More good players will be traded for the racket that is prospects.
The Marlins will not spend big dollars but double down and replace Hanley and his $9 million dollar salary, with two average journeyman with $1 million dollar salaries.
It may not be a bad plan to not spend top dollars on a few players, and instead spread that money for lower paid players throughout the team. It’s just that, in the end, it won’t be two $5 million guys instead of one $10 million guy. It will be two $500k guys.
They will trade Josh Johnson this year or the next for more prospects who will probably not turn into anything. This team is bad at gauging talent in young players and seemingly always loses when we trade Major League talent for minor league potential. We will have the brass that hasn't landed an impact 1st round pick ever, trying to determine which 19 year olds will turn into superstars. I don't have hope.
The whole idea of trading good Major Leaguers for prospects is a crapshoot. The odds are even worse with our guys in charge. Do you know why the Yankees have won 27 World Series? Because they don't trade for minor league prospects. They deal in known quantities and target Major League talent. They trade their prospects who may or not be something, for other teams' young talent already in the bigs that they know can play.
Sure, we don't have the same deep pockets as the Yankees, but we have enough money where we don't have to operate like the Pirates! We can still go after Major League talent. There are only nine guys in a line up! We don't have to spend three hundred million but we can consistently field a playoff team and compete for talent with a hundred million dollars.
It is not fair to write off big spending as a viable way to build the club. The money we spent didn't work this year, but it is short sighted to write off big payrolls after one bad season. The Marlins will. They now have their proof to hold up. To them, spending money doesn't equal winning. But the rest of the league knows that spending money increases your odds of winning. They will say that they tried to spend money in 2012, and it didn't work. So they will return to a low payroll full of young players. And if any of them become stars, the Marlins will not pay to keep them, and trade them for more prospects.
If you want a really pessimistic view of things, read Jeff Passan's article on Yahoo.
It is an endless cycle of rebuilding. We might develop another Hanley or Josh Johnson. He might play his way into a big contract. But the brass won't pay the money. And we will just trade him for prospects and hope one of those prospects turns into the player we just traded.
Winning teams keep assets! They build for longer than a season. They don't cut ties and have a fire sale when the team doesn't play up to its averages. A serious franchise, a well run franchise, would look at this team and see that they are not a play off team this year, but they had managed to put together a winning core. You know what they would do? They would endure one bad season and ADD MORE PIECES NEXT YEAR. Not trade the supposed superstar foundation of the team for low impact prospects. Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can’t buy a World Series in one winter.
There is talent on this team. I still believe in this team. Pay the money, and bring in some talent around Stanton, Reyes, and JJ. If they put some resources again into the team next offseason, the Marlins could be in the hunt next year and for years to come.
Things don't have to be like this. If they keep JJ, reinvest the money they have been saving and somehow convince another star free agent or two to come down, things will be great. We could be in year two of a big market payroll and on our way to establishing the city of Miami as a first class baseball town with a first class baseball franchise.
But they won't.
They will blow it up.
They will try to sell us on "potential."
They will field a team of low paid minor leaguers and rake in the cash.
It will be the same old Marlins.
I think the Marlins need to clean house upstairs, and put the money on the field.
