Beinfest Regime: Brilliance or Smoke and Mirrors?

[Swifty]

Winning 84 and 87 and just heading to the golf course is going somewhere?

I kind of like that concept of October baseball. If you're not making the playoffs, you're not going anywhere.

[Bobbob1313]

Well, if you're an 84-87 win team, then you've got a shot at the playoffs, because there can be that swing to 90+.

[lou]

Well, if you're an 84-87 win team, then you've got a shot at the playoffs, because there can be that swing to 90+.

Exactly. I have NO problems at all saying on paper, this Marlins team is a 80-85 win team if they repeat. We're going to have youth progression which is good and going to make up for our player losses, but we really over achieved in 1 run games so all these things will normalize into basically breakeven. Except, if the pitchers grow up, this very quickly moves to the 88-92 range. And if Coghlan repeats, Maybin pulls a Hanley, Morrison pulls a Coghlan, etc, etc, etc, this team turns monstrous overnight. I don't expect that as that is a beyond ideal scenario, but I'm just saying, what's wrong with fielding a team that easily projects over .500, and you have so much high impact youth it could turn out better? We have the farm system to go out and get a player in July if we need 1 or 2 and the SP is rocking.

Granted, I feel the frustration that "holy crap, spend $15-20 million more bucks and this is a 90 win team on paper." Yea I get it. But they're not going to do it. And Beinfest and Hill are putting the team in the best position possible to contend by mixing in select veterans, youth, and crossing their fingers Nolasco, Miller, Volstad, West, and Anibal, all show up good and not as inconsistent as 2009. This is going to be a good team in 2010. Even if it would be a better team if they could retain Uggla, sign a decent LF/RF, and bring in some # 4 Carl Pavano to eat 25 starts with that extra money.

This team is getting better. Maybe it's slower than you, or all of us, would like mainly due to payroll constraints. But it's happening.

[Fish and Chips]

If they're a 84-87 win team then the marlins FO is not as bad as you make them out to be

[Ramp]

considering they could easily make it a 90 win team, yes they are

[Bobbob1313]

considering they could easily make it a 90 win team, yes they are

There is a difference between the Marlins FO and Jeffrey Loria.

Working with the payroll they are, I'm not sure they could "easily" make it a 90 win team.

[lou]

There is a difference between the Marlins FO and Jeffrey Loria.

Working with the payroll they are, I'm not sure they could "easily" make it a 90 win team.

Yea. The front office is doing incredible with what they have to deal with. Granted, this JJ thing is retarded, but

Loria not giving them $60 is a totally different issue of "easily making the team 90 wins." That one is on the Loria for not wanting to pay $60.

[Ramp]

Not buying out arbitration years, refusing to give any players long term deals, signing horrible vets to 2 year deals, not having any veteran pitchers ever and stuff like that is not on Loria.

[lou]

Not buying out arbitration years, refusing to give any players long term deals, signing horrible vets to 2 year deals, not having any veteran pitchers ever and stuff like that is not on Loria.

They kind of have to keep things liquid to field these teams for insane prices. Veterans don't really work (even though they have done things like Leiter, Oliver, Seanez, Julio, etc) in fielding $32 million teams. Having contracts complicates because then you are forced into trading them or not being able to and just eating money, thus screwing your entire payroll when it's that low. Yea Helms was dumb, but keeping him wasn't really bringing in anyone else of value instead.

I mean yea. They needed to have bought out Cabrera. That was an enormous mistake. They need to buy out Johnson. That will be an enormous mistake. But other than that, not to much I say set us backwards. Maybe we didn't really go forward which could be seen as a problem, but at least we haven't gone backwards as an organization besides not buying out Cabrera in 2005. Which is just mind blowing.

I'd say your complaints, still fall under the overall payroll thing. And we'll find out if you're right regardless, because we're going to have a number of buyout players - Coghlan, Maybin, Volstad, West, Miller, Stanton, Morrison, Dominguez - looking for buyouts in the next 1-4 years. We'll see what they do because the money argument goes out the window. If they nickel and dime these guys if they pan out, it really just shows they are retarded and are cool paying twice the price by going year to year for inexcusable fears of "injury/performance." Just don't sign Angel Berroa longterm like KC did, and you'll be fine/

And if they fail? We're doomed. At least we'll know for sure the problem is them and we can't make realistic money arguments all the time. I'll be optimistic and say it's payroll, and in 2012 if say Coghlan and Volstad work out, we'll have them on 4-5 year deals buying out 1-2 FA years minimum. I hope anyways.

[Ramp]

Well I didn't mean any old veteran there is. Anyone here could have told you that asshats like Oliver, Seanez, Julio, and Hendrickson would be a collection of suck. As for Leiter, that was worth the risk. Didn't think he would turn into a douche.

I just don't have much faith in the front office at this point. Part of that is Loria's fault, but part of that is me not liking them and believing they are more incompetent then they lead people to believe.

[Bobbob1313]

So we manage to win in spite of both an exceedingly low payroll, a shitty owner, and a terrible front office?

I guess we're just the luckiest franchise in the history.

[Ramp]

Precisely

[Fish and Chips]

You cant be that lucky over 323 games...

It might not follow the "experts" ideas or might be unconventional, but its work, and they succeed with the most limited resources in the league. The marlins can easily be the pirates, royals, or nationals.

[CrimsonCane]

So we manage to win in spite of both an exceedingly low payroll, a shitty owner, and a terrible front office?

I guess we're just the luckiest franchise in the history.

Every distribution needs an outlier.

[Swifty]

What I think Ramp is trying to get at, and this has been my stance for a long time, is that if you start with talent worth X (and make no mistake, Beinfest inherited an exceptionally talented team) and routinely turn that talent over for 40 cents on every talent "dollar" eventually that system is going to destroy you. Think of it like being a trust officer. You're overseeing a $5 million trust account and through mismanagement, you have $1 million. At a quick glance, having a million dollar account looks like you're doing a good job, but when you look at how you got to that million dollars the numbers don't really work.

We got jack shit for all-star players, we got absolutely raped on a trade for hall of fame talent, and we've only really made only one "win" trade out of the entire 2002-05 core (Pierre) and one "you sure as fuck better get something that good back" trade (Beckett).

That's my problem with these guys. They received way too much credit for winning with a core they didn't put together and every year that they've had the chance to make it "their" team they find their "guy" (Abercrombie, Julio, Bonifacio) and really hold the team back, yet crutch themselves up on the low-payroll complaint.

Now, that's not to say I expect enormous success with a payroll so laughably miniscule, but rather it's very hard to take pity on someone when a majority of their shortcomings are egregiously self-inflicted and a byproduct of their own misguided over confidence.