Larry Beinfest's Future with the Marlins

[Mainge]

Not really, no.

[Bobbob1313]

Let me preface this by saying I've made a pretty Hugh dent in a bottle of JD Single Barrel.............

But if anyone on the board can say they saw this coming, Swift would be the guy that could make that claim.

"This" as in "swift is a fatalistic type of fan who has thought the worst about this team for about five years in a row."

Not "this" as in "Gaby is the worst player in baseball and Logan Morrison is the poor man's Jeremy Hermida." I don't think he saw those coming.
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He got John Buck right, though. So there's that. I guess.

[Erick]

Swift, did you also foresee a .115 point drop in Lomo's OPS and a .096 point drop in Bonifacio's line, not to mention an injury that will likely cost him two full months of the season?
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And that's not even getting into JJ, Bell, Dunn, Mujica and Webb seeing tremendous drops in their expected production with little to no reason from one year to the next.

This team has had a lot of negative outliers, with only Infante and maybe Zambrano significantly outperforming expectations.

Maybe that is on Beinfest. I just don't think all of these guys absolutely pooping their pants at once was easily foreseeable.
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Even if you want to say "You know, Gaby really sucked after the All-Star break last year (Which as far as I can remember, is all anyone said about him this offseason), he still had a 40% higher OBP and 28% higher SLUG from the 2nd half last year to this season.

Nobody saw this coming.

I think you're reaching a bit with the names in bold. Really, reliever performance (especially at this point in the season) is rather unpredictable. It's a small sample and none of those guys really project/projected as elite arms (Bell excluded).

Webb basically has the same #'s he had last year and Dunn sucking is really not much of a surprise.

Bonifacio's drop in .OPS is not a surprise either.

And I don't think Beinfest should be fired really, but John Buck (shit luck and all) kinda sucks and was a questionable contract from the very beginning.


And while Morrison is another underachiever so far, this is also the same Morrison who posted a 1 fWAR last year with solid offensive #'s. Because he's that bad, defensively.

It's pretty weird that they built such a spacious ballpark and were content with the situation of having an absolute disaster in LF and an inexperienced CF'er to start the year.

[Bobbob1313]

I'm almost positive you were convinced that both Stanton and Bonifacio would be at least solid in the outfield, so I don't think that criticism holds a ton of weight.

Dunn putting up a 9 ERA after putting up a 3 ERA last season should be at least somewhat of a surprise, considered his xFIP was 3.91 last season. Dunn, Mujica and Webb have combined for a 5.14 ERA, after putting up a 3.18 mark last season.

And whether Morrison was a 1 WAR player or a 10 WAR player last year, he has still been a massive disappointment that nobody really saw coming. Which is my point.

Yeah, I'm not worried about the bats.

Highly unlikely that Hanley will be this bad again next year.

Assuming they're all kept, Stanton, Lomo, and Gaby have all had good years when you consider that it's just their second year in the big leagues.

Infante and Buck will do what they do and Bonifacio has improved this year. His speed is another element that will make it easier for the team to score runs moving forward if he can continue to put up respectable .OBP #'s.

Offense will be fine. It's been a fluky year, in that sense.

I feel like, having said this back in the last few weeks of last season, you certainly did not expect this from the offense at the time. Seems like you're playing the result here.

[Party]

The vast majority of people who legitimately love their sports teams and look forward to the following season will always assume at least slightly improved results because of personal bias.

It often takes a while for reality to set in. Hermida is the greatest Marlins example of this.

Erick having a positive outlook on this season earlier in the year should not disqualify him from being able to criticize the construction of the team now.

Beinfest should not be exempt from criticism just because no one saw this coming. In the end it's his team and another sub .500 season along with all the issues in the minors that have already been discussed warrant a discussion about his performance as GM. He's been here 10 years plus the time in Montreal working under Loria and Samson.

Results >>>> Intentions + perception at the time
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One of his roles as GM is to cut through the crap. If he can't cut through the general consensus or perception or whatever you want to call it and make a decision that puts his team in the best position to win than he should not be the GM of a middle market club.

[Bobbob1313]

I think playing the result is a lazy form of analysis. I'm not saying you throw the results away, but when the result is a total outlier (as in the combined production of Buck, Lomo, Boner, and Gaby), I think it is then silly to say "Fire that man! How did he not see it coming!"

I get that is how sports work, but I don't think it's the intelligent way to do things. I think process matters, and this offseason, absolutely nobody questioned the overall process of this team. So I think it is incredibly silly to turn around and say "We need to fire this guy!" because of a bad 10-game stretch.

And that's what it is. Let's not pretend this is anything other than an overreaction to a bad 10-game stretch. 17 days ago, when we were the best team in baseball for a whole month, nobody was saying we needed to fire anyone.

That is my issue with only playing the result: you become a slave to the natural ebb and flow of a season. If we're going to determine Larry Beinfest's future with the organization by the results of the most recent 13-game sample size, we should not even have a GM.
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And none of this is saying that the topic of Larry Beinfest's future with the club should be off the table for discussion.

But saying "Fire him" because of a 2-10 stretch or whatever it's been is reactionary and silly.

You are saying "it's his team and another sub .500 season... warrant a discussion about his performance as GM." Absolutely!

But this isn't "another sub-.500 season". It's a bad stretch.

But let's have the discussion, by all means:

Firing Beinfest now would be silly and would have zero tangible effect on the team on the field. If anything, it would put the front office in flux at a time when they need to be focused on potential moves that can put this organization in the best position possible moving forward.

[Omar]

...could barely play LF in Boston 6-7 years ago.

How's that different from the Merry-Go-Round we have there now?

Here's a fun game I like to play with strangers - who was the Marlins last defensively above-average left fielder?

[Bobbob1313]

Cody Ross.

[Omar]

Too bad he was in Center/Right

[Bobbob1313]

In 06, he played the majority of his game in left field. That is probably the last time we had a plus left fielder.

[Party]

I think playing the result is a lazy form of analysis. I'm not saying you throw the results away, but when the result is a total outlier (as in the combined production of Buck, Lomo, Boner, and Gaby), I think it is then silly to say "Fire that man! How did he not see it coming!"

I get that is how sports work, but I don't think it's the intelligent way to do things. I think process matters, and this offseason, absolutely nobody questioned the overall process of this team. So I think it is incredibly silly to turn around and say "We need to fire this guy!" because of a bad 10-game stretch.

And that's what it is. Let's not pretend this is anything other than an overreaction to a bad 10-game stretch. 17 days ago, when we were the best team in baseball for a whole month, nobody was saying we needed to fire anyone.

That is my issue with only playing the result: you become a slave to the natural ebb and flow of a season. If we're going to determine Larry Beinfest's future with the organization by the results of the most recent 13-game sample size, we should not even have a GM.
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And none of this is saying that the topic of Larry Beinfest's future with the club should be off the table for discussion.

But saying "Fire him" because of a 2-10 stretch or whatever it's been is reactionary and silly.

You are saying "it's his team and another sub .500 season... warrant a discussion about his performance as GM." Absolutely!

But this isn't "another sub-.500 season". It's a bad stretch.

But let's have the discussion, by all means:

Firing Beinfest now would be silly and would have zero tangible effect on the team on the field. If anything, it would put the front office in flux at a time when they need to be focused on potential moves that can put this organization in the best position possible moving forward.

Larry Beinfest won't be fired because of outliers. Yes, the breaking point will most likely be the result of the outliers you mentioned. He is going to be fired over a culmination of disappointing seasons and drafts.

No one is firing him over a 10 game stretch. My gripe with Beinfest has been well documented long before this. I've said on numerous occasions that Loria's actions late last year indicate this is (rightfully) Beinfest's put up or shut up year. If they are out of it by the end of next month, I think it will make it very hard to justify keeping him after the season. I would never even suggest firing Beinfest will do anything to change the current roster. Firing Beinfest would, in theory, improve things in the future looking forward to next year and beyond. That is what I'm looking at, not July or August.

The way some of these guys look and some of the characters we're trotting out as MLB starters, there is not much to inspire confidence. That is not to say we're guaranteed another horrible season, but a lot of things need to change.

Next month will be an interesting month if things continue to fall apart. I'm putting the cart before the horse, but Zambrano, Sanchez and Choate could bring some serious return in deadline moves. If it comes to that, should Larry Beinfest be the one responsible for overseeing the return? Probably not, but a few weeks in July is not enough time to properly replace him.

[Jay]

I think everyone is making good points and that everyone should agree with this.

Firing Beinfest before this team is out of it, without already having his replacement set, would be a horrible move for the team. Once you give up on 2012, I think he needs to be fired immediately or he should keep his job. I'm not saying he is good or bad because I think after all the dust settles he would be in the middle of the pack of GMs.

[Omar]

Very rare is the situation where you fire someone without a replacement lined up, so yeah.

But, then again, should Hill theoretically be able to jump right into the role?

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't mind replacing Beinfest with someone who is more of a sabermetrics guy.

[Erick]

I fail to see how I'm "playing the result" in this thread. I never once disagreed with the fact that the offense is underperforming and that some of this was unpredictable.

My Logan Morrison point was that, despite a good offensive year last year, his overall value was meh because he's brutal in LF. Considering the way the ballpark was built, I thought it was weird that they ignored OF defense from the very beginning. (to further make the point, they chose Coghlan to make the roster in Spring Training over better defensive OF'ers).

Never once mentioned Stanton in the thread. Not sure what the point was in bringing him up. I've always remained consistent in saying that defensive metrics disagree with those who think he absolutely sucks out there. Even if the metrics are deceiving, it really doesn't matter with him in the context of the Beinfest conversation. He's our best player and extremely valuable, regardless.


Anyway, back to Beinfest, I never said "fire him." I'm just saying I think it's silly to disagree with the opposing viewpoint, at this point. Lack of payroll is no longer an excuse.

Also, you can tell people to stop playing results but, at the end of the day, the result is what ultimately matters.
You could say we've been unlucky or you could also say that we've been incredibly lucky to currently be at .500 considering our laughable run differential.

"Let's not pretend this is anything other than an overreaction to a bad 10-game stretch."

How do you know what Beinfest naysayers are thinking? That's a silly assumption.

It's not an overreaction to a 10-game stretch. It's an analysis of 66 games in which we currently have the 4th worst run differential in the National League (5th worst in all of baseball), despite spending 190+ million in free agents this past offseason. That's not at all fair?