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JC Rodriguez
Lots of venom directed toward the Miami Marlins in the aftermath of the Hanley Ramirez trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
A sampling from some national media outlets: Yahoo! Sports, Sporting News, Forbes, Examiner.com.
This front office can’t make so much as a Rule 5 pick without its motives being questions, and perhaps rightly so. No denying this organization has let down the fan base on numerous occasions. The Miguel Cabrera trade. The pre-2006 “market correction.” The string of failed first-round draft picks. All legitimate gripes on the part of fans.
What I don’t get is how some people choose to view the Ramirez, and Omar Infante/Anibal Sanchez deals as part of a continued pattern of penny-pinching behavior. The landscape is different. Viewed as pure baseball transactions, are they that difficult to accept? The front office deserves some heat for the blueprint. Should it get lambasted for determining the plan was flawed and scrapping it?
As constructed, this team was going nowhere. These players had more than 90 games to demonstrate they were a playoff-caliber unit and didn’t do it. The Marlins have a -77 run differential. Only the Astros (-116) and Rockies (-83) are worse among National League teams. The clubhouse was in desperate need of a shake-up.
Did they give up too fast on this group?
“I feel like we’ve kind of run out of time,” outfielder Logan Morrison said. “July 31 is the trade deadline. If they want to get anything in return for some of those guys, that’s what they have to do. We had our opportunity to show them we could win with what we had and it wasn’t working. Now we have to show them we can win with what we have now.”
Added Beinfest: “We had a completely different picture of how this summer would look, yes. Love the talent we brought in. Loved the existing talent we had here. Thought that the team had a little bit of everything to compete in a difficult division: front-line starting pitching, speed and defense, fortified bullpen — the whole package. And it’s baseball. It’s not always perfect. We were probably, at least to this point, more wrong than we were right, and that’s the way it goes, and we are going to try to make things better and win more games. But none of us envisioned where we are today, but we are. So we have to deal with it.”
Few of Ramirez’s teammates were broken up over his departure. For whatever inexplicable reason he stopped performing here. Were the Marlins better off crossing their fingers and hoping he returned to superstar status? They wanted a young, under control, major league ready starter back. Why not eat some of the money and get a better prospect from say the Athletics? Fair question. They liked Nathan Eovaldi more than what the A’s would have sent back. If Eovaldi flops, Beinfest and the front office belong in the cross hairs. Even more so if they don’t properly re-allocate the Ramirez savings.
To liken the Ramirez trade to the Cabrera deal is absurd. They didn’t trade Cabrera because he wasn’t performing or needed a change of scenary or throught he wasn’t going to be an elite hitter for many years to come. They traded him because they no longer afford him. As Beinfest said during his press conference Wednesday, if the team was cranking, Ramirez, Sanchez and Infante are still on it.
I was asked on Twitter if this “fire sale” reminded me of 2005. Not at all. The 2006 payroll went down to $15 million. That’s not happening here. No denying a ton of money came off the books — almost $40 million — in the Ramirez transaction. If it is not re-invested into the team, or re-invested in more under-performing players, then aim the cannons at Beinfest and light the fuse.
Branding this a fire sale and saying it’s business as usual for the Marlins is a lazy evaluation.
“We have to ask ourselves everyday, did we make a poor evaluation or did we make poor business deals as far as our contracts?” Beinfest said. “Generally, I do believe in this game you don’t go from good to bad. You can go from good to a little decline to mediocre, serviceable. However you want to say it. I don’t generally believe in good to bad. And however you want to evaluate it, we’ve had some of that. We’ve had guys that are, we believe premium, that are not playing up to premium, and we’re going to try to figure out why. Obviously we weren’t able to figure out why in time to elevate ourselves in the standings and have this be a different conversation.”
Lots of venom directed toward the Miami Marlins in the aftermath of the Hanley Ramirez trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
A sampling from some national media outlets: Yahoo! Sports, Sporting News, Forbes, Examiner.com.
This front office can’t make so much as a Rule 5 pick without its motives being questions, and perhaps rightly so. No denying this organization has let down the fan base on numerous occasions. The Miguel Cabrera trade. The pre-2006 “market correction.” The string of failed first-round draft picks. All legitimate gripes on the part of fans.
What I don’t get is how some people choose to view the Ramirez, and Omar Infante/Anibal Sanchez deals as part of a continued pattern of penny-pinching behavior. The landscape is different. Viewed as pure baseball transactions, are they that difficult to accept? The front office deserves some heat for the blueprint. Should it get lambasted for determining the plan was flawed and scrapping it?
As constructed, this team was going nowhere. These players had more than 90 games to demonstrate they were a playoff-caliber unit and didn’t do it. The Marlins have a -77 run differential. Only the Astros (-116) and Rockies (-83) are worse among National League teams. The clubhouse was in desperate need of a shake-up.
Did they give up too fast on this group?
“I feel like we’ve kind of run out of time,” outfielder Logan Morrison said. “July 31 is the trade deadline. If they want to get anything in return for some of those guys, that’s what they have to do. We had our opportunity to show them we could win with what we had and it wasn’t working. Now we have to show them we can win with what we have now.”
Added Beinfest: “We had a completely different picture of how this summer would look, yes. Love the talent we brought in. Loved the existing talent we had here. Thought that the team had a little bit of everything to compete in a difficult division: front-line starting pitching, speed and defense, fortified bullpen — the whole package. And it’s baseball. It’s not always perfect. We were probably, at least to this point, more wrong than we were right, and that’s the way it goes, and we are going to try to make things better and win more games. But none of us envisioned where we are today, but we are. So we have to deal with it.”
Few of Ramirez’s teammates were broken up over his departure. For whatever inexplicable reason he stopped performing here. Were the Marlins better off crossing their fingers and hoping he returned to superstar status? They wanted a young, under control, major league ready starter back. Why not eat some of the money and get a better prospect from say the Athletics? Fair question. They liked Nathan Eovaldi more than what the A’s would have sent back. If Eovaldi flops, Beinfest and the front office belong in the cross hairs. Even more so if they don’t properly re-allocate the Ramirez savings.
To liken the Ramirez trade to the Cabrera deal is absurd. They didn’t trade Cabrera because he wasn’t performing or needed a change of scenary or throught he wasn’t going to be an elite hitter for many years to come. They traded him because they no longer afford him. As Beinfest said during his press conference Wednesday, if the team was cranking, Ramirez, Sanchez and Infante are still on it.
I was asked on Twitter if this “fire sale” reminded me of 2005. Not at all. The 2006 payroll went down to $15 million. That’s not happening here. No denying a ton of money came off the books — almost $40 million — in the Ramirez transaction. If it is not re-invested into the team, or re-invested in more under-performing players, then aim the cannons at Beinfest and light the fuse.
Branding this a fire sale and saying it’s business as usual for the Marlins is a lazy evaluation.
“We have to ask ourselves everyday, did we make a poor evaluation or did we make poor business deals as far as our contracts?” Beinfest said. “Generally, I do believe in this game you don’t go from good to bad. You can go from good to a little decline to mediocre, serviceable. However you want to say it. I don’t generally believe in good to bad. And however you want to evaluate it, we’ve had some of that. We’ve had guys that are, we believe premium, that are not playing up to premium, and we’re going to try to figure out why. Obviously we weren’t able to figure out why in time to elevate ourselves in the standings and have this be a different conversation.”
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