Marlins Trade Everyone to Toronto, Receive lifetime supply of Maple Syrup

[TheMendozaLine]

Oh, by the way . . .

  Spoiler:

RUSE

[oakelmpine]

I don't like how it seems they were extremely lazy about it, but I'm perfectly fine with all the players being traded. Would've been cool to keep Reyes but whatever. Instead of winning 75 next year, we can win 55 and get the 1st pick in the draft so cool.

And what does getting the 1st pick in draft do for you, if you don't plan on building around the 1 super player you have now ?

This just is a nightmare from a PR standpoint. I don't see how anyone can support this front office anylonger. The damage and pain they continue to inflict on this fanbase is just almost sadistic.

Their promises that they were going to act differently and responsibly like many other MLB franchises were all lies. They are reverting back to what they know best, cheap payrolls and allow the rest on MLB to infuse them with revenue sharing that Loria can then go and spend on more (ugly) "art work", if you can call it that.

Might as well send Stanton out before the beginning of the season, and take the PR hit NOW, and not wait and do it in 2 years when once again you are dragged through the mud, and you spit in the fans faces.
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As a fan, I think it's stupid. As an owner, I would think it's stupid.

It's stupid. Fucking stupid.

It's stupid because of what it does to the fanbase.

I wish baseball would just not give Loria any revenue sharing. If that happened Loria would definitely sell asap.

I wonder now if not getting a title sponsor for the ballpark is all part of this ?

How about those vendors who signed contracts based on projected numbers the Marlins gave them ? Do they get to go back and renegotiate for less ?

How about ticket prices ? Can you expect to try and price your tickets in the top 10 of baseball when you are fielding a team that has the lowest payroll in baseball ?

This has more ramifications than what just happened on the field last year.

[jOOj]

It's so much easier dealing with this garbage after giving up on the team in late August, imagine how bad this would have hurt if we thought this year was actually going to be good!

They got hundreds of dollars from me last year, that's that. Not buying anything else of theirs for a long time. No that isn't one of those hollow internerdz threats, it's the truth, I'm not jumping ship, will still watch if I feel like watching baseball, but under this regime the bridge has been torched.

Sell the team, remodel the artsy fartsy bullshit inside of the otherwise beautiful stadium, start from scratch with what we have and let a new front office actually draft well. Maybe in a few years we'll be something that isn't so shallow and stupid.

[oakelmpine]

The fans are not going to come Erick. Maybe this is your youthful exuberance showing and not having really lived through 98 or fully got 05 while it was happening, but this is the third epic meltdown of the franchise in 15 years. And this time there is no world series ring AND a new stadium that taxpayers predominantly paid for.

It's over with this ownership. If this is Loria making the team more attractive to sell to a new owner, so he can say "nothing is on the books, do what you will," cool, I get that. But if these guys stick around, no one is going to support them. Not even if they sign 4 premium free agents in 2 years. No one will believe they will be around.

There is no confidence left. No one is going to believe or trust them. Not now, not ever. It's over until they sell.

Well said lou. This is exactly how I and most fans feel this morning. They can sign anyone they want, we fans will never believe them if they sign anyone ever again.

By the way, this is what you get when you have a mostly absent owner that has no allegiance to the locality. Loria never had anything to do with Montreal before he owned that team, and he has no allegiance to South Florida or its residents. He doesn't live here most of the time, and doesn't really care. All he cares about is a bottom line, nothing more, nothing less. It's cold, heartless and cruel when he operates with that kind of mentality. His passion for the Marlins begins and ends with his wallet.
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Well Nolasco has $11.5
Escobar $5
Money to Toronto - $4
Heath Bell $4
Ozzie $2.5
Mathis $ 1.5 < - he actually has $1.5 on 2014 payroll too lol
Dobbs $1.5
Turner $1
Cox $1
Webb $1 (arbitration projection)

$33

Brantly, Morrison, Hechavarria, Solano, Ruggiano, Stanton, Alvarez, Eovaldi, Hand (let's throw him as the 5), Cishek, LeBlanc, Dunn, Jennins, Ramos, and let's put Petersen/Gorkys and a club controlled reliever. All of that, is $8 million

$41, for 22 players and Ozzie. Missing 3 bats (or 2 bats if you put Cox on 25 man)

I guess they weren't including the money on the books going for players and contracts no longer playing here. Just reported what I saw in the MLB Network scroll.

[jOOj]

I'm going to feel like such a dolt if they sell the team and the new owners change the uniforms and colours.

Of course it would be well worth it, and whatever Juanky is calling himself these days would be happier than Black Gallagher at a ghetto farmer's market!

[MiamiHomer]

[oakelmpine]

We don't have David Dombrowski running the ship.

Extremely good point. Dombrowski has the history of putting together 3 teams that have made the World Series, winning 1 of them.

Beinfest & Loria have the history to lucking into a team that had a foundation built by Dombrowski and winning a WS and mostly losing seasons with low payroll teams in most of their other years.

If you were a team owner and had the choice of Dombrowski & Beinfest, who would you choose ?
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Also, isn't it possible that they'll use some of this money to sign free agents now? I'm not expecting a big-time payroll, but even if it's like a 40-50 million dollar payroll and they trade Nolasco...

They're going to have like 30 million dollars to spend on next year's team. That's at least a handful of valuable players if they know what they're doing (which they don't, unfortunately, but the point remains the same).

MLB isn't going to allow a payroll this low to be fielded on Opening Day. I can't see that happening.

Erick, NO ONE that has any playing ability and has any other options will EVER sign with Loria ever again. Don't you get that ? Any chance at good solid free agents is DONE with this ownership. Players are not interested in moving their families for one year. And Bell lived away from his family and was miserable. It's more than just the money.
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I agree.

I'm just saying there's no way the payroll is this low on Opening Day. It's just a fun thing to make fun of right now because the team looks downright terrible. If this is actually the team, I can only envision maybe the Astros being worse.

The only way they have a higher payroll on opening day, is if they trade Escobar (who would take him ???) and take on a higher salary in return.

If they sign free agents I doubt they will cost more than $ 7 or $ 8 million in total, and will be to 1 or 2 year contracts at the most. Mostly journeymen free agents and not the kind of players you build your franchise around.

I seriously can't believe they really think they can build a winner this way. Unless Beinfest has a dramatic turnaround from his horrible drafting record, they are committing themselves to close to a decade of losing, last place baseball and really screwing over any chance that baseball ever has of being a true part of the South Florida sports scene on a meaningful way.

[Todd]

As an aside:

Loria is definitely a big ol' douchebag here, but why is it that all sports writers make it seem like the Marlins' stadium deal was unique among professional sports franchises? The Marlins didn't really get the city government to pay all that much more than most cities pay for most professional sporting venues, right?
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From what I could see, the Heat paid $50 of the $213 million for the AAA. Just a rough calculation shows that the Marlins paid a slightly higher percentage for the park.

I feel like that is constantly misrepresented. Am I wrong, there?

Probably get more usage, year round, out of a smaller permanently enclosed venue I would guess?

[oakelmpine]

soo crappy players

More or less. You will get a bunch of Kouz's and a couple of Greg Dobbs. That is not a recipe for a longterm winning franchise.

This is just so unfortunate for any Marlins fans that are left.

[Chewford]

YOU GET TRADED TO THE BLUE JAYS! AND YOU GET TRADED TO THE BLUE JAYS! AND YOU GET TRADED TO THE BLUE JAYS! AND YOU GET TRADED TO THE BLUES!

[Swifty]

Probably get more usage, year round, out of a smaller permanently enclosed venue I would guess?

The Marlins out-of-pocket contribution was/is incredibly low, most of it is pledged in the form of future rent payments and other revenue that doesn't exist but for the stadium (which is also fairly common, but the Marlins are on the extreme end) and the debt service being carried for the stadium is exorbitant (I think it's around $2 billion when all is said and done).

The dilemma with this stadium is neither party (Loria ownership, city/county) really could afford it, yet here it is anyway. That's the unusual part. Most of the publicly funded stadiums (and for the record, they're all bad ideas unless it's "your" home team, there's never a long-term economic benefit) were built where one (or both) of the parties making the deal could afford the bill. Loria certainly can't and it's debatable Miami can. That's why it's "different."

[lou]

Well if we try and break it down, if

they traded JJ for Alvarez, Marisnick, and Hechavarria, I think we would be slightly underwhelmed, but be happy to good a relatively pretty good young CF prospect in AA and on same jump to MLB path as Yelich/Fernandez, a pretty ok young MLB starter who should be a 4 moving forward, and a young Bonifacio type, maybe someone who takes over 2B. After trying to move him for awhile, if that's the market, that's the market. I don't think we'd freak.

they traded Buerhle and $4 million for Nicolino, don't think we'd freak to get that salary off of payroll, and they get a younger finesse lefty type that is a pretty solid prospect and another Heaney level starting option down the road. A little underwhelming, but I don't think we'd freak

they traded Buck for Escobar, and let's just assume Escobar would play somewhere in infield with Reyes, as that is saving a little cash and exchanging one problem for another. Not a big deal

they traded Bonifacio for Mathis and DeSclafani, which would probably be the first move that didn't make real sense, but since they got Hechavarria and Escobar, and Solano "emerged," maybe they felt that was ok for the infield and might as well move his arbitration tender, plus that would end all discussion of Bonifacio going to the OF which would be a net plus as they would assuredly get an outfielder. I think we'd be disappointed, but not freak

and then Reyes, who the remaining 5 years on his deal is pretty much market value given the free agent world where Anibal and BJ are looking at probable $70 million deals, meaning he is not over priced and if you trade him you need to get something.

They forgot to get anything for Reyes and purely dumped his salary. That's the problem. Pure salary dump on Reyes, did not get any compensation. I mean D'Arnaud/Lawrie, a legitimate P prospect, and a 3rd alright player was needed here. They just forgot to get them.

Pretty amazing when you fail on baseball, fail on developing business, fail on everything. But I don't think I'm surprised given these clowns at this point.

[Chewford]

A visual representation of the last year of the relationship between ownership and the fans by Jeff Laufer:

[lou]

I fully expect Nolasco and Escobar to be moved ASAP. Not that is ground breaking analysis, but they can save another $8-10 million by eating 30-40% of the contracts here and they certainly do nothing for the on the field team next year.

That's moving payroll plus Ozzie to around $30 million on the year, which is 2006-2008 levels.

Pretty pathetic.

[oakelmpine]

As an aside:

Loria is definitely a big ol' douchebag here, but why is it that all sports writers make it seem like the Marlins' stadium deal was unique among professional sports franchises? The Marlins didn't really get the city government to pay all that much more than most cities pay for most professional sporting venues, right?
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From what I could see, the Heat paid $50 of the $213 million for the AAA. Just a rough calculation shows that the Marlins paid a slightly higher percentage for the park.

I feel like that is constantly misrepresented. Am I wrong, there?

Tell me what the Heat did last year ? What have the Marlins done since 2003?

If you can't see that those two franchises are diametrically opposite of each other, you must be mentally blind.