For years and years, even amid a couple of championships, the Marlins were among the laughingstocks of the league due to their ownership group led by Jeffrey Loria. The owner just couldn’t stay out of his own way and was constantly on a quest to cut his team’s payroll. It got to the point where anyone with a soul felt bad for Marlins fans and everyone was celebrating when it was announced that Loria would be looking to sell the team.
The Marlins are the same old Marlins under new ownership
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes an ultimatum to Giancarlo Stanton, the new developments in his trade market, and Shohei Ohtani’s hitting skills.
Photo by Joe Skipper/Getty Images
Any new ownership group was going to be viewed as a savior, mainly because they were coming in to save a fanbase. When Derek Jeter emerged as the face of the new ownership, that testament only became enhanced. Now, we’re just a few months into the post-Loria era, and things seemingly haven’t changed much.
Things jumped up to a new level of apparent ineptitude, or at best miscalculation of how things will play in the media, Tuesday night with a new report from the Miami Herald. According to the report, the Marlins told Giancarlo Stanton, the face of their franchise and one of the only reasons any fans at all are coming to games or watching on TV, that he either had to accept a trade or deal with being the only star on a stripped down team. Good lord.
Stanton, of course, negotiated a full no-trade clause into his contract, largely because everyone knew the Marlins would eventually have to trade him and he wanted to have some control over his new home. Now, the Marlins are trying to bully him out of using this right, despite the fact that there is no indication he’s holding them to one potential trade partner. In essence, the Marlins are just threatening Stanton to the same fate he’s played through in his entire career. They’re just telling him he’ll have to wait three years to opt out, at which point the team will lose their star for absolutely nothing.
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Now, it is worth mentioning that Jeter and the rest of the new Miami ownership group inherited a rough situation. Even if there’s an argument that they shouldn’t have bought the team if they were just going to immediately strip everything that made it interesting, we have to acknowledge that most new owners would have to cut some payroll right off the top. Simply cutting payroll isn’t the biggest issue. Instead, they simply have misread the media every step of the way and have come out looking bad multiple times in a few months. Between this and Jeter reportedly firing old staffers without a face-to-face meeting, the new Marlins era isn’t looking a whole lot different from the old one.
- In the middle of all of this Stanton talk, the Dodgers are still his preferred destination. They can’t walk away from that, right?
- We’ve heard a lot about the teams with a legitimate chance at trading for Stanton. Here are five teams that have no chance at landing the slugger.
- The Giants do have a real chance, though fans are better off not getting their hopes up and just preparing for him to don a Dodgers uniform.
- It’s almost December and the Yankees still don’t have a manager. Maybe it’s time to speed things up? Perhaps?
- Most of the excitement around Shohei Ohtani is around his ability on the mound, but what will he provide at the plate?
- At this time last year, Alex Reyes was the best pitching prospect in baseball and prepping for his first year in the majors. An injury derailed that plan, so now what should we expect in 2018?
- The Rays could have one of the most interesting closer situations in baseball if they do end up dealing Alex Colomé this winter.
- It’s relatively rare that impact players change teams during the Rule 5 draft, but there are a few interesting players available this year.
- Mike Minor is the most coveted left-handed reliever on the market this winter, so how much is that worth?
- Remember Pat Venditte, the switch-pitcher? Well, he just signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers, who will probably turn him into a Cy Young contender.
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