It seems like yesterday, Bud Selig and the Players' Union made the unprecedented move of admonishing the Florida Marlins for their commitment to spend less on payroll than they receive from revenue sharing.
Amazingly, just a few weeks later, Jeffrey Loria issued the following statement: "We're working off an 87-win season and I expect us to make the playoffs. I thought we should have [made the playoffs] last year. I was disappointed at the end of the season. That's all I'll say about that."
Good thing Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez is not Jim Mora, Sr. (see link below). Apparently, overachieving one season only raises Loria's expectations for the next season.
Conspiracy theorists, myself included, might suggest that Loria's bold mandate is only aimed to deflect recent and intense criticism for putting 4 to 6 minor league caliber players each year on a big league roster in order to fatten his wallet.
Truth be told, the Marlins have made the playoffs with one of the league's lowest payrolls before. Hell, they even won the World Series in 2003 with a payroll less than half as large as the Yankees'. After they did so, Loria famously went on TV mid celebration and screamed: "Buy your tickets now...there will be no fire sale cause we're going to repeat baby!"
In his defense, just one year later he did throw down over $10 million a year, which in Marlins' currency is like $20-25 million a year elsewhere, to sign Carlos Delgado.
Of course, after the team struggled, Delgado and the richest contract to which the Marlins had ever agreed were shipped off in a cost cutting move to trim the team's payroll to under $15 million, less than 20% of the league average of $78 million, before the 2006 season.
Amazingly, in 2006, with the lowest payroll in baseball, new skipper Joe Girardi nearly did the impossible and just missed making the playoffs with a team many projected to be the worst in baseball. Unfortunately, Loria canned Girardi after just one year because he clearly had no potential as a manager (insert sarcasm here).
Since Gonzalez took the helm in 2007, expectations have only grown larger while the payroll has remained the same- embarrassingly low.
Loria is like a parrot when it comes to talking payroll. We always hear the same things: "We don't have fans, we don't have a stadium, we don't have the ticket sales, etc."
In many respects, these arguments are true. What he is not telling the media, however, is that he is a first class con artist.
In 2006, when the Marlins nearly made the playoffs without spending more than $14.9 million, Loria received $31 million under MLB's revenue sharing agreement, making the Marlins the league's most successful team, financially speaking, with $43 million in profits.
Despite these huge payoffs, Loria held the city of Miami hostage by threatening to move the Marlins, forcing taxpayers to cough up several hundred million dollars to build Loria a new stadium in which the team will be even more profitable.
Jeffrey Loria is the Bialystock of MLB. The 2006 Marlins' season might as well have been made into a Broadway musical.
So how did Loria choose to spend his league leading $43 million in profits? He used all his funds from revenue sharing to help build a more competitive team, right? Wrong again!
Prior to the 2008 season, Loria traded away Miguel Cabrera, one of the best young power hitters in baseball, to avoid paying Cabrera more than the bargain salary he was making.
In 2003, the year Cabrera led the Marlins to a championship, he earned a modest $300K and three years later in 2006 he made just $472K. You would think Loria bought him at Filene's Basement.
Sure enough, with Cameron Maybin's inconsistent bat and inability to crack the majors, two years later the Marlins have nothing to show for giving away Cabrera and have struggled to recapture any of their 2003 magic.
Heading into this season, the team's projected clean up hitter is Jorge Cantu. I love Jorge Cantu, but who are we kidding? In 2009, Cantu hit 16 home runs and he has a career slugging percentage of just .456.
What is truly amazing is how talented Hanley Ramirez must be to have batted .342 with 106 RBIs in 2009 when pitchers knew that if they wanted to pitch around Hanley, then the only person they had to worry about facing was the big bad Jorge Cantu.
Is there any hope for the 2010 Marlins? It is early this Spring, but there is one man who has shown promise thus far.
Mike Stanton, the 20 year old Marlins prospect ranked 3rd best in the minor leagues by Baseball America, could be the next Miguel Cabrera. He is still young and somewhat raw, but so was Cabrera when he got the call.
Stanton is big and powerful at over 6'5" and 230 lbs. In fact, he was even recruited to play football at USC before signing with the Marlins as their second round draft pick in 2007.
While it is early, there is no question that he has promise. In his first five games this Spring, Stanton has homered twice, driven in five runs, and batted .333. Even more promising, his two homers came off of major league pitchers.
If he keeps this up, there is no question that offensively many of the Marlins' problems could be solved. Then all the team will have to worry about is finding some consistency from its young pitchers.
Despite the ownership problems, as always, the future is looking bright for the Marlins in South Florida.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3-eavMSBnk
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