Even though it's still not official yet, that Blue Jays-Marlins trade is just as shocking two days later as it was when it was announced. And it got me thinking. This is worse than 15 years ago, when the Marlins sold off their World Championship team piece by piece. At least everyone knew that was going to happen. And the Marlins built the nucleus of their second World Championship team six years later with a lot of the pieces they got in those trades. This time, that's not the case. It's just Jeffrey Loria being cheap.
I've long subscribed to the belief that the Florida/Miami Marlins are one of the worst-run organizations in all of sports, and that Jeffrey Loria is by far the worst owner in sports. He doesn't care about winning. That's what this trade proves. And the worst part is he'll continue to make money for running a Quadruple-A organization thanks to the boatload he'll pocket through revenue sharing. It really is a crime that Major League Baseball continues to let this guy "run" his team this way.
I'll give Jeffrey Loria this...he's a good con artist. First, he got the city to build him a stadium completely with public funds. Then, as a thank you, he changes the team name from "Florida" to "Miami" and vows to build a winner. He brings in a charismatic manager in Ozzie Guillen and suddenly remembers Miami's not a small market, signing free agents Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell to join a decent team that already has Hanley Ramirez, Josh Johnson, Logan Morrison and the incredible Giancarlo Stanton. Suddenly, the future looked bright in Miami.
Well, we were all fooled. The honeymoon didn't even last a full season. Sure, fans showed up in the beginning, but then the Marlins started losing. Ramirez, who didn't want to move to third base in the first place, was the first domino to fall, getting traded to the Dodgers, and Guillen was fired at the end of the season. But instead of just writing this off as a bad year with a still very talented team, Loria simply gave up. Of those players I mentioned earlier, a grand total of two (Stanton and Morrison) will be on the Marlins' 2013 Opening Day roster. (That's as of now. Who knows if he's done gutting the team yet?) This "the Marlins are going to make an effort to be good" thing barely lasted a season. He played us all for fools. And we were all suckers.
Part of what makes this so sad is that everybody wanted to believe Jeff Loria was actually going to try. They play in Miami. That can be a phenomenal baseball town. They deserve a winner. They thought they were going to get one. That's why they gave him a stadium that they'll still be paying for 20 years from now. They'll still be paying for a stadium that's going to sit half-empty year after year. But in Marlins' fans defense, I wouldn't blame them for not coming. You held up your end of the deal. Loria's not holding up his, so why go see the team play and put money in his pocket?
The 2012 season was supposed to be the start of a new era for the Marlins. They had to get out of that football stadium. Everybody knew that. Finally moving into their own baseball-only park was supposed to be the first step in being a consistent winner. Well, it turns out the start of the new era was delayed until 2013. This trade was the dawning of the age when the Miami Marlins offically made the move from Major League franchise to total joke. As long as Jeff Loria's around, they'll continue to be a punchline.
Sadly, this doesn't come as a total surprise. The Marlins have only ever tried to be good twice in their 20-year history. And they won the World Series as a wild card team each time. While they've occasionally seen marginal success in years other than 1997 and 2003, the Marlins have basically been an afterthought otherwise. Until last winter, when they actually started to act like a Major League franchise and were arguably the most aggressive team in free agency.
As it turns out, all last season turned out to be was the Marlins' first attempt to be good that didn't work out. And we know what happens the year after the Marlins try to be good. It happened in 1998. It happened in 2004. It'll happen again in 2013.
Baseball fans of Miami, I feel for you. You're not in danger of losing the Marlins anymore. The huge tax bill for Marlins Park guarantees that. But you deserve to have an actual Major League team playing in that park. Not the team Jeff Loria's going to put out there next season. Giancarlo Stanton (who only managed to remain on the Marlins because he doesn't make that much money yet) deserves better. The fans of Miami deserve better. Major League Baseball deserves better.
If you aren't good because you just aren't good, that's one thing. But the Marlins owe it to everyone to at least try. And right now, that's not what they're doing. It's wrong to call the Marlins a joke. Because it isn't funny. They're an embarrassment. A complete and total embarrassment.
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