Remember to shut the lights --
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by Orod412
--originally found on TheBigOz.com--
What would a Florida Marlins offseason be without stadium debates, rich owners crying poverty, and the threat of trading the best players on the team.
Done, done, and done.
The Marlins are making news this week in the one way they know best, by putting their stars on the trading block.
By making 3rd baseman Miguel Cabrera and staff ace Dontrelle Willis, undoubtedly the faces of the franchise available, the Marlins are once again using their tried and true mantra of throwing their hands up in financial despair and shipping out their talent to other clubs.
Both players are slated to earn a combined $19 million while Florida’s payroll is expected to be around $30 million.
“We have to find ways to try to improve the ballclub and shore up our deficiencies, and try to win more games,” President of Baseball Operations Larry Beinfest said. “Whatever the payroll is, we have to try and find a way to get that done…Considering we finished last in the league in pitching and last in the league in defense, I don’t think we’re close enough to where we want to be.
“Can we get there given our inventory and what we think we may have beginning in ‘08 and into the future? Yeah, we’re still confident and optimistic we can get there, but the reality is where we’re coming from it’s hard to say we’re close when you finish last in two very key categories.”
Allow me to translate.
That’s Marlin-speak for “We ain’t paying these two anything remotely close to what they want. We don’t care. Ya’ll don’t come out to the games anyway. We’ll trade these two by Christmas, hopefully get something decent in return, and say something like ‘these trades-err-market corrections, leave us with the flexibility to compete with a modest payroll while it clearly strengthens other deficiencies in our ballclub’ –yeah, thats it. It’s gold Jerry, gold. Meanwhile we’ll try to con the city of Miami into building us a ballpark or else these types of trades will continue to happen until we relocate.”
All up to speed?
It’d be a little more shocking if this wasn’t the case with this sorry franchise every year, but that’s how the Fish roll.
It pains me to say it, really it does, but it’s time to contract the Marlins.
Sure, this a franchise that has won two World Series championships in their 15 year existence, but those two feel-good teams are the only thing this franchise can look back and feel good about.
The fan base here has been completely alienated, ignored, betrayed and mocked. And I’m just talking about roughly 1,000 people. Everyone else is nonexistent. Nobody cares, and more importantly, no one is going to care.
South Florida is a veritable sports wasteland, and the nation knows it. Sure, the fans here will support a winner. It’s the fun and in thing to do, in a place that cares only about the fun and the in.
Don’t try to apply any sort of logic by thinking “Baseball is a sport adored by latin people, surely they’ll support baseball in Miami.” or “while Miami is a transient area filled with fans of other teams, there should still be interest in attending baseball games just to watch the sport” or “they’ve won two world championships!”
None of that matters, nobody cares.
You see, it’s not about building stadiums, or trading away players. Remember, Dolphin Stadium was empty with Cabrera and Willis, just as it would be without them. The fact is that baseball, neigh, sports in this town just don’t work. It’s not a good fit. For every reason that one can think of as to why it should work, there are more reasons why it doesn’t.
The proof is in the pudding.
So Marlins, go ahead and trade the last two marketable players on the team, and try to find anyone to show up on a Thursday afternoon against the Pirates.
Go ahead and try to spin the sleaziness and arrogance that festers from the very top of your organization on down into a positive.
Go ahead and threaten to relocate if they don’t build a stadium for you.
But most importantly…
Don’t forget to shut the lights when you leave.
