Marlins; throwing in the towel

[Salukifan2]

Just saw this on sports illustrated

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mul...sct=mlb_bf4_a5

It's really awe-inspiring to think a team was allowed to so obviously give up on its city and fans like this.

The only move that was fresh in my mind was the mega deal with the jays but that really only scraped the surface. All the deals the Marlins have made in the last six months are completely absurd when you look back on it.

[Larkin88]

Originally Posted by Brittingham.Sam

All the deals the Marlins have made in the last six months are completely absurd when you look back on it.

Unless you are Loria and you just had a city mostly foot the bill on a new stadium that has, in part, already tripled the worth of the franchise over what you paid for it.

The guy is a total scumball and MLB would do well to bar him from doing business in the sport again. But that's the unfortunate rub here. Almost the best thing that could happen to Loria at this point would be he is forced to sale the team and laughs his way to the bank.

He absolutely took advantage of a city and sold an entire franchise up the river. Marlins fans deserve better. Expos fans deserved better. Baseball deserves better.

[improbus]

Loria's big mistake was abandoning their typical business model and investing a bunch of money on big name free agents. I understand why he did it. He was trying to follow the Miami Heat model by bringing in big names. But, baseball just doesn't work that way. No one player has that kind of pull (unless they are doing something absolutely historic).

What is Loria and Marlins management supposed to think when they are 31-23, coming home from a successful road trip, and there are 8,000 empty seats? They drew the smallest crowd ever for a first year stadium in the new stadium era. The Marlins were staring at massive financial losses (remember, Loria did pay 160 million into the stadium).

So, when the team goes in the tank and the fans stop coming in large numbers, what was he supposed to do? They were in a terrible position. Loria couldn't come out and complain about the fans not showing up. I'm not sure what people wanted hm to do?

[Larkin88]

Originally Posted by improbus

Loria's big mistake was abandoning their typical business model and investing a bunch of money on big name free agents. I understand why he did it. He was trying to follow the Miami Heat model by bringing in big names. But, baseball just doesn't work that way. No one player has that kind of pull (unless they are doing something absolutely historic).

You are correct that some of their signings were dumb or high-risk at best. But you seem to want to imply that his business model wasn't mistaken to begin with. And that depends on what you see as acceptable motives.

Building the value of your franchise fiscally, or building a competitive product for your fans that they are proud to get behind. And to what degree you do each.

What is Loria and Marlins management supposed to think when they are 31-23, coming home from a successful road trip, and there are 8,000 empty seats? They drew the smallest crowd ever for a first year stadium in the new stadium era.

Loria and his executive team more than all people knew what the precedent for attendance should have been. People who have achieved his level of business success don't make these decisions without running business case simulations and Monte Carlos to understand what they are getting into.

For a new stadium, Marlins Park was very small from a capacity standpoint. (third-smallest stadium in baseballl by official capacity, and the smallest by actual capacity) They didn't build it that way by happenstance. Yeah' the Marlins were close to 20th in the league for total attendance last year, but they were also about 10th in the league for he percentage of the stadium that was occupied. To expect Miami to become a baseball hotbed overnight when it never has been would have been foolish. And I give Loria more begrudged credit than to think he expected that to change in the course of one off-season, whether they were towing lines about 3,000,000 total attendance or not.

If you are going to make the commitment to your city that you're bringing in players to help win, either honor that commitment come ran or shine, or don't be surprised when people are historically betrayed by your actions.

I don't mean to sound like I'm wearing a tin foil hat or overly cynical, but what we saw over the last five years were calculated moves made to make money. Not to field a competitive team or build a relationship with fans. This is not to imply mere ownership of a team isn't profitable to begin with in most cases. But that the sole pursuit of this profit is greatly more important than filling a tacit obligation to fans to not run a point of civic pride into the ground for personal gain.

Do you think free agents are going to go to Miami ever again? Or that teams will have reasonable flexibility with trades going forward? Pujols might have been the smartest guy in baseball last off-season to have smelled the rotten core of Loria's plans when he wouldn't offer trade protection to any of the free agents he brought in.

Even if Loria overextended or muffed on his decision making the last few years, he basically used any credibility the team had with its city as his get out of jail free card. Was not taking your probably deserved lumps for one year on an investment that has made $300 million (franchise value) since you bought it worth destroying baseball in a city, perhaps irreparably?

I guess that's where there is room for disagreement.

[joshua]

Florida has never done well supporting sports. Look at how successful the Rays have been compared to how many they draw in.

Hell, the easiest sport to fill a stadium is college football, as you have a built in base of rabid students to bring to your stadium. The Hurricanes have been at the very least a respectable team since the 80's. They still struggle to draw fans and don't even have their own stadium! That tells you all you need to really know. Drawing sellout crowds for the Marlins would either take half a decade of playoffs with a couple WS wins or a complete overhaul of the culture there in regards to their attitude toward sports...and probably an owner that wasn't an opportunistic thief in bed with the commissioner. Remember how the Expos weren't allowed to expand rosters?