Batter up: Florida Marlins

It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a team who you know fully well won't win. This season, in honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things about each Major League Baseball team. At bat: The Florida Marlins.

1. Cynics would suggest that playing up the five aces — Josh Johnson, Andrew Miller, Ricky Nolasco, Anibal Sanchez and Chris Volstad — is good marketing for the Marlins. The irrationale in saying that is that there is no knowing what owner like Jeffrey Loria and team president David Samson, will dream up to irritate slugging shortstop Hanley Ramírez.
   
   Ramírez is signed through 2014. It's tempting to snark off that at least the team he'll be traded to will have some cost certainty.
   
   
2. Jeffrey Loria bought his way into baseball for only $15 million (all terms US) in 1999 and is now getting a big honking stadium that is slated to cost $515 million. All this for someone who's worse for baseball than the big-spending Yankees.
   
   
3. The Marlins basically are the Harry Sinden-era Boston Bruins: "Championships cost too much." An 84-77 record in 2008 from an organization ranked as the second-worst in baseball is a triumph of smarts and, well, the human spirit. Having 17 games against the Washington Nationals certainly helps too (the Marlins went 14-3 in the Loria Cup).
   
   
4. The NL East is the shortstop division: Ramírez, the Mets' José Reyes, the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins and Washington's Cristian Guzmán are ranked 1-2-3-4 in The Beep's pre-season projections. There is a big drop-off after the first guy.
   
   
5. Centrefielder Cameron Maybin (pictured) is a pretty good bet for rookie of the year. The Marlins' account is overdrawn, though, since the past five seasons have shown that Arizona's Brandon Webb would have been a better pick than Dontrelle Willis in 2003.
   
   
6. One big X factor is how well switch-hitting Emilio Bonifacio and Maybin work out as the table-setters. Each has speed to burn, for what's that's worth, but you know how that chapter ends ... Ramírez, Dan Uggla, Jorge Cantu and Cody Ross (22 homers last season, albeit 10 in one month alone) are decent middle of the order.
   
   
7. The Marlins should get credit for putting out a decent team when they have no extended market outside their home city. The Jays, for instance, can pull in fans from all over Ontario; Miami's surrounded by water on three sides.
   
   
8. Copying the Yankees' ban on longish hair and jewelry would have been stupid even if Ramirez had been OK with it (which he wasn't, as you know). The Marlins don't need to follow the Yankees' lead. They have actually won a World Series this millennium.
   
   
9. Their over/under for victories is 76. The over is doable.
   
   
10. The Marlins won the World Series six seasons ago and won six seasons prior to that, and at least one person who might not be that serious is taking them to do it again.
    
    
11. Johnson, who lost a season and a half to elbow surgery, had a 3.61 ERA and 1.35 WHIP in 14 starts last season. The ERA would have been lower with some better fielding behind time.
    
    
12. Ricky Nolasco, who is getting some all-star buzz after posting a 3.52 ERA and 186 strikeouts in his first full season, came to Florida in a 3-for-1 trade with the Cubs. Juan Pierre was the one going the other way, so score that for the Fish.
    
    
13. New closer Matt Lindstrom will not miss Opening Day, after all.
    
    
14. Marlins GM Larry Beinfest runs the team brilliant on a shoe string, which raises the question of what he would do with a franchise which wasn't first, second and 99th about wringing out every last dollar of profit. Thing is, he's been in his position seven years and no one has snapped him up.
    
    
15. No one asked, but third baseman Emilio Bonifacio (5-foot-11, 180 lbs.) would seem to fit the profile of a second baseman better than Dan Uggla (listed at 5-11, 200) and vice versa. That being said, the Marlins, according to The Beep, went from being one of the worst fielding teams in 2007 to one of the better ones in 2008.
    
    
16. And that being said, save your breath trying to convince anyone Uggla has a decent glove at second base after he made those three errors in that mid-season exhibition game last July at Yankee Stadium.
    
    
17. It's quite amazing manager Fredi Gonzalez didn't get fined for joking, "We didn't get Bonds?" when the Marlins had to pick up an extra lefty hitter.
    
    
18. They signed Ross Gload to be their lefty bat off the bench. He's not quite Barry Bonds.
    
    
19. Wait, outfielder Jeremy Hermida also hits left-handed. His name has been strangely absent from the pre-season forecasts. That's what happens when you drop by 140 points in on-base-plus-slugging.
    
    
20. Catcher Matt Treanor, the spouse of beach volleyball star Misty May, was traded to Detroit, which has far fewer beaches than Miami.
    
    
21. Blue Jays pitching coach Brad Arnsberg doesn't wear the ring he got from Loria and Samson after they fired him in 2003 and the Marlins went on to win the World Series:

    "The only thing it has ever been out of its case for is my kids took it to Show and Tell when they were younger. I would never wear it. I would wear minor-league rings before I'd ever wear anything that those people were surrounded by. I have a gun safe where I keep my important paperwork, but I would never think about putting that ring in because if I lost it, it wouldn't bother me." — Palm Beach Post

22. The all-Dickensian name team would have to include Florida farmhand Brett Sinkbeil, who does throw a sinkerball.
    
    
23. Uggla's last name means "owl" in Sweden. By the way, Sager is a Swedish verb for "says." You can learn amazing things if you download How I Met Your Mother episodes with foreign subtitles.
    
    Opening Day in the Swedish Elitserien baseball league is April 25, incidentally.
    
    
24. Ramírez, as pro athletes tend to do, named his first-born son Hanley Jr., but here's hoping his younger son, Hansel, makes the majors just so some announcer in 2032 can say, "That Hansel, he's so hot right now."
    
    
25. The post-season is probably a year away.
    

Bad things do happen to good people...

Jeffrey Loria is getting his baseball stadium in Miami, that doesn't mean you have to like it. You can still stick in his craw and make him sick as a dog.

The rich are very different. Some people might have taken it personally if a judge told the local government they were big idiots for wanting to go in on the $634-million project, or if they were basically considered the worst thing to happen to baseball since George Will. Not ol' Jeff, though. He persevered. All it took was ruining one franchise in Montréal and running one in Florida on a shoestring.

Loria has basically lived like one of Ronald Reagan's welfare queens the entire time he has operated in South Florida. He paid $143 million for the Marlins after MLB took the burned-out rubble of the Montreal Expos off his hands and it's now worth $256 million, thanks largely to the fact he pockets revenue sharing instead of spending it on quality players. This actually violates the spirit and the letter of the collective bargaining agreement, since that money is supposed to be invested in players.

Meantime, there's nothing objectively wrong with taxpayer dollars going toward a sports stadium. It is essentially an open bidding process, since if a city doesn't play ball, the team leaves. That isn't the case here, since there really isn't any other city in the U.S. that has its act together enough to go after a major-league team. (Portland, Oregon? Las Vegas? San Antonio? Meh.) The politicians in Miami and south Florida didn't have to do this, but they did anyway, and a bad dude was rewarded. But hey, it's business; you can't damn people without souls.

Related:
Play ball: Miami-Dade agrees to pay share of Florida Marlins stadium (Miami Herald)

Zen Dayley: Jeffrey Loria's favourite film of 2008? Slumdog Millionaire, just for the title

A few people have succeeded where others -- guilty as charged! -- failed when it comes to separating the emotional from the rational with the Yankees' holiday spending spree.

A gut feeling after the Mark Teixeira signing last week was the Yankees are not the problem in baseball. They're not even a problem. The simplest explanation is usually the best. One franchise just spent $423.5 million on contracts for a left-handed pitcher with a weight problem, an oft-injured right-handed starter and a first baseman whose stats makes seamheads salivate but doesn't have great name recognition. You try passing up the chance to do a big Bollywood dance number across Hank Steinbrenner's face. His team has the four highest-paid players in the sport's history, at least until the Dodgers get around to signing Manny Ramirez.

Fortunately, others are made of stronger stuff. Dan Szymborski wrote a provocative piece on the day of at Baseball Think Factory saying what the Yankees are doing is good for baseball. His point, along with that of a chap named Eno Sarris, is that what's far worse for baseball are the owners who take their revenue-sharing money and don't spend it on developing players or signing them. This includes owners such as Kevin McClatchy with the pointless Pittsburgh Pirates and, guess who, Jeffrey Loria with the Florida Marlins.

You could call those owners slumdog millionaires. It's really a more apt analogy for the Tampa Bay Rays -- like the main character in the movie of the same name, no one can believe a team just up from the gutter could have the answers to so many questions (but they do; Jonah Keri, in fact, is writing a book about the Rays, and let's just say as an Expos fan, he's uniquely deserving).

One truth that has been driven home is how people seem blind to the fact baseball is flush financially. It was a $1-billion industry in 1993 when the Blue Jays were baseball royalty. It is north of $6 billion now, although you won't see that truth reflected in a column originating out of the centre of universe any time soon. The lone Canadian team has not tapped that root (and when we getting the MLB Network in Canada, by the way?).

Baseball has its McMansion teams, who would rather have the big shiny things than worry about the greater good. The perception that the deck is stacked in this sport is furthered when you have teams that, God bless them, just don't feel like using their cut of revenue sharing to sign high-dollar talent. As Szymborski put it:

"Yes, the Yankees got a huge, undeserved payday from the locals for their stadium, like most teams in baseball did, but it's a mitigating factor that they're actually plowing those funds back into the on-field product. And the team never threatened to not compete until they got their sweet check. Perhaps a small difference, but I see it as a good bit more ethical than Kevin McClatchy demanding taxpayer moneys to help the Pirates compete and then turn around and use all the money to fund his failing media empire."

Sarris spells out in the case of the man who drove the final nails into the Expos' coffin:

"Jeffery Loria bought the Marlins for $143 million after selling the Expos to (MLB) for $120 million. After receiving between $20 and $30 million a year in revenue sharing and having the lowest payroll in baseball, the Marlins are now valued at $244 million. That’s a tidy profit for a man that is claiming that he can’t make money in South Florida without a new stadium. In fact, those revenue-sharing amounts were often larger than the Marlins’ payrolls.

"... the Marlins use a pump-and-dump system to give youngsters playing time, pump up their value, and trade them away for more youngsters in the hope that at some point all their cheap youngsters peak together and win them another championship. While this has worked for the Marlins, the fact that they are hoarding their revenue-sharing money, costs veteran players real money, narrows the field for prospective free agents, and adds to the perception of baseball as being a league of haves and have-nots. No, it’s not the Yankees hurting baseball, it’s the Marlins and Jeffrey Loria."

Fair enough. Saying fair enough, but trying following a team such as the Jays who are in a division with the Yankees, not the New York Mets, the Diet Coke of evil empires, is only the emotion talking. Having the promise of 162 games from spread out from spring until fall, well, can be thin cruel by times. One wonders how well baseball is off in the long run if you have core fans who, like myself, have severed any connection between their rooting interest and the post-season. Since baseball is a sport that's more for hardcores than for casual fans (they have the NFL) and the regular season is the big moneymaker, it will probably be fine. So it goes.

This that and the other

• Taken together, it's too funny that the Jays picked up catcher Michael Barrett (an OK acquisition), who was a backup in San Diego for the past season and a half at the same time the Red Sox were honing on the Padres' former starting catcher, Paul Bard. Bard's a good catcher, he
  
  One would hope that if the Red Sox jettison Jason Varitek, it leads to Canadian George Kottaras.becoming their backup catcher. Someone The Red Sox need someone to catch the bad man with the knuckleball, Tim Wakefield. Kottaras caught Charlie Zink's knucklers in Pawtucket all last season.
• Mike Maroth is a ho-hum signing. A left-hander with a high home run rate and a low strikeout rate. His biggest comparable is Mark Hendrickson. Remember him?
  
• Erik Bedard might be ready for the start of the season.
  
• Signing Derek Lowe would make the Mets the team to beat in the NL East.
• The Orioles really -- really? -- are interested in righty-swinging (not righty-hitting) Richie Sexson, last seen putting up a .221/.321/.382 batting line for two teams last season.
• Once upon a time, the Jays had their Drive of '85. The National League West next season will have the Drive For 85, since that's probably how many wins it will take to finish first. Jeepers.
  

Related:
The Marlins, not the Yankees, are killing baseball (Eno Sarris, At The Dish; via ShysterBall)

Zen Dayley: Teixeira signing brings out everyone's inner Mark-sist

Feel free to call the Yankees signing Mark Teixeira the first shot in baseball's War of 2012.

That is alarmist and hacky, using the war metaphor, granted. The Yankees now have the four highest-paid players in the history of baseball -- two heavy-hitting corner infielders, a lights-out left-handed starter, and a singles-hitting shortstop with limited fielding range. Will Leitch has dubbed them the "Fantastically Overpaid Four."

Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is calling for a salary cap. One wonders why Red Sox owner John Henry would resist jumping on the populist bandwagon, if only for show. The Sox have reached their ceiling in revenues, have no plans to replace Fenway Park and are have said they will not raise their sky-high ticket prices. They have three teams in their market -- the conference-leading Bruins in the NHL, the NBA-leading Celtics and the Super Bowl runner-up Patriots -- who are flourishing in leagues with salary caps. The optics are irresistible; so's the money.

One has to think, with the doom and gloom shrouding the U.S. economy, and the knowledge that the three biggest general strikes the game has seen -- 1972, '81 and '94 -- each came during recessionary periods in the U.S., that there will be some fireworks after the current CBA runs out after the 2011 season.

No one can predict how it might shake out. The 1994-95 strike, which ultimately drove a huge nail in the Montreal Expos' coffin and killed off a lot of fan interest in the Blue Jays, was not players vs. owners. It was owners vs. owners -- Milwaukee, Minnesota and Kansas City vs. New York. Since then, the Yankees have made the playoffs in 13 of 14 seasons and have spent more money in the past two weeks than some teams are worth. How does it not come to a head, unless there are Jeffrey Loria types who like taking money from revenue sharing every year?

It is important to separate an informed view from a personal opinion. It says here that baseball needs the three R's -- revenue sharing, a revised schedule (i.e., balanced) and realignment, where the most profitable teams are grouped together in the same division. Salary caps are too simplistic by half, but what we've seen in the past two weeks is out of whack.

It probably will come down to whether the less profitable teams band together and if the McMansion teams -- Phillies, Mets, Cubs, Angels -- realize, as their front offices have, that they're not going to beat the Yankees by being more like the Yankees. The Red Sox have taken that to heart -- they're all about plowing their massive revenues back into player development, or using it to sign players from the Pacific Rim.

Those franchises might have to lead the way on any restructuring that will hold the Yankees' checkbook in check. It is amusing that everyone was cool with all of this up until yesterday and then turned into Linda McQuaig, but it seems like something has to give.

Here's a collection of thoughts on the signing:

Maury Brown, The Biz of Baseball: "The biggest catalyst for the spending involves how the latest CBA is structured as it pertains to new stadium development. Clubs may write off a portion of their revenue-sharing obligation by deducting bond payments and maintenance costs. By cutting those costs, at a 31 percent rate that is assigned the Yankees as part of the CBA, they are sheltering a sizable chunk of change.

"... the biggest loophole for the Yankees involves the tax-exempt bonds issued to build new Yankee Stadium. Nearly all of the $967 million in bonds that have been issued are tax exempt. To add more salt to the taxpayers’ wounds, the club is looking for an additional $259 million in bonds, all tax-exempt, as well."

Neil deMause, author of Field of Schemes, in an interview published Monday, had more to say on the Yankees' billion-dollar boondoggle: "I guess if the Yanks take their boodle and plow it into enough player salaries, the other teams might see a bit of money trickling down via the luxury tax. I can’t see that that will make up for the effect of giving the Yanks even more financial firepower to sign free agents, though. Add in that the other 29 teams are themselves kicking in more than $200 million toward the New York stadiums -- by allowing the Mets and Yanks to deduct stadium costs from revenue sharing -- and it's hard to see how this benefits anyone but the Steinbrenners and Wilpons.

"... I don’t think anyone in MLB seriously thinks they can bring the Yankees down to earth. Several years ago (commissioner Bud) Selig threatened to audit the Yankees for underpaying themselves for TV rights - which they’re almost certainly doing, to avoid revenue-sharing payments - but so far as anyone knows he never followed through.

"From a financial perspective, it's good for all the teams when one of them gets richer, even the Yankees. On the field, it’s not so hot -- though given recent history, being richer hasn't exactly made the Yanks world-beaters."

Roy Firestone of HDNet raised some similar points on MLB Home Plate's Inside Pitch this afternoon. The gist of it was:

• "People having opt-outs, that should be illegal. It's not fair to the fans, first and foremost."
• There is the spectre of three to four teams facing bankruptcy within the next few years.
• The "one story no one seems to be looking at" is the loss of advertising revenue from the auto industry, which far and away is baseball's No. 1 advertiser. The Yankees just lost a sponsorship deal with General Motors.
• "I'm telling you that ad revenue for television is going to reduced dramatically in the next 6-8 months ... I think that we're looking at a collision course, a kind of baseball armageddon."
• Firestone noted it's come to the point where some franchises, such as Baltimore and Kansas City can't even have one marketable star. Think back to the American League in the late 1980s. Cal Ripken Jr. played in Baltimore. Kirby Puckett was in Minnesota. Ken Griffey Jr. was in Seattle. Kansas City had George Brett. Milwaukee had Robin Yount and Paul Molitor -- people you looked forward to visits to your team's city. That isn't there for the casual fan so much anymore.
  
• "I believe there should be a salary cap, I believe people should push for it and I'm a pro-union guy ... the money's not the issues, it's the players having the entitlements, the opt-outs, and by the time you look up, you have four players on one team making $88 million, which is more than most teams."
  

Phil Sheridan, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Baseball economics always have been bad for competitive balance, but this Yankees spree is the worst ever because of real-world economics. It just smells bad. New York signed arguably the top two pitchers and the best slugger on the market. The Yanks, bidding against no other team, simply threw tens of millions of extra dollars at Sabathia."

Wallace Matthews, Newsday: "... no one could have imagined the kind of shameless shopping spree the Yankees have been on this month — $167 million for CC Sabathia, $82.5 million A.J. Burnett and now, a reported $180 million for Teixeira — at a time when more than 10 million Americans are out of work and another 4 million might join them in 2009.

"But no matter. Those 4 million out of work will be offset by another 4 million, the ones who can still afford to pay their way into the new Yankee Stadium. And the luxury boxes, averaging a half-million dollars a pop, are at 100-percent capacity, scarfed up by those corporations who can still afford such luxuries, even if they have to use your tax money and mine to pay for them."

Roch Kubatko, Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (which covers the Orioles): "The teams that worked the hardest in terms of changing their proposals and pressing agent Scott Boras -- the Red Sox, Nationals and Angels -- ended up with nothing."

Washington Times: "After 2011, the players union and team owners must hash out a new collective bargaining agreement. And it could get ugly, as we're already hearing some owners, including the Brewers' Mark Attanasio, push for a salary cap. League officials and the player' union will probably point to the current system as creating good competitive balance and strong revenue sharing, despite the Yankees free-spending ways."

(Aren't symposiums just a way of masking one's lack of original insight on a topic? Bingo.)

Related:
Brewers Owner Suggests Salary Cap After Yankees Spree (Bloomberg News)

Zen Dayley: Judge Jeri smacks Jeffrey Loria with a fresh-caught marlin

You can keep Tina Fey -- this is the sharpest woman in America over the past week to 10 days.

The invaluable ShysterBall linked to an article about the ruling Judge Jeri Beth Cohen handed down in the Florida Marlins stadium lawsuit. As you know, the court denied the claim that it would be unconstitutional, based on the rather broad term "public purpose," to use taxpayer money to build a stadium for Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria.

That's the end-of-story for most people, even though Loria is the gentle soul who took the hammer from Claude Brochu and drove the final nails into the Montreal Expos' coffin. There's no objectivity here.

Cohen's written ruling, though, is a multilayered masterpiece. In not so many words, yet in language that upholds jurisprudence (granted, it's Florida, it wouldn't take much), she basically calls the city of Miami a bunch of big idiots for wanting to having anything to do with the Marlins, let alone drop $500 million on a stadium for a crappy baseball club run by jerks.

It's fun to picture Loria, after hearing the verdict read in court: "But you're not saying I can't have the stadium, right?"

This is very narrow reading by someone who still rues the day, Sept. 28, 2004, that the Expos died. On a more marco level, Judge Jeri's ruling is a must-read for anyone who hates the idea of big-league sports franchises that are practically a licence to print money receiving corporate welfare (although if you're going to project bile toward the filthy rich, there's are better targets this week).

It's a good idea to bookmark that article for easy consultation the next time a smooth sports operator starts talking about all the benefits that will accrue to a community if it builds a big sports arena -- like a 30,000-seat stadium for Major League Soccer, just to give a random example.

"There is no evidence in the record that the building of a stadium in Little Havana will increase attendance and, thereby, promote social cohesion. Simply put, no one will know whether a new retractable roof stadium will increase attendance... until it is built."

Line by line, Judge Jeri -- bearing in mind, this in a civil court, where the judge is supposed to soften the blow for the winning and losing sides -- just basically slams the city of Miami for wanting to hop into bed with Loria. She flat-out alls it "a sweet deal" for Loria and the Marlins and pretty much says, hey, the bozos who run this city are giving these clowns a stadium rent-free, but insofar as upholding the state constitution goes, "the court does not find it relevant."

In other words, it's not her job to make policy, but simply belittle the city officials who think they're progressive and pro-growth instead of simply stupid.

"... This court is well aware that more citizens may be opposed to the building of the stadium, even to retain the Marlins in Miami, than in favor of building the stadium. These considerations, however, may not sway this court..." (emphasis mine)

Really, that's a huge burn -- Jeffrey Loria can get his stadium, but it's been made perfectly clear that he's only getting through the idiocy of the powers-that-be in South Florida. The people in Miami didn't ask for Loria as owner, and it's not even clear that they're asking to keep the Marlins, but hey, it's not Judge Jeri's problem, nor should it be.

She simply hit her target with impeccable wit and timing. That's high comedy.

Should-be-aware-ofs

• The Rays' big win over the Red Sox, 10-3, might very well have wrapped up the AL East a week-and-a-half early. Much is will be made of the fact that the Red Sox are staring at a first-round matchup against the L.A. Angels, whom they're 1-8 against this season.
  
  The whole idea that two teams from the same division can't meet in the first round should be dumped. The Red Sox will have a better record than the AL Central winner, so why are they facing the No. 1 seed? (And why are baseball fans reduced to using basketball and football lingo like No. 1 seed?)
  
  The Red Sox finish their year 1-8 at Tropicana Field -- which is coincidentally their record against the Angels, whom they might end up facing in the first round of the playoffs.
• Jonah Keri's look at the whole notion of who knows how to win is worth a look-see, especially since there's a couple playoff spots (NL East, NL wild-card, AL Central) that no one wants to claim.

  Each baseball game contains so many random events that, with an eighth of an inch here or a fluke hop there, it could just as easily go the other way. The Twins have had a huge number of those random events go against them lately, just as they had many go in their favor earlier this year. The Twins now are what they have been all year: a talented team that might be a player away from winning a division title. The dice have just come up snake eyes a lot more often lately.

• MLB Trade Rumors passed along word that the Seattle Mariners might cut Erik Bedard (or "non-tender" him) after the season. Bedard's fall from grace has probably not been that sudden for people who understand PitchFx data.
• Ichiro Suzuki made it eight straight seasons with 200 hits tonight. Does anyone still care who leads the league in hits?
• Former Ottawa Lynx pitcher J.A. Happ got his first major-league win tonight.

Damn, the Jays

• The shock of J.P. Ricciardi likely coming back as GM, let's just say it hasn't fully metatashized.
  
  Walk Off Walk, for what it's worth, said that by the time interleague play rolls around next June, "J.P. Ricciardi should be building a contender with the Brockton Rox."
  
  On Ricciardi's Jays Talk appearance tonight was that the Jays are going to seek an "upgrade" at shortstop. Before the end of the show, he said the Jays were "happy with (Marco) Scutaro and Johnny Mac (McGlovin)."
  
  The free-agent crop for shortstops is pretty thin. The second thing Ricciardi said might actually make more sense.
• This actually happened: Alex Rios slammed a go-ahead home run vs. the Orioles tonight on the first pitch after a streaker interrupted the game by running on to the field.
  
  On the radio, Jerry Howarth joked, "You had to figure that might happen with Rocky Cherry pitching," which was a rather involved reference to Wild Cherry (You Sexy Thing, get it). It put the Jays ahead for the first time after being down 6-0...

  Rod Black: We've seen it all tonight.
  Pat Tabler: Unfortunately.

• Matt Stairs hit his first homer for the Phillies tonight. He's had just 11 plate appearances since the trade at the end of August, which of course raises the question whether the 2009 World Baseball Classic will be his valedictory.
• How about Mike Wilner citing the fact that Derek Jeter is a three-time Gold Glover? Unheard of.

Zen Dayley: 589 reasons why Jeffrey Loria is ...

Laughing like a hyena over the Florida Marlins had a crowd of less than 600 for an afternoon game is just a little reactionary.

Just listen to the excuses. It was a day game. It was too hot out (90 degrees and humid). The Marlins play in a football stadium that is terrible for baseball. They're fading out of the playoff race. They would get more fans out -- maybe even like 3,000 -- if they got a new ballpark. (Even the U.S. economy going into a nosedive won't stop politicians who want to build big shiny things, and all off the pro-stadium pols in Miami did get re-elected.)

All of that is true, of course, but excuses are like what the common anatomical comparison for Jeffrey Loria and David Samson, the Marlins owners. There's some poetic irony that has to be pointed out.

When Loria/Samson (and Claude Brochu) was chasing away whatever portion of the Montreal Expos' fanbase that hadn't been killed off by Quebec politics and a 65-cent Canadian dollar, no one wanted to hear about any extenuating circumstances. Small crowds at the Big Owe (did you hear the Habs might play a game there?) were proof that Canadians Didn't Get It.

It's long past time to still be bitter about what happened to the Expos. It bears pointing out how it's a different story when it's in an American city. The Marlins, whom Loria/Samson got in a sweetheart deal, have games where the number of bodies in the stands doesn't crack four digits.

This summer, there has scarcely been a day that goes by when you don't read about the Washington Nationals having poor attendance (13th in the NL, despite a $600 million ballpark) or dismal ratings for local radio and TV broadcasts (although those are not the most rock-solid metrics). Four years on, the Nationals will finish with a worse record than the Expos did in their final season, 2004. (They were mathematically eliminated yesterday.)

The saddest part is you won't hear a peep out of anyone in Canada. Someone should point out that Loria, Samson, Bud Selig and MLB wanted to solve their problem in Quebec, and created problems in Washington, D.C., and South Florida. It's hard to see what basis there is to believe either locale will ever yield a team that's in the top half of MLB teams in revenues. That won't stop them from working harder than they ever did for Montreal, which once had a five-year run where it was in the top third in the NL in attendance. Washington, D.C., will get second chance after second chance. Miami, Fla., will get a new ballpark.

The MLB mafia is getting their just desserts, served to them in luxury boxes.

(Link via ShysterBall.)

Errata

• It's a little funny that baseball finally just got instant replay when it was talked about as far back as 1985. (That link is to a Bob Uecker appearance on The Tonight Show when Johnny was still in his prime and wasn't marking time for heir apparent Jay Leno David Letterman.
• No no-hitter for CC Sabathia, but you knew that already.
• Thank god the comedy trope that "Pedro Alvarez is Spanish for J.D. Drew" is passe.
  
  Drew, as far as a lot of people are concerned, came into the majors with two strikes against him because he wouldn't go to the team who drafted him. He's been a brilliant, if brittle, player at times. It doesn't matter one bit with people since he made such a bad first impression when he wouldn't go to the team who drafted him.
  
  Judging by the reactionary press Alvarez is getting in Scott Boras' spitting match with the Pittsburgh Pirates over whether Alvarez' contract is valid (shame on MLB for not having a drop-dead cutoff to get first-rounders signed and giving Boras an opening), he's going to have the mark of Cain on him. Some people, illogical and ignorant as it is, never forgot that Eric Lindros refused to go where he was told to go by the NHL, either.
• Attending a game at the new Nationals Park in Washington is an underwhelming experience. People could be just as bored and disappointed in Montreal, you know.

Damn, the Jays

• Paul Godfrey calling the first-place Rays an "aberration" makes you wonder if he keeps J.P. Ricciardi around as a cover for his own ignorance. The statheads knew as far back as the winter of '06-07 that Tampa Bay was going to be good
• A.J. Burnett as a Red Sock or a Yankee, which would be worse? By the way, there's talk, it's just talk, that the Jays could be the new home for Hideki Matsui. A left-handed hitting, gimp-kneed 35-year-old who "mix(es) torrid spells with periods of pointlessness" (Baseball Prospectus 2008, pg. 341) and can only play left field ... that's the perfect formula for how to retard Adam Lind and Travis Snider's development.
• The Triple-A dominoes are falling. The Syracuse Chiefs have told the Jays "it's not us, it's you," while the Buffalo Bisons are no longer with Cleveland. The Buffalo Blue Jays? It's probably going to happen.
• A little more concrete info on Chad Beck, the right-hander picked up in exchange for the Eck Factor: "A scout who saw him recently said he never really had a feel for a change-up or a split, but the scout liked his arm, liked the command of his fastball, liked the movement on his fastball.
  
  "From what I was told earlier in the year, he had only just begun to tinker with a split, a pitch that the organization thought might work for him given his arm angle.
  
  "He's done well as both a starter and a reliever, but it sounds like people seem to see him in the bullpen down the road."

Zen Dayley: the Nationals disgrace

First off, in the NL Central, who do you have -- the Cubs, with two Canadian starters, or the Brewers, with Canadians in the GM's office?

The Nationals disgrace

• Bless you, John Brattain, for suggesting a suitable fate for the Washington Nationals owners. As previously noted, imagine the nerve it takes to refuse to pay rent on a $611-million ballpark that you were given for free:

  "... the whole lot of them should be rounded up and stuffed into a time machine set to 1789 Paris when they knew how to deal with people like them. Since they may struggle with the language we'll send along some bilingual baseball fans from Quebec to help them adjust. Never forget, these are the ones who decry greedy players; the players only want to paid what their talents are worth to the game. The owners want to be paid even though insofar as the public good goes, they are completely worthless and do not wish to work for their money.
  
  "The major league cartels are out of control; they abuse their monopoly power to the detriment of society at large."

• Hey, a team that gave Cristian Guzman a two-year, $16-million extension has to find savings somewhere.
• Dan Steinberg's rebuttal to a Washington Post reader who complained about the paper's coverage of the last-place Nationals holds up very well, two weeks later. God, it would be nice if more newspapers addressed whiny readers head-on.

Other business

• Jorge Costales, a Miami accountant, has a good go-to blog for anyone who wants to keep current on what's happening with the Florida Marlins stadium. It's looking like Jeff Loria will get his wish.
• It's possible Reds super-prospect Jay Bruce really is Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees -- a middle-aged man in the body of someone much younger and stronger. He shrugged off his strong start due to a "small sample size." Now ShysterBall has noted that his at-bat music is an Electric Light Orchestra song that's eight years older than him.
• Please read this Poz post about Stan Musial. Even if the story is part urban legend, it's still true that Stan the Man never got ejected once in 3,026 career games. Supposedly, he also never cracked a bat, even though he hit 475 homers (but never hit 40 in a season).
• Again, it's the 25th anniversary of the Pine Tar Game. Can you imagine being at that game and having to explain what was happening to someone who'd never seen a baseball game in her life?

Damn, the Jays

• Jesse Litsch is riding the shuttle to Syracuse. It's not a stunner. The Beep did call Lil' Litschy "the right-handed Chacin" at the outset of this season.
• The skinny on Gustavo Pierre, the 16-year-old Dominican shortstop that the Jays just finished singing, is that he's a power bat who projects more as a third baseman or outfielder.
• Here's an excerpt from Jeff Pearlman's profile of former Syracuse/Toronto folk hero Sal Fasano that appears in the August issue of Reader's Digest. It might be in the Canadian edition (note: check a newstand). There are plenty of Quadruple-A players who paid the price for not paying the price during the Steroid Era -- last season's Lynx cleanup man Gary Burnham was probably a prime example.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

BATTER UP: FLORIDA MARLINS

It's staying light longer, the Leafs are all-but-eliminated ... that can mean only one thing: We'll soon see the first halter top of the season. OK, two things: It's almost baseball season, that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a team for six months, knowing full well they won't win. Here's a starting nine for the Florida Marlins.

1. Tough call: Say you're a fantasy baseball aficionado in a keeper league where you draft minor-leaguers for the future. What would you choose if it was a choice between centre-fielder Cameron Maybin opening the season in the minors or opening the door to find Cameron Diaz?
   
   On second thought, don't answer. Maybin is that good. Twenty-year-olds who put up a .304/.386/.493 hitting line in the Florida State League -- the magnet league for fast-tracking players -- are usually the real deal.
2. The Fish bite: Last season the call here was forthe Marlins to end up with something like a 72-90 or 73-89 record; they ended up 71-91. More of the same is in store for this season since the fielding and starting pitching -- Scott Olsen, really? -- remains in absentia.
3. Stocks are depleted: The Marlins have a great rep for developing players (for other teams, mostly), but they have only one player on Baseball Prospectus' Top 100 prospects list -- Maybin.
4. What a dimension, though: Marlins all-star Hanley Ramirez (pictured) hits like a young Dick Allen. He plays shortstop like Andy Dick, and about as funny.
   
   Ramirez is basically on the same track as his ex-teammate, Miguel Cabrera, as a helluva hitter who will have to move to another position sooner rather than later.
5. They'll score some runs: Ipso facto shortstop Ramirez, second baseman Dan Uggla and outfielders Jeremy Hermida and Josh Willingham half of a good National League lineup. That's about it.
6. No joking around: The manager of the Marlins' Triple-A team, Dean Treanor, used to be an undercover narc.
7. He doesn't spike, he just wears them: Backup catcher Matt Treanor definitely has a place on the Ray Knight All-Stars as pro athlete whose wife commands somewhat higher stature in her own sport. Treanor is married to Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Misty May. You know what she looks like, so no picture.
8. Recycling last year's preview: "They'll eventually have a new stadium -- probably around the same time the renovations on the Miami airport are finished. If there's a God in heaven, hopefully around that time Jeffrey Loria and David Samson will get what they deserve for breaking Expos fans hearts -- maybe something like the fate of Craig Kilborn and Jeremy Piven's characters in the final reel of Old School. It could be Samson driving his car off a bridge and landing on Loria as he fly-fishes in the river below, or vice-versa. Either way would be fine.
   
   "True, it is hard to imagine that a snooty art collector such as Jeffrey Loria enjoying the simple challenge of fly-fishing. It's not hard to imagine David Samson going fishing, although given his flair for public relations, he probably uses dynamite. "
9. Need-to-know: See above. The baseball industry is stronger in the wake of the Expos' demise and the greasy little franchise flip that Loria and Marlins-turned-Red Sox owner John Henry were part of six years ago, but that doesn't mean having to swallow it.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

BATTER UP: FLORIDA MARLINS

Counting down the seconds till Opening Day when life begins anew involves providing a "starting nine" for all 29 major-league teams plus any whose stadium used to be a hockey arena. Presenting: The Florida Marlins.

1. The feel-good story of last year: Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria and his stepson David Samson, who could probably give manure a bad name, wasted no time spoiling any good vibes after the Marlins went 80-82 with far and away the lowest payroll in the majors. They fired NL manager of the year Joe Girardi on the final day of the season, instead of doing the proper thing, which would have been buying him a private island in the Caribbean.
   
   Lately, Samson has been begrudging all-everything third baseman Miguel Cabrera winning his arbitration case, acting like a drama queen after he was a no-show for a promotional events. Then there was his pitiful display on a Florida radio show (as related at Deadspin) when a listener phoned in to call him out, "Please try not to be so derogatory toward women and lustful when you do the interview. I try to enjoy the show with my girl, and she's like, 'Oh, that Dave Samson, he's a real creep.' "
   
   Samson's response: "I will try to be slightly less lecherous for his girlfriend. And if he would like to bring her to my office, we could definitely talk about my lechery." He actually said that. What a wankoff.
2. Short run for the D-Train? One of the commenters at Batter's Box pointed out the other day that almost all of the pitchers whose first four seasons were similar to those of Marlins ace Dontrelle Willis (pictured) crapped out of baseball at an early age. It's scary to think disaster lurks for the charismatic 25-year-old, but then again, use of "comparables" predicted Pat Hentgen was done when the Jays brought him back in 2004.
3. Swing and a miss: One telltale sign that the mostly young Florida lineup might crash this season is their poor plate discipline. The Marlins drew the fewest walks in National League and had 1,249 strikeouts, fourth-worst in the NL. One of those you can get away with, two is very hard.
4. There's your goshdarn dance team: When you think about what the North American sportscape really needs right now, it probably isn't another incarnation of the Mermaids, baseball's one and only cheerleading squad. Don't even get us started on the various packs of "Ice Girls" who keep popping up in hockey arenas across North America, all doing the same routines a dance class of seven-year-olds could master, all set to the same dance hall remixes.
   
   Adding a dance team in baseball or hockey does make a strong statement: "Hey, look at us, we're second-rate entertainment!" Fans have also made strong statements like, "Sit down so I can watch the damn game!"*
   
   (UPDATE: The Texas Rangers want women to be represented on the playing field, having added a team of "ball girls." It's sponsored by a dating service.)
5. Jeffrey Loria and David Samson must die: Oh, you were expecting a punchline?
6. They have stars: Cabrera and second-years shortstop Hanley Ramírez will make someone a fine left side of the infield some day -- most likely in Boston, New York or L.A. after Loria and Samson run them off.
7. Retro Marlin: One doesn't need to know much about Chuck Carr (centre field, 1993-95) to nominate him for this honour. He won the National League stolen base title in the team's first season in '93, he was part of the only major-league ballclub to ever wear teal batting helmets, and that's enough. As a slap hitter who could run like a scalded dog and do little else, he was out of place in 1990s baseball, but c'est la vie.
8. Well, they 've earned it: The Marlins have been in the bottom three in NL attendance for eight years in a row -- hey, it's not like there's baseball-loving Cuban-American community or anything to tap into in Miami. (Oh, wait.) Nevertheless, the stugotses are closer than ever to shaking down the local politicians for a new stadium, even if it means tearing down the Orange Bowl.
9. Need-to-know: The Marlins are an exciting, young team, or would be if the owners hadn't gone and screwed it up. A 72-90 or 73-89 final record seems right.
   
   The Marlins' future in Florida seems set, though. They'll eventually have a new stadium -- probably around the same time the renovations on the Miami airport are finished. If there's a God in heaven, hopefully around that time Loria and Samson will get what they deserve for breaking Expos fans hearts -- maybe something like the fate of Craig Kilborn and Jeremy Piven's characters in the final reel of Old School. It could be Samson driving his car off a bridge and landing on Loria as he fly-fishes in the river below, or vice-versa. Either way would be fine.
   
   True, it is hard to imagine that a snooty art collector such as Jeffrey Loria enjoying the simple challenge of fly-fishing. It's not hard to imagine David Samson going fishing, although given his flair for public relations, he probably uses dynamite.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

(*For the record, cheerleading is fine as a gym class or competitive team activity as long as it's safe and taught correctly, since girls and young women generally respond to dance and movement better than any other physical activity. However, it does not belong in baseball and that is a scientific fact.)