Best Florida Marlins in History

This is the last season the Flordia Marlins will be playing at their current ballpark. In a few
games they will be playing their final home game at the football stadium they have called home since their existence since 1993. They are inviting former players from their short history including:

"Among others expected to attend are Charlie Hough, who threw the team’s first
pitch; Gary Sheffield(notes), Livan Hernandez(notes), Kevin Brown and Bobby
Bonilla, who played on the 1997 World Series championship team; and Luis
Castillo(notes), Mike Lowell(notes) and Ivan Rodriguez(notes), who played on the
2003 title team".

From the article I learned Mike Piazza played 5 games with the Marlins in 1998. This I did not know.

When I think of Marlin Greats I think of Hanley Ramirz, Dan Uggla, Miguel Cabera, Edgar Rentaria, all still playing. There are a few retired Marlins whom I was surprised are not mentioned as being invited. Even though Mike Lowell, Luis Castillo, Gary Sheffield, and Bobby Bonilla would be the best performers.

The face of the franchise (not of any current Marlins) has to be fan favorite Jeff Conine. He had two tours of duty with the team being one of the first players in franchise history playing from 1993-1997 and again from 2003-2005. He won a World Series rings with both Marlins' championship teams, and is the only player top be on both teams.

Other players they could have invited are Cliff Floyd, Preston Wilson, and Charles Johnson. He may not be a player, but they owe a lot to some guy name Steve Bartmen.

Stolen Goods: "Marlins execs funneled cash to themselves"

In another edition of "You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?," Yahoo Sportswriter Jeff Passan shows even further how corrupt the Jeff Loria ownership situation is (and sheds further light on how bad owners are abusing the fans to line their pockets).

I feel this article is so important, so crucial, so revealing, that it will be reproduced here in full and become the first non-sabermetrics post with the "Stolen Goods" tag. Without further adieu, Yahoo's best sports article ever:

Marlins execs funneled cash to themselves
By Jeff Passan

Florida Marlins president David Samson has perfected the art of doublespeak. Even after the mushroom cloud settled over the disclosure of financial statements that showed he and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria are indeed duplicitous, Samson couldn’t help himself. Lies are simply part of how the Marlins do business.

The latest came during Samson’s weekly radio appearance on The Dan LeBatard Show in Miami, during which he addressed Deadspin’s publication of the Marlins’ balance sheet. What Samson said was so provably false that it was akin to a 3-year-old trying to hide his peas under a pile of mashed potatoes.

“Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket,” Samson said.

So programmed is that statement in Samson’s head, he keeps repeating it, like a robot with a shorted circuit. He’s right. Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket.

He put millions.

On Page 34 of the documents, under the heading Note Y, is a transaction called “Management Fee.” A corporation named Double Play Company is listed as the Marlins’ managing general partner. The partner is paid a yearly sum. For the two years the documents cover, the fees were $2.6 million and $2.8 million. In 2009, the documents say, the fee was raised to $3.2 million.

Records from the Florida Division of Corporations show Double Play’s CEO is Jeffrey Loria. Its president is David Samson.

Of the six teams whose documents were leaked, only the Marlins have a management fee listed in their operating expenses.

Earlier in the balance sheet, under Note L, is a one-paragraph section called “Related Party Promissory Note.” It explains that the managing general partner made a number of loans to the team at 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent above the London Interbank Offered Rate – a particularly high interest rate for the current lending climate, according to two accountants who reviewed the Marlins’ financials. Over the past two years, the loans have paid Double Play $1.83 million and $1.19 million, respectively.

While the financial records of Double Play are unavailable because it is a private company, at least $8.42 million went to the managing general partner in the past two years. Though the documents do not show that Loria has taken a direct distribution of money as owner, it is undeniable that he plundered the team’s coffers as it received nearly $500 million in public funding for a new stadium and more than $75 million in revenue sharing from MLB.

Samson did not reply to a request for comment.

The ugliness of the ballpark debt was apparent long before the documents surfaced. To help fund the $634 million stadium complex, Miami-Dade County commissioners voted to secure more than $400 million in loans, most of which are loaded with balloon payments. The worst is a $91 million loan that will take $1.2 billion to pay off. By 2049, the county will have spent $2.4 billion to cover its portion of the stadium.

The anti-Marlins groundswell in South Florida continued Thursday when Miami mayor Tomas Regalado asked the city attorney to look into renegotiating a $100 million parking-facility contract for the stadium complex. Political backlash was a given after the Marlins’ refusal to release their financial records during the push for the new stadium.

For years, the Marlins cried poverty. Loria threatened to move the team from Florida. Despite several sources claiming the Marlins raked in money — Forbes’ annual valuations for the Marlins have proven extremely close to reality, and Miami-area accountant Jorge Costales has written incisively about Marlins finances — the county commissioners voted in December 2007 to pay for more than three-quarters of the stadium due open in 2012.

Samson claimed on LeBatard’s show that the tax dollars will come from tourism money devoted to sports and convention complexes. That is only half-true. To free the tourism-tax dollars, the county shifted general-use monies from property taxes to pay other debt. Take from one hand, give to the other and buy an owner worth hundreds of millions of dollars a new toy from which he reaps damn near every cent, all with the money of hardworking citizens.

This was avoidable, of course, had the county commissioners refused to approve a deal until they saw the Marlins’ financial statements. The management fee was an obvious red flag. How could Loria and Samson say they didn’t have enough money for a stadium when they were paying themselves? The loan was another red flag. Such revelations almost certainly would have given the commissioners pause about offering the breadth of public financing they did.

Loria refused transparency. He is an excellent businessman, and he knew the repercussions. In the end, the Marlins hoodwinked local politicians so caught up in the excitement of keeping the team in Miami, they forgot with whom they were dealing. When hundreds of millions of dollars are involved in anything, people are going to lie, and Loria and Samson made statement after misleading statement and got away with it.

“I never go back to regret what I do because I make decisions based on the information provided to me, my conscience and what is best for those I represent,” said Rebeca Sosa, one of the nine county commissioners who voted for the stadium funding against four opponents — including Regalado, now the mayor. “The situation and information I have today in my hand is different than the one I had before.

“I still support the Marlins stadium.”

How Sosa, or any commissioner who voted yes, could stand by a potential $2.4 billion of debt with a clear conscience is difficult to fathom. The Marlins are up to their old tricks, still pussyfooting their way around the facts. All those years the team had the lowest payroll in baseball, Samson claimed money went to hidden costs in running a ballclub. One of them, he told Sun-Sentinel columnist Dave Hyde, was marketing.

“Eight figures,” Samson said. He told The Miami Herald it was among the most in baseball.

In 2008, the Marlins spent $9.8 million on marketing, according to their balance sheet. The Tampa Bay Rays spent $23 million, the Pittsburgh Pirates $17.1 million, the Texas Rangers $16 million and the Los Angeles Angels $10 million. The only team to budget less among the six whose financials were leaked was the Seattle Mariners, whom the Marlins outspent by $11,000.

This isn’t a white lie here, a fib there. It is systemic. Marlins mislead, public follows. The balance sheet was a gift to Miami-Dade County taxpayers who deserve – and have deserved since the “yes” vote – to know how the team they were endowing is run.

The poor, poor Marlins had an operating profit of $48.9 million in 2008 and 2009, including $11.1 million last year, when they increased payroll and started paying off their stadium debt. Loria has already doubled his money on the Marlins – he bought the team for $158.5 million, including a $38.5 million interest-free loan, and it’s now worth $317 million, according to Forbes’ valuations – and the revenue streams from the new stadium should only increase that figure. A county hemorrhaging jobs funneled tax money to fund a stadium for a team with a reckless disregard for its community’s welfare.

The politicians can pursue recourse, and the fans can bellow, and it doesn’t change the reality that a $91 million loan to the county will take 39 years and $1.2 billion to pay off, and that Jeffrey Loria still owns the Florida Marlins with David Samson as his president, and that the retractable-roof stadium, the one that’s 40 percent done, was built on lies that never seem to end.

Marlins Agree To Be Less Cheap In The Future

Perhaps facing the prospect of MLB-imposed fines or Player's Union-filed grievances, the Marlins have come to an agreement to increase payroll.

You can read my extensive complaints about the cheapness that is Marlins' owner Jeff Loria here. Perhaps this saga will finally come to a positive conclusion; then I will set my sights on Mariners ownership.

The Marlins Need Matt Holliday

My disgust with Marlins owner Jeff Loria is well pronounced on this blog. The Marlins ownership is, to put it bluntly, both greedy and cheap. Yes, the Marlins have the lowest value of any MLB team and the smallest operating income to work with according to Forbes, but their revenue stream is almost identical to that of both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Kansas City Royals. The difference? Whereas the Royals spend approximately 49% of their revenue on player salaries last season and whereas the Pirates (another black hole of spending) spent approximately 1/3 of their revenue on player salaries (to be taken with a grain of salt, as the Pirates are rebuilding and in no position to contend for even a wild card berth, unlike the Marlins), the Florida Marlins spent a measly 26.5% of their revenue on player salaries. In case you missed my calculations from earlier this week, I will share them with you again (below, click to enlarge):



The major league average payroll as a percentage of revenue has fluctuated between 45% and 54% over the past six years. Only once (2005), did the Marlins surpass the league average payroll/revenue mark. In fact, in 2006, the Marlins' payroll as a percentage of revenue was 1/4th that of the league average -- a pathetic 12.6%.

Some may make the argument that Florida is a small market team with limited resources and a great scouting department which can afford to squeeze pennies left and right. There is some credence to this argument -- that is, to the extent that the Marlins' GM, Michael Hill, has a great eye for talent. However, unlike other small market teams who spend well under the league average payroll/revenue rate (ie, the Pittsburgh Pirates), the Marlins are in a key position to contend -- not for the NL East, of course, but for the Wild Card. In terms of WAR, the Marlins were a top four NL team with respect to offense last season (+19.6 WAR). And despite the fact that their combined pitching value of +14.1 WAR ranked bottom half of the league last season, they were within 5 WAR of a top 4 spot in pitching (a gap that could be bridged with a Matt Holliday-like player (a +5.7 or higher WAR player each of the last three seasons, including his injured 2008)). Collectively, the Marlins were a +33.7 WAR team last season. That made them the sixth best NL team, behind the Dodgers (+43.3 WAR), Rockies (+42.3 WAR), Braves (+41.3 WAR), Phillies (+40.8 WAR), and Cardinals (+38.1 WAR). Next season, it looks the Cardinals will lose Joel Pinero (+4.8 WAR) and perhaps even Matt Holliday (+2.7 WAR for the Cardinals) and the Rockies will lose the value that Jason Marquis (+3.8 WAR) provided them. With a smart FA addition (specifically Holliday and perhaps a Valverde-like player), the Marlins stand in a good position to be a top four NL team next season with the right additions. As Fangraphs pointed out earlier this month, "the composition of a team’s talent and their relation to their division opponents can have a pretty significant effect on their internal marginal value of a win. A win to the Rays is significantly more valuable than a win to the Astros because of the respective effect of that win on the odds of either team making the playoffs."

In other words, the Marlins are exactly the kind of team that should be spending some money on the Free Agency market. And yet, according to Nick Cafardo's latest piece "there’s no doubt the Marlins are planning another payroll dump and Uggla would appear to be at the center of it."

Yes, Uggla is about to get a little pricey (MLBTradeRumors thinks Uggla will get a raise somewhere in the $7 million range), but he is still a +3 WAR (or more, as Uggla's 2007 and 2009 BABIPs were well below his xBABIPs) player, making him worth $13+ million in terms of free agency expenditure to replace his contributions to the team. Rather than pinching the pennies, shipping Uggla out, and relying on Bonafacio (.303 OBP, -0.4 WAR last season) and Chris Coghlan (a quality player, +2.3 WAR in limited playing time last season) to fill the hole that Uggla's departure would leave, the Marlins should instead keep Uggla, use Coghlan as well, and collectively signing both Matt Holliday and Valverde for $20-22 million, finding ways to saving some salary elsewhere (such as non-tendering Cantu) and improving the team without dismantling the farm system or disassembling a quality 25-man roster. Especially since it's essentially a crap-shoot as to who wins the World Series once the playoffs begin (at least according to BP's book Baseball Between The Numbers).

However, in the words of Cafardo, "the Marlins, who receive a ton in revenue-sharing and central-fund money, are looking to keep their profit margin high." It's a sad, sad situation. Loria is committed to pocketing every dollar and forcing others to pay his expenses. Something needs to be done about the Marlins situation before Loria ruins an already limited (in terms of revenue, not profit) franchise. They have the money to spend and they are in a situation where they really should spend it.
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EDIT: I think Dan Szymborski said it best in his 2010 ZiPS projection for the Marlins: "The Marlins continuing to win 85-90 games relies on Beinfest and Hill continuing to spin straw into gold faster than Jeff Loria can give it away, which is a very difficult task."

The Marlins Are Cheap SOBs

As you may notice from the chart, the Marlin's payroll as a percentage of team revenue is less than 1/2 that of the rest of major league baseball. From 2004-2008, the Marlin's payroll increased from $103 million to $139 million (+35%), but the team payroll from 2005-2009 fell from $60 million to $36.8 million. Over these time frames, the Marlins' revenue averaged $127 million, while the follow season's average payroll was a mere $26 million. What's really sad is that in 2006, the Marlins' payroll was below the $15 million mark. And yet, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is forcing the state to subsidize the Marlin's new stadium (by threat of moving). It is outrageous that the city is being strong armed into funding approximately 75% of the $645 million it will cost to build the new stadium in Miami. By contrast, compare this data to that of the Chicago Cubs.

Thank you to TBO for reading me each team's revenue from 2003-2008. It made compiling this data one thousand times easier. It is VERY difficult to find annual revenue streams for MLB, especially before 2004. Forbes has it's calculations of revenue per team on a single page from 2003 on, but it cannot be exported into an excel sheet nor is it totaled up for the reader. Thus, though not all of this information is technically "secretive," it is so practically speaking. This kind of information is not only interesting, but someone necessary if you ask me. Teams need to be more transparent about their earnings (MLB's figures (also not totaled for each season) are always less than those of Forbes) so the fans can really understand how much they are getting raped. Only then will Major League Baseball stop abusing the wallets of the average fan.

Sources: Cot's Contracts and Forbes.com

The Marlins are REALLY cheap

When your highest base salary for a player is $5.5 million for a season, you know that your team is not exactly spending money. No one ever claimed the Marlin's were rolling in the dough, but if you think the Marlins' 2009 payroll of $36.8 million is ridiculously miniscule, look back a few years. According to Cot's Baseball Contracts, the Marlins 2006 base payroll was under $15 million. FIFTEEN MILLION. Ryan Howard has only been in league for four years and is already making more money than the entire team spent that year. Hell, Tim Lincecum might get paid more than $15 million next season and he hasn't even thrown 600 major league innings (a team that plays 162 games without any of its games going in to extra innings will have to pitch 1458 innings).

The 2006 Florida Marlins' revenue stream took in $122 million. Where is that money going and why is Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria forcing the state to subsidize the Marlin's new stadium?? I'm shocked that the citizens of Florida are not more outraged that the city is funding approximately 75% of the $645 million new stadium in Miami. If the team wants to cut costs and increase profits by moving the team to a better location, they should do it on their own dime; it's called a business investment.

The New York Times article (the last link above) frames the issue particularly well:

The economic benefits could also prove illusory, analysts say, because spending at new stadiums often replaces money spent at old ones or comes at the expense of spending at theaters, restaurants and other entertainment sites.

Eager to get the project rolling, Miami-Dade issued its bonds over the summer, when the municipal bond market was in flux. The county paid nearly a full percentage point more in interest to issue its bonds than if it had waited a few months. The Marlins agreed to buy the last $7 million of bonds that the county was unable to sell to the market.

As the recession has revealed, some conservative forecasts elsewhere proved too optimistic. In 1996, officials in Hamilton County, Ohio, expected their local sales tax revenue to grow 3 percent a year when they agreed to add a half-penny to pay for stadiums for the Cincinnati Reds and the Bengals. Instead, it has since grown 1.6 percent per year on average and fallen nearly 10 percent this year, forcing lawmakers to consider cutting the schools budget.

“Cincinnati is a smaller market, but it underscores that all these projects have risks, and Miami has to understand in the depths of this recession it may take longer to recover than people think,” said Mark Rosentraub, the author of “Major League Losers,” which examined stadium deals nationwide. Rosentraub called Miami’s agreement “reckless.”

And yet, the Democrats of this country want more government. Go figure.

This gallimaufry isn't just happening on the Eastern Seaboard. The Mariners pigeon-holed Seattle into building them a new stadium a decade ago and are now forcing the taxpayers to pay for essential repairs to the stadium. I guess the city is going to get the last laugh, however, as they recently approved building a strip club next door. Maybe they'll call it The Foul Pole (or Randy's Johnson).

(Check here to read the details of the Mariners contract with the city as cited in an except from King County v. Taxpayers of King County)

The Marlins know how to celebrate a win

There is so much goodness in this video of the Marlins coming back in the bottom of the 9th to steal another game from 2007 Brad Lidge. First some white dude i've never heard of gets the game winning single. Then another white dude i've never heard of comes dashing out of the dugout with excitement taking out half the team in the process. Then Hanley Ramirez runs toward the first white dude and actually slides to stop instead of just not moving his legs. Thats a true baseball grinder. Someone who slides to stop when doing normal everyday activities like going to the bathroom, walking you dog, or congratulating someone on a win. Hanley then goes NFL superbowl on us and decided to dump a gatorate bucket on said white guy. Too bad no one was in attendance to witness the joy.