Before the offseason even kicked off, there was a lot of buzz being generated over the Miami Marlins’ apparent willingness to spend big money during the 2011 Hot Stove season. “Apparently” can be struck from that first statement because the Miami Marlins opened up the checkbooks big time last week. I think a lot of baseball fans – and maybe some executives as well – are still coming to grips with the reality that the Miami Marlins just committed $191 million in the span of what – three days? Hell, if you added up their payroll each season from 2011-2007 the total only comes to about $194.1 million. That should put into perspective how oxymoronic “spending money” and “(Florida) Marlins” were together. With all of that said, I don’t think the money was well spent for the Miami Marlins.
My problem isn’t with the Jose Reyes signing. Sure, it accounted for the majority of the money that the Marlins committed, but I think it was a good opening splash for them. They’ll have to keep their fingers crossed that his legs hold up into his 30′s, but every big money free agent is going to present a significant level of risk to his new team. If the Marlins have to end up dealing with or dealing an unhappy Hanley Ramirez then this move won’t look as good obviously, but we’re not really at the point yet. Ramirez has requested a trade if he can’t stay at shortstop, but we see this sort of stuff a lot and there is no need to blow this particular instance out of proportion.
My problem was with the other two moves the Marlins made. Offering three years/$27 million to closer Heath Bell and four years/$58 million to soft-tossing Mark Buehrle were mistakes in my eyes. We have seen time and time again the fickle and volatile nature of closers. There have only been a handful over time who have been worth long-term lucrative deals. In fairness, Bell has maintained his average fastball velocity (94 mph) over the past few seasons so its not like his eventual decline has already begun, but he’s already 34 and his performance is only going to regress at this point. A similar thing can be said for Mark Buehrle although he should be able to age more gracefully because he doesn’t rely on a power repertoire to be effective. I don’t have issues with Buehrle himself despite my aversion to pitchers that can’t break 90 mph with their fastball (or 87 in Buehrle’s case), but I hate the idea of committing those years and that money.
The offseason is far from over and I haven’t seen any indications that the Marlins are finished shopping, but at this point I’m not a fan of their moves on the whole. Combine that with the fact that the Los Angeles Angels beat them to both C.J. Wilson and Albert Pujols and I don’t have an issue placing the Miami Marlins in the ‘loss’ column following last week’s MLB Winter Meetings.
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i gotta disagree with you. It does good for the Marlins to be spending some money and that’s the only way they could get those three players down to play for them. You talk about bad contracts and the Marlins losing out on Pujols, but remember the Angels deal is for $250 million. This deal will be a burden for the Angels in 5-6 years, and the contract will be only halfway through; I imagine no team would want to trade for that horrific contract in 2015 or 2016.
I definitely agree with the Pujols deal. Granted he will be able to move over to the DH slot if age and regression dictate that, but even then you’re still paying $25.4 million per season for a designated hitter. You can ask any Yankees fan how he or she feels about the A-Rod deal and that will likely shed some light on what Angels fans will be looking at sooner than they’d like.
As far as the Marlins are concerned, I just think there were better avenues to explore. Instead of paying that money for Buehrle, I would have preferred paying something slightly less (assuming he does sign for slightly less) for Edwin Jackson. In terms of WAR, Jackson is likely to provide a similar value to Buehrle but he still has upside with his prime years are ahead of him. As far as addressing the closing role, there were a few different options that they could have explored before handing out a long-term deal for Bell.
I disagree with this as well. The Marlins are trying to put fans in the seats of their brand new state of the art ballpark. If they don’t sign top tier guys, whether or not its wasteful spending, the fans are not going to come. They do not want to see players like Bonifacio or Coghlan play every day, they want stars.
In my eyes, Reyes was a great signing because its going to attract more Latin American fans to the ballpark in Miami that is primarily Latin American descent.
You need to spend money to make money.