Manfred: Multiple groups have submitted bids to buy Marlins
MIAMI >> Derek Jeter and Jeb Bush still haven’t touched all the bases in their bid to buy the Miami Marlins. Far from it.
Multiple groups have submitted bids to buy the team, and none has yet been accepted, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday. His comments came after Bloomberg reported a group led by former New York Yankees captain Jeter and former Florida Gov. Bush won an auction for the team with a $1.3 billion bid.
“There are multiple groups interested in acquiring the Marlins,” Manfred said in Pittsburgh while attending the Pirates-Cubs game. “One of those groups is the BushJeter group. When we have a resolution as to which bid is going to be accepted, we will announce that.”
Completion of any sale by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria could take months and would require approval by at least 75 percent of the major league teams. More than half of the winning bid could involve cash because of MLB’s debt service rule, meaning the Bush-Jeter group would need to raise a lot of money.
“You can rest assured that the acquiring group, whoever it turns out to be, will have a financial structure — meaning some debt and the rest equity — that is consistent with the rules that we have, most notably the debt service rule,” Manfred said. “And more important than complying with the rules, (that) puts the franchise in a position that it can operate effectively. That’s really the commissioner’s office’s job in terms of approving any potential bidding group, and we are really focused on that issue with respect to the Marlins.”
Spokesmen for Jeter and Bush had no comment. Marlins manager Don Mattingly — who was Jeter’s teammate and coach with the Yankees — declined to discuss the possibility of them joining forces in Miami.
“Nobody in the front office has told me anything about it,” Mattingly said. “It’s premature for me to talk about it.”
Tuesday’s Games
CUBS 1, PIRATES 0>> Kyle Hendricks rediscovered his 2016 form, limiting Pittsburgh to four hits over six innings to outduel Gerrit Cole and lead Chicago to a win. ASTROS 4, INDIANS 2 >> Dallas Keuchel (4-0) pitched a six-hitter, allowing home runs to Austin Jackson in the third and Michael Brantley in the ninth that raised his ERA to 1.22. RAYS 2, ORIOLES 0 >> Austin Pruitt combined with four relievers on a two-hitter in his first big league start. Pruitt allowed one hit in three innings, Danny Farquhar got two outs, Jumbo Diaz went 1.1 innings, Chase Whitley (1-0) contributed three perfect innings and Alex Colome finished for his fifth save. BREWERS 9, REDS 1 >> Eric Thames hit his major league-leading 11th home run — his sixth against Cincinnati this season — and Milwaukee cruised to a victory over the Reds.
Hernan Perez had a pair of RBI triples, then homered off Robert Stephenson leading off the sixth, and Jonathan Villar had a pair of two-run singles. TIGERS 19, MARINERS 9 >> James McCann, Justin Upton and Alex Avila homered for Detroit — and that was before the Tigers added nine runs in the fifth inning en route to a rout of Seattle.