Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
What if Loria keeps the Marlins?
Changes needed in payroll, revenue plan
It’s the nightmare scenario being whispered around the Miami Marlins, like a murmur, the groan of water through an old pipe:
What if Jeffrey Loria doesn’t sell?
What if he keeps the team?
Because while negotiations for a sale keep moving along, have they moved much since the Marlins were reported for sale in January? In February, the non-White House side of the Kushners were in and then out as buyers. In March, Jeb Bush, Tagg Romney and Derek Jeter emerged as serious suitors.
In April, Bush and Jeter joined forces for a preliminary agreement to buy the team. In May, three weeks after saying he was “confident” about buying the team, Bush divorced from Jeter and bailed on pursuing the deal.
In early June, it’s fair to ask what has changed, certainly for this season? And what happens if Loria doesn’t sell? How does this market react, beyond burning the confetti and canceling the parade?
Keep in mind this deal remains in full negotiation. But keep in mind, too, any headlines moving the deal forward haven’t proved lasting and the scant times any Marlins or major-league baseball official is quoted it’s with the addendum of, “if it’s decided to sell the team.”
You know one final thing, too: There’s no
predicting Loria. He seems to have taken a step back from baseball, seems to let manager Don Mattingly have his way and seems to be allowing another odd season to play itself out.
But what’s the plan if the Marlins aren’t sold this summer? Will Loria stay in neutral? Will he keep taking shots to win right now, as his depleted farm system shows, or will he re-build for tomorrow considering this team has little chance of going anywhere and has an inflated payroll?
The Marlins have rebounded from an awful start, and the hope is for a turn-around season like the Heat or the Dolphins. The difference is the Heat and Dolphins were building. These Marlins are built. Now what?
They need a plan, in other words, and that includes the business side. They need to open up some revenue streams like the naming rights to the stadium and, at some point, a re-worked local TV deal with Fox Sports.
The current TV deal that pays the Marlins $18 million a year isn’t set to end until 2020. Arizona, in a similar baseball market, is making around $80 million a year on its local deal. That’s how Arizona can outbid everyone for a top starter like Zack Greinke.
On the baseball side, the Marlins face a payroll tear-down of some form. They have an expensive roster that has little hope of contending for anything important. They can have a lineup to be good, as this recent stretch shows. They just have too little pitching to last 162 games.
They need to smartly dump some salary for young talent. The fear, of course, is they trade players for nothing. Remember a star like Hanley Ramirez going to Los Angeles for pedestrian starter Nathan Eovaldi? That kind of deal set them back years.
Loria desperately wants to win. He really does. And, to be fair, he’s also been bit by bad luck, from the Jose Fernandez death that set the team back years to handing Wei-Yin Chen a big contract just as his arm gave out.
But as the Marlins consider trades, they need to find the team everyone found in them in recent years. Case in point: The trade 2014 trade with rebuilding Houston for starter Jarred Cosart. The headliners in the deal were Cosart, a Houston starter who could go either way, and outfielder Jake Marisnick, a top Marlins prospect.
You can see why the deal was made. The Marlins needed a starter and their outfield was stocked with Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna. So Cosart flamed out and Marisnick became a star. It happens.
But what added sting to the deal was Houston at the last minute asked for a 16-year-old pitcher, Francis Martes. The Marlins baseball people balked. Loria didn’t want an unproven kid to wreck the deal. Martes is now a stocked Houston team’s second-rated prospect. He’s the exact kind of young, talented pitcher the Marlins need.
What they need first is a question of direction this summer. The Marlins sale remains in negotiation. But Bush is out. Jeter is assembling his group. Romney is quiet. It’s fair to wonder: What happens if Loria remains as owner?