The Marlins expected about 25 percent more fans than they’ve drawn this year, according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney. The Marlins are averaging 28,406 fans per game, an improvement of more than 10,000 people per game that amounts to the largest increase in the game since last year. Here are more notes from Olney, starting in Miami…
- Marlins president David Samson has said the team isn’t making financially motivated trades, but Olney suggests Miami will have to manage its money carefully to field a competitive team. This could include shedding the contracts of the team's best-paid players.
- The Marlins will likely look to dump the contracts of players like Jose Reyes at some point in the coming years, and they won’t be offered much in return. The salaries of players like Reyes and Mark Buehrle are back-loaded and will soon spike, which will reduce interest from rival clubs. Ricky Nolasco, Josh Johnson and Heath Bell are among the other Marlins who have significant money remaining on their current contracts.
- Olney points out that Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine has as much opportunity as any manager to shape his team. Valentine shouldn’t have accepted the job if he wanted more control than he’s getting, Olney writes.
What bugs me the most, is that as a die-hard Red Sox fan no one seems to agree with me that this season has nothing to do with Bobby V. This team has the record, in history, for the most amount of days on the DL. That means that 2/3 of the projected OF has been on the DL for most of the season. Look at the way Crawford and Ellsbury are hitting. Do you think if THEY were in the lineup (with Ross) all year and not Sweeney, Podsednik (please, don’t tell me he hit .360, he got singles) and all the other fill-ins that the Sox would be higher up in the standings? I’m not however a blind folded Red Sox fan, I don’t think they’d be in 1st. But you can’t tell me if the injuries haven’t piled up that this team with its talent wouldn’t be perched in 2nd place right now.
The Red Sox had never have problems scoring run this year.The problem is the pitching.
Part true, The Red Sox play down to bad teams and make horrible pitchers look like aces.
Maybe if they had actual pitching?
I agree COMPLETELY! But, what bugs me the most is everyone who likes a team other than the Red Sox say we suck and we have no real talent on our team. We are top 3 in almost every batting category, and had 2 amazing hitters in Ellsbury and Crawford out for more than half the season. But, the pitching Lackey was under performing now DL’d. Beckett has back problems. Bard was a reliever turned starter now trying to go back to reliever. Baileys out. I could rant on, but it’s the injury bug. Not having no talent, not Bobby V.
Talent isn’t important if the guys aren’t on the field or aren’t competing. The Red Sox are always near the top of pre-season power rankings because of their talent, I think people recognize that. But games aren’t won and lost in January and February, if so Boston and Philadelphia would be rolling over teams like the Pirates, Orioles, White Sox, and the A’s.
Say what you want about the injuries, in my eyes the reason they are in last place is pretty much Lester, Beckett and Buckholz. They have not even shown up this year.
Lester, Beckett haven’t shown up… yes
Buchholz has shown up. Consider he’s had 19 starts so far this season… He had a terrible first 6 starts of his season where he had an awful 9.09 ERA and a 2.02 WHIP. That being said… SOMEHOW he was 3-1 in those starts…
His last 13 starts he has a 2.80 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP.
So when he was absolutely bad, they won dispite him… Now he’s their ace and while i don’t expect them to make the playoffs, if they did as one of the wild cards they would have to start him in the “one game playoff”. This season not going well has NOTHING to do with Clay Buchholz
Don’t include Bucholz please. he has been one of the best SP in the league since Mid May, or his last 10 games and even with his awful start to the season? Has a +1.1 WAR. remember.. He started out the season not being able to get anything secondary pitch wise over the plate and had an ERA in the 9 range in early May.
Buch has allowed 18ER over his last 10 starts.
I agree except for Bucholtz. He’s has actually been pitching well over his last 9 starts. That stomach ailment may have has something to do with why he started so slow. Lester and Beckett? no excuse there.
It’s just a silly argument in my mind because no team stays healthy like that. The Blue Jays lost 5+ starters, the Yankees lost Pineda, Chamberlain, A-Rod, Rivera, Robertson, Hughes, Swisher, Gardner etc. for long periods of time. It also has a lot to do with where those injuries are, not just time on the DL. The Sox can absorb a Dice-K injury and even a Bailey injury, but if you lose four different starters at once or three different late-end relievers, no team is equipped to supply that kind of depth in one aspect of a team.
Anyway, I think the Sox failures have more to do with Lester and Beckett and A-Gon underachieving most of the season because it couldn’t compensate for all their other injuries.
key players have been injured. key players have underperformed. those who like the sox will emphasize one of those facts; those who dislike them will emphasize the other
what the team’s true talent level is can and will be debated endlessly, but the bottom line is that for most of the season they have not played good baseball
Olney and Valentine remind of two 14 yr old girls right now. They are throwing out pointless jabs to make the other look bad. It seems very childish.
The love affair BSPN has with the Red Sox and other east coast teams is just disgusting.
Bobby V. wants to lead but Ben Cherington has control. Bobby has played MLB baseball for multiple years, and previously managed in the AL, NL and in the top professional league in Japan. Cherington has neither played professional baseball nor managed a team, not even a little league team. Now, who would you listen to when it came down to making decisions on the field and in the club house?
Olney should probably recuse himself from covering Bobby Valentine considering how poorly he’s handled the subject all year. But I’m tired of him for the most part, so if he wants to take a year off that would be fine too.
the new marlins are the same as the old marlins. i feel bad for the taxpayers of miami
I just don’t see baseball flourishing in Florida. We’ve given it twenty years. I’m assuming it’s still profitable enough, but if ownership was expecting that the new stadium would change the situation for the long term, they’re expecting a miracle. Here’s the solution for MLB and the city of Miami:
– Move the Marlins to OKC and re-name them the Twisters
– Move the Rays to Salt Lake City and re-name them the Mormons
– Convert the new Miami ballpark into a concert venue and night club
Done and done.
I have always wondered why MLB ignores Nashville.
But you get Milwaukee’s Triple A squad! You should feel blessed. How do the Sounds draw?
I think fairly well, actually. They’re consistently a pretty top finisher and high energy team, as far as the minors are concerned.
MLB in reality has no further markets to place a team. Studies have show this. There’s no reason to believe that the small markets currently without teams could perform any better than the markets that have teams now.
International.. As in Not Canada of course.. I say it again.. I imagine Japan wouldn’t throw us out if MLB placed a team there and the series was long enough (plus 2-3 days off afterwards) and mexico City.
The issue brought up with Mexico has been the economic condition. Japan is certainly interesting…but it how would effect their own professional leagues? Would it create the same scenario that happened to the Negro Leagues after integration of major league baseball? My own personal feeling is that the leagues are over-expanded as they stand.
I’d love to see a pro team in a big city like Las Vegas. I know the Jays’ AAA affiliate is there, but if there’s one big market city left that could conceivably support a team, it would be Vegas.
From what I’ve read of reports….Nashville is seen as a fragile market. There’s clearly a tier of cities of the AAA variety that are somewhat interchangable. Expansion studies have shown that MLB has exhausted the viable market. With very few exceptions the places such as Portland, Charlotte…etc…don’t appear to be better options than the current small markets in baseball. I would have to try and find the study….but it did mention a possible 3rd team in the NY-NJ metro area…and even Montreal…go figure..
Yes, because a team named “the Mormons” would go over incredibly well.
What else is there in Utah? Jazz? *chortle*
Don’t you think that the first time a deadly twister rocked OKC after the naming of the team, they might re-think that too? The names are admittedly silly… that was intended… but the idea that Florida can’t support one, let alone two professional baseball teams is not.
Edit – How about the “Utah Magic Underwear Warriors of Salt Lake City?” Better?
Nothing like having a completely ruly mob of nicely dressed and polite young men in suits lining up their bicycles outside the new Salt Lake City Stadium to respectfully protest the use of “Mormons” as a team name.
You’ve got it all wrong – they’d be happy to be the namesake of a professional sports organization. It’s not like it’s politically incorrect slang, IE “Indians.” Actually put the word “fighting” in front of “mormons” and they wouldn’t be able to help but feel honored.
It would be a real risk. Who can forget the aftermath of Albuquerque donning the Isotope name….no one wants to make atomic energy angry again.
Bring your wives, bring your kids, Mormons baseball is for the whole family!
I guess Loria thinks he will still draw 28k fans at the brand spanking new stadium after he cleans house?
I am omnipotent here and forsee in my crystal ball… 5k fans on a daily basis coming soon.. Just like the old days at Land Shark stadium.. Don’t matter if he moves 1-2 more of his stars or not and I even like the Fish…
There’s only so many years the Red Sox can use the injury excuse. The offense was just fine despite the injuries but the rotation just didn’t work out and the bullpen was mediocre. They traded for an injury prone closer and got nothing from him, and even though Aceves was good for a stretch, he is probably not good enough for late inning work. Daniel Bard was supposed to be a big part of the team in some aspect and provided nothing.
The big guns in the rotation just took this season off, Beckett and Lester. It’s hard to remain competitive when the two guys who are supposed to be consistent aren’t, and it’s not that easy to just replace them or throw them in the pen because they understandably have confidence in them, and money invested in them as well.
” the bullpen was mediocre.”
Laughable. Better check your facts there pat. The BP has been the steadiest part of the team and one of the best in ALL of baseball since late April