The Marlins will reportedly move on from manager Don Mattingly after the season, but the 58-year-old said Wednesday he hopes to return to his post in 2020, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com relays.
“I’d love to be back, especially if they want you back,” said Mattingly, whose contract will expire at season’s end.
Marlins owner Derek Jeter acknowledged that Mattingly’s future is “something that we need to talk about sooner rather than later. We have touched base, and we’ll continue to talk.” To this point, though, the Marlins haven’t taken time to decide on whether they’ll make a change in the dugout, according to Jeter.
Going solely by win-loss record, it’s been a rather poor Miami tenure for Mattingly, whose teams have assembled a 263-339 mark. But judging by record wouldn’t be fair to Mattingly, who has tried to weather especially tempestuous times as the Marlins’ skipper. The franchise looked to be making progress in his first year on the job, a 79-win campaign, but it lost ace Jose Fernandez in a boating accident that September. The next season – an MVP-winning effort for outfielder Giancarlo Stanton – the Marlins hung in wild-contention late into the summer before falling apart and finishing 77-85.
Jeter and Bruce Sherman took over for the reviled Jeffrey Loria as the Marlins’ owners after the 2017 season, and they then launched the organization into a full rebuild. Since then, the Marlins have slashed a huge amount of payroll – not to mention big league talent – by trading the likes of Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and J.T. Realmuto. In the process, the Marlins have rebuilt a once-dreadful farm system into an impressive group, but Mattingly hasn’t really been in position to benefit from that. The MLB club has gone 107-172 dating back to 2018.
If the Marlins do move on from Mattingly after the season, it’ll represent one former Yankees captain waving goodbye to another. Mattingly held the role with the Yankees until he retired in 1995. Jeter, who debuted in Mattingly’s final season, took over as New York’s captain in 2003. Should Jeter part with him, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Mattingly draw managerial interest from elsewhere at the outset of the offseason. He’s a respected presence in the game who, before landing in Miami, enjoyed a decent run as the Dodgers’ manager from 2011-15.
Later Donny, hello Girardi
Hello 4th place!!!
But hopefully 1st place in the AAAA Florida State League!
Girardi would be too pricey for the Marlins, plus I’d imagine he’d want a team ready to compete, not a rebuilding effort. Jeter will want a fresh face
The Marlins job is significantly more appealing this offseason than it was last. They’ve found some arms down there. Added some solid prospects in trades this year as well. I don’t know about Girardi going back there but the job isn’t a complete joke anymore. They’ll be bad for a little while but there’s a lot more in that system now.
Supposedly Jeter doesn’t like Girardi.
Well when you trade off Gincarlo, Yelich, Ozuna and JTR you’re not gonna win many games. Couple that with the death of Jose Fernandez then you have a to ask the question of what could have been.
You have put that on Jeff Loria who didn’t want to put money back into the team. It was shocking that he even gave Stanton his contract extension.
Loria signed Stanton to the biggest contract in sports history (at the time), but didn’t want to put money into the team? HUH?
He gave him a back loaded contract in order to get the financing for the new stadium and once the tax payers were on the hook to foot the bill he traded him
Stanton’s contract had nothing to do with stadium funding, and Loria didn’t trade Stanton.
The first 4 years of that contract paid out only $36.5m. His salary then jumped to $25m last season. Loria knew he wouldn’t be paying the back end of that contract. Fleece job, his standard M.O.
Loria signed a backloaded deal knowing he was going to sell
@colossusoflout
Loria signed a check he knew he wouldn’t be around to cash.. People questioning Hal as far as his willingness to spend is what’s hilarious.
You put nothing on current ownership and their decision making skills?
What would there be to criticize about the current ownership? They’ve been correcting Loria’s mess. It’s starting to show something with the vastly improved system, and some of the pieces starting to come up and look pretty solid, with many more on the way.
Trading away budding superstars is always unpopular but when you’re stuck in the bottom 15% of the league in standings persistently, something drastic has to change if you want to actually be competitive for the long-term. I’m confident that this past offseason will be the last “fire sale” for the Marlins for a long while.
Theres no way they bring him back. At 4 million Donnie is already one of the higher paid managers in baseball and the game is trending away from the skipper being paid that much. Jeter will with a Brandon Hyde type
they traded all their star players. he’s not to blame.
It’s a weird situation but Jeter has to do what he should and I’m the biggest Donnie Baseball fan. If they choose to move on, I would love to see him be NYY bench coach again. No doubt he can get a manager job elsewhere.
Jeter has to do what he should. If they choose to move on, I would love to see Donnie Baseball be the Yankees’ bench coach again. No doubt he would find a manager job elsewhere.
Jeter, never like Donnie, His Career was finish by a member of the “Tribe” who was a Lowfife !
WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????
Jorge Posada would be my first guess to takeover. I’m gonna assume it’s somebody who has or is working in the Yankees organization.
There has been no indication that Posada wants to manager. He’s also not a media guy so I don’t think he would do well from a PR standpoint for a young club.
The Marlins hang a boat anchor around Mattingly’s neck, then blame him for sinking.
Sounds about right.
Poor analogy given the tragedy with their ace.
You got a point there. Sorry. I sure wasn’t thinking about that when I said it.
Mattingly to the Mets ?????
I don’t know if he gets a 3rd chance that fast but I do t think Mickey comes back
Mattingly has too much class for the Mets.
But not too much money to say no.
He’ll have enough opportunities elsewhere to say no. The Orioles job is more appealing than the Mets traditional mess.
Who would want that job
I would!
Many people who know baseball would want that job when you see the talent that is starting to come up, and the talent that is coming up in the next year or two.
Donnie Baseball deserves better.
Donnie is gone after the season. Would love to see him back on the Yankees in some capacity, maybe a front office role. It’s always been strange seeing him in a Dodger and Marlins cap
Baseball is simple. Put a crappy team on the field and you lose games. Then you fire the manager and give fans “new hope”
that your crappy players will be inspired to play better with a new manager.
That’s oversimplified in this case. The Marlins have a bunch of young players. They have to determine the right fit to bring them forward in the next stage of development in their 5-year plan. Very likely the next guy will be someone specifically to help that progress and perhaps grow with the team. There is a chance that the next manager brings them up to play off contenders, then is replaced by a manager that can get them over the hump. Mattingly may be a manager that is more suited for the Marlins competing for a championship instead of rebuilding.
But this is too logical when understanding the Marlins situation. I wouldn’t expect a Mets fan understanding what is logical in running a baseball team. You only know the example you root for. Now a Yankees fan will understand, and right now, an Astros, Cubs, and Braves fan will know what the Marlins are doing. These teams know what winning is about. They know rebuilds. An FYI, the Marlins decision makers are former Yankees that were part of building the current Yankees (Denbo got Judge and Sanchez, etc.).
Which ownership group is worse?! Loria or Sherman-Jeter?
MLB screwed the Marlins and their fans by not pushing for a deal with MIami businessman Jorge Mas….
According to new reports, Mas would have kept the Marlins intact and run at least a 130M payroll,
Mas is a real billionarie with real money to spend.
“Miami businessman Jorge Mas conveyed to me this month that if his Marlins offer had been accepted, he would have had a $130 million payroll in 2018, retained Giancarlo Stanton and hired a new general manager.”.
Sherman/Jeter are obviously underfunded and overstated their assets.
NY based MLB totally botched the sale of the Marlins by insisting Jeter be involved.
Jeter is to baseball ownership what Michael Jordan has been to basketball ownership….a total disaster…
Even with Mas owning team. They would have gutted after a year. The farm was horrible no pitching,or bats. And prado chen contracts gave no room for adding any starter, add that to old tv deal and lack of stadium naming rights any smart owner would of cut costs. Jeter group
has filled farm and has started to add international talent to the club. once those contracts come off the payroll, new tv deal,stadium sponsor, and farm system The Marlins will be able to produce and retain stars.
Exactly! And people tend to try to ignore that the top free agent pitchers that year were Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta. Sorry, but they were not putting the Marlins in the playoffs. All they would have been were two more bad contracts to go along with Chen and Prado’s contracts.
And if we weren’t signing a free agent pitcher, then that meant we would have had to trade some of the hitters for that pitching. The amount of pitching we needed would have required us to trade at least 2 of Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna, Realmuto, or Gordon.
Amazing how people love to revise history to suit their misconception.
Loria without a doubt is worse. Anyone that knows baseball and the economics of running a franchise can see this. Stop listening to E!SPN. They have no clue about the Marlins other than recycling news to bash them in order to hide the fact that they don’t cover them or really many MLB teams that aren’t located in Boston, NY, or the northeastern U.S..
I am curious to know how Mas would have been able to keep a $130 million payroll while keeping the roster, when the roster that was there at the time of purchase, with the raises in their contracts (Stanton and Chen just to name a couple), their payroll would have been about or over $150 million? I’d love to hear about that math.
And as for Jeter’s group (which also includes Michael Jordan), I don’t see how anyone can criticize them, especially now that we are starting to see the kids coming up and holding their own, with many more on the way over the next year or two. This ownership group made the right decisions. The only criticism I’d give them was mishandling the situations with Conine, Dawson, Perez, and McKeon, along with their decision to keep Hill (but they may end up looking right about retaining Hill).
Sheesh! People really need to stop listening to network talking heads like the circus clowns that work at E!SPN. If it isn’t baseball in NY or Boston, they haven’t got a clue. Do they even know anything about the Marlins, other than Jeter and MJ’s names, when they make their comments or give their thoughts?
People need to look at what’s really going on with the Marlins before commenting. Stop making comments based on NY and Boston based national media idiots who know nothing about the team, and only regurgitate garbage from the past ownership, because they don’t want to put in the extra work to actually find out what’s really happening with the Marlins.
Mas says he would have hired a New GM and kept the payroll competitive.
A New GM with a new approach would have kept the core together like Stanton and Yellich. The Marlins trade of Stanton was a salary dump that did not get foundational players back in the trade. Ditto with Yellich…Marlins did not get equal or better value in return. Those trades where “fire sale” deals and “salary dumps” worse than some of the deals made in the Loria Era.
..If you don’t have at least a billion dollars in cash or assets on hand that can be tapped for your team, then you have no business owning a ML:B team.
A savvy GM could have rebuilt the Marlins with smart drafts, smart, strategic trades, smart international signings, smart free agent signings.
The trend in MLB is to retool your MLB team on the fly including stocking your farm system while remaining competitive like the Dodgers, NYY, Rays etc…
I stopped watching ESPN (Yankees/Mets Red Sox Network) a long time ago. There is much betteer MLB media content elsewhere..
Michael Jordan was a great player, but a lousy team owner.
Ditto with Jeter..
Marlins may emerge from the teardown with a decent team, but it was not necessary.
Sherman/Jeter overstated their assets and funding.
Sherman/Jeter, like the Wilpons, appear to be using team revenues to to pay for the team and to line their own pockets..
Mas is a very successful Florida businessman who would have cut better TV and Media deals, would have promoted the team better, would have support in the community as a local owner, business leader etc and not just another NY carpet bagging owner.
It matters to fans, revenues and to the success of local sports teams.
Marlins were not going to win with that group and the payroll that was involved in keeping it. If Mas is saying that he was going to keep a $130 million payroll, then that means he was trading away about $20 million, because the same roster was going to make about $150+ due to contract raises and arbitration raises. They were stuck with Chen and Prado. Who was going to be traded then?
As for pitching, Darvish and Arrieta were the big free agent pitchers that year. I think it’s safe to say that those contracts are busts. And if the Marlins jumped in, they would have added over $40 million more in payroll, which still doesn’t jive with Mas’ words. And we’d be stuck with them for longer than we are stuck with Prado and Chen.
And if you want to say draft good pitchers, when were they going to develop? When Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna, and Realmuto are on the wrong side of 30?
The tear down was necessary. Take a look at what I point out is the reality in this post. Feel free to tell me how you would have been able to keep the team and contend and be able to financially function while doing what you say should’ve been done. The Marlins hopes to contend with a new owner died with Jose Fernandez because he was essentially the only pitching difference maker to build around. Otherwise the Marlins had no pitching once Chen’s arm fell apart.
@SportsFan0000
I think you need to give Jeter more slack than to compare him to Jordan. If the plan was to trade away the stars and reset the talent clock and build from the ground up then consider that the Marlins have 6 prospects in the top 100 list and 5 are via trades made under Jeter and Bleday was drafted under his watch too. I think the true appraisal should come when you see the quality of mlb players the farm produces and do they spend money on FA when the time is right.
Bingo! Somebody gets it!
I hate when others sound like E!SPN talking heads with the same, uninformed rhetoric concerning the Marlins…that clearly shows no knowledge of the Marlins and how the this all works in what we have, could have had, can afford to have, and the reality of where we were as a franchise. We had zero pitching once Jose died and we had about $150 million committed to the next year with the same roster without that pitching. Where would we be with signing the top two pitchers that year, and the fact that we still wouldn’t have made the playoffs with those two? We would have been screwed, That’s where.
Even with Mas owning team. They would have gutted after a year. The farm was horrible no pitching,or bats. And prado chen contracts gave no room for adding any starter, add that to old tv deal and lack of stadium naming rights any smart owner would of cut costs. Jeter group
has filled farm and has started to add international talent to the club. once those contracts come off the payroll, new tv deal,stadium sponsor, and farm system The Marlins will be able to produce and retain stars.
Disagree totally…
I would love to see the Bucs say adios to Hurdle and give Mattingly a chance to try to make them a winner.
Hoq do you properly judge a manager of a team building from scratch that at the time didn’t have any quality mlb players on the squad. They have a few prospects that SHOULD get better with time but not as far as 2019 is concerned. I think it’s the intangibles that matter. Team culture. Team work ethic. They’re losing but are they learning? Those things don’t show up in wins yet.
I don’t think Girardi would want to take on a roster like that. It could take 2-3 years before they even see .500.
Even if a tandem of Ozzie Guillen/Bobby Valentine were managing the team, I wouldn’t put it on them that team isn’t winning yet.
Great point about intangibles. I find it surprising that most Marlins fans, who are also Heat fans, don’t realize this. The Marlins needed to change a lot of things – talent and culture being at the forefront. Jeter and MJ, based on their histories of championships in their respective sports, know the importance of culture in building this. While MJ hasn’t translated that to his basketball ownership, he does know it, and at least Jeter has the awareness to pass the action over to the guys that know how to make transactions.
The arrival of Jeter is always a death sentence for Donnie Baseball. Happened in NY, happening in FL. He was probably somewhere lurking in the shadows in LA, too.
I don’t think I’d be interested in hiring anyone I’d formally played with to be my manager.
Maybe they can get Tany Perez to manage and have Jeff Conine as his bench coach…