Archive for Marlins

Is Trading Giancarlo Stanton Even Possible?

There’s a fair amount of belief out there that the Marlins should finish the job they started with the Blue Jays and trade their biggest chip for a huge package now. And the 23-year-old masher now named Giancarlo Stanton is quite the chip. He enters his final seasons at the league minimum just seven home runs short of triple digits, and still has three years of team control remaining after the upcoming one. It’s those years of control that provide room for the most debate about his value.

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Dodgers Send Shock Waves Through Local TV Landscape

Early Sunday morning, Twitter was abuzz with news that the Dodgers and Fox Sports West had agreed to a 25-year broadcast deal valued between $6 billion and $7 billion. By Sunday afternoon, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times had confirmed the outline of the deal, but cautioned that the Dodgers and Fox were still negotiating, with a November 30 deadline looming.

As I explained last week in this post, the parties’ existing agreement gave Fox an exclusive, 45-day window in which to negotiate a new deal to govern the 2014 season and beyond. Hence, the November 30 deadline. If an agreement isn’t inked by Friday, the Dodgers must submit a final offer to Fox by December 7. Fox then has 30 days to accept or reject the offer. If Fox rejects the offer, the Dodgers are free to negotiate with whomever they want.

However the negotiations play out, it’s clear now that the Dodgers’ local TV revenue is about to enter the stratosphere. A 25-year deal worth between $6 billion and $7 billion would net the Dodgers between $240 million and $280 million per yearPer year. That’s more than any team has ever spent on player salaries in a single season — even the Yankees. And it’s nearly double the amount of local TV revenue pulled in annually by the team with the second-most lucrative deal — the other Los Angeles team (the Angels) — which entered into a 17-year deal with Fox Sports West worth $2.5 billion.

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FanGraphs Audio: Mike Newman, Totally Not in a Box

Episode 278
Prospect analyst Mike Newman considers, among other topics, the impact a deep minor-league system can have on an organization’s ability to acquire major-league talent — not unlike what happened in the recent trade that saw Toronto acquire Mark Buehrle, John Johnson, and Jose Reyes from Miami.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 53 min play time.)

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Did The Marlins Kill Publicly-Financed Ballparks?

No.

The Marlins didn’t kill publicly-financed ballparks. Or arenas. Or stadiums. Not in Florida. Not anywhere. Sure, the Marlins’ fire-sale trade with the Blue Jays — which came less than a year after the opening of the publicly-financed Marlins Ballpark — won’t help the cause of those seeking public monies to build new sports facilities. But teams will continue to seek public financing and municipalities will continue to say yes.

Why?

Because the Marlins’ swindling of the Miami-Dade taxpayers is nothing new. It’s simply the latest example of public officials falling prey to threats that a city’s team will leave and fancy reports prepared by team consultants that say a new ballpark will bring jobs, tax revenue and economic development — despite study after study that shows those claims hardly ever are true.

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FanGraphs Audio: Dave Cameron Analyzes All Baseball

Episode 277
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes all baseball — and, in particular, the part of baseball concerning how the Marlins have made a mistake by abandoning all hope so far as the 2013 season is concerned. Also: both guest and host make multiple unsubstantiated claims regarding the art world. Also-also: Your 2013 Blue Jays, Toronto.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 29 min play time.)

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When You Really Need a Fly Ball

It’s the bottom of the eighth inning. Men are on first and third base, there’s one out and your team is down by one run. The opposing team has one of the best ground-ball pitchers on the hill, and the infield is playing back and is looking for a double play. All you need is a fly ball to tie the game and significantly swing your chances of winning.

So who do you want at the plate?

It’s likely that the opposing manager will either bring in a ground-ball specialist or just tell the pitcher to stay away from pitches that could be hit in the air to the outfield. Knowing who you’d want to hit requires an understanding of what pitches are the most likely to induce a ground ball — and what hitters manage to hit fly balls against those pitches most often.

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The Marlins and the MLB Revenue Sharing System

Last night, the Marlins traded every player on their active roster with a 2013 salary greater than $1.6 million, save for Ricky Nolasco, who’s owed $11.5 million next season. And Nolasco may be gone soon, too. The Marlins’ latest fire sale came less than a year after Miami signed free agents Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, and Heath Bell to great fanfare, as the team prepared to christen the new, publicly-financed Marlins Ballpark. Now, all those players are gone. Reyes and Buerhle were traded last night to the Blue Jays, along with starter Josh Johnson, outfielder Emilio Bonifacio, and catcher John Buck.  Bell was sent to the Diamondbacks in late October. When the Marlins open their second season in the new ballpark, fans will see Giancarlo Stanton in right field and a lot of unknown young players scattered around the diamond.

Tuesday’s trade was just the latest purge by Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Loria, after the latest spending binge, after the prior purge. Loria’s pattern is well-known and has landed him in hot water occasionally, although not nearly as frequently — or as hot — as his critics demand.  One such critic is the players’ union. The Major League Baseball Players Association complained for years that the Marlins violated the league’s revenue-sharing plan by using the money received under the plan for everything but improving the product on the field, as is required. Between 2002 and 2010, the Marlins reportedly received close to $300 million in revenue sharing. With the threat of a formal grievance, the Players Association forced an agreement from the Marlins to use all revenue-sharing proceeds on player development and salaries for three seasons. The agreement was announced in January 2010 and now, three seasons later, has expired. Imagine that.

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The Marlins Are a Well-Run Company

It’s true, probably. If you remove emotion from the equation, the Marlins of the past two decades have been a successful corporation. Even under the newest ownership, they’ve satisfied all of the requirements you might put on a great franchise. Your appraisal of their work to date, and even their trade this week, includes emotion, but an honest eye towards the bottom line can put a different spin on all of it.

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Nicolino, Marisnick Key Prospects in Marlins/Jays Deal

The mega-deal between the Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins saw a number of prospects change hands Tuesday night. While Toronto loaded up on veteran talent in an effort to challenge for the American League East title in 2013, Miami looked to get younger — yet again — and acquired four interesting prospects. You’ll read more about each of them below, and three of them appeared on the recent Blue Jays Top 15 prospects list here at FanGraphs.

The potential key to this deal for Miami is Justin Nicolino. He was part of the “Lansing trio,” a name given to a group of three high-ceiling pitchers in the Jays system that also included Aaron Sanchez (the club’s second-overall prospect) and Noah Syndergaard (who is ranked third). I ranked Nicolino as the fifth-best prospect in the system prior to the trade.

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The Best Bunts of 2012

Everyone knows that bunting runners over is the key to scoring and winning baseball games! No, wait, it’s dumb, and should never be done! Okay, bunting is sometimes smart, sometimes not. Isn’t sabermetric analysis of strategy great?

Jokes and stereotypes aside, it does seem that discussion of the pros and cons of bunting around the nerd-o-sphere is more nuanced than it used to be. While the allegedly old-school first inning, runner-on-first auto-bunt has fallen out of favor, we also realize that bunting can make sense for a number of reasons in certain situations: keeping fielders honest, increasing run expectancy, and occasions where playing for one run makes sense. As yet another annual tradition, let’s check out some of the most successful bunts of the 2012 regular season as measured by Win Probability Added (WPA).

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