Cardinals Acquire Marcell Ozuna

by
December 13, 2017

After being rejected by Giancarlo Stanton, the Cardinals continued down the list of items available in what is becoming a Marlins’ firesale and have reportedly come to an agreement on a deal to acquire Marcell Ozuna.

While the return has not been confirmed, it’s thought that the Cardinals are going to surrender two of their better pitching prospects.

Ozuna enjoyed a breakout 5-win, 37-homer, .312/.376/.548 season in 2017 and he is capable of playing all three outfield positions. FanGraphs projects expect some regression in 2018, but he still is forecasted to be a 4-win player. Entering his Age 27 season, Ozuna is projected to make $10.9 million in his second year of arbitration eligiblity. He can become a free agent after next season. He’s under club control through the 2019 season.

The debate is would the Cardinals have been better off trading for, say, Manny Machado and his six-win projection, and one year of control, over Ozuna? The Orioles are reportedly seeking two young, controllable pitchers or prospecets for Machado.

Dave asked that earlier Wednesday if you’d rather have Machado or Ozuna. The crowd would rather have Machado. The Cardinals apparently would rather have Ozuna.

We’ll see how Plan B via the Marlins’ outfield works out.





 

A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.

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sideshowraheem
6 years ago

At what point does MLB step in and make the Marlins a ward of the league? How can they allow a team to so brazenly flip off a fan base while shoveling money into their pockets?

22
ashlandateam
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

I found myself in Miami for an evening this summer and checked out a game. The crowd was decent (it was a Friday night), and all the fans were into the game from start to finish. The park was fun, parking in and out was simple, ballpark food was way above average (from my experiences). It was a fun night!

It really made me think that they’ve got something there if an owner just tried to put a quality product on the field. They SHOULD be successful. It really is a shame for that city and that fanbase.

22
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  ashlandateam

I think it’s going to be a long road to that.

Last year’s team didn’t make the playoffs but was hardly a train wreck – a 77 win team with the NL MVP hitting 59 HR’s – and still drew less than 1.6 million attendance.

I’m well aware of the history with Loria, but at this point that’s history that I think has screwed up both the market and the team (awful farm system) for quite a few years.

As a couple comparisons, the Rockies ( https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/COL/attend.shtml ) still drew at least 2.5 million per year with sub-70 win teams, and the Padres still draw 2.1 million with 70-ish win teams ( https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SDP/attend.shtml ).

9
OddBall Herrera
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

Also, you can’t fault the team for losing Jose Fernandez. If you were to add in his performance, we’re talking about a borderline wild card team. 2017 really seemed like a good faith effort, and if a new ownership group wants to start from scratch you can’t use previous ownerships’ history against them and say no.

10
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  OddBall Herrera

I agree that’s fair to a degree, but let’s also remember that pitchers break (including Chen for the Marlins), so a tragic death is far from the only way not to have 6 WAR from Fernandez for 2017.

For a long time, Loria had his problems of being cheap, penny-wise but pound-foolish (e.g., trading away competitive balance draft picks), and just generally a bad owner and awful for PR/marketing.

By the end, though, I think it was something a bit different. There was basically only one path to the Marlins’ revenue supporting the contracts that the Marlins put on the books for 2017-19, and that was a deep playoff run that really boosted revenue both directly and via future attendance. Loria had probably neither the money nor the willingness to put in money if that revenue increase didn’t happen, and he bet on the come in terms of pretty big future revenue increaess with things like not only Stanton’s contract but also Chen’s contract (5/$80, that reportedly pays about $60 million of the cash in the last 3 years still to come).

I think that the new owners have been pretty dumb in terms of PR in various areas, and I particularly think that they should have done a much better job laying out the reality of the situation and a path to rebuilding for a contention window. I’ve only pieced it together through snippets from various articles and sources like Forbes revenue estimates.

3
daynlokki
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

You have to remember that the new ownership group took on 400 million dollars of debt when they took on the team. With the dwindling attendance (around 20k per game) they have to do something in order to pay that debt back. The team literally lost money last year.

0
francis_soyer
6 years ago
Reply to  daynlokki

Who asked the league to approve an offer that required 400 mm in debt int he first place ?

Perhaps there’s your problem.

-3
francis_soyer
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

Stanton didn’t think Loria was cheap.

-3
Paul22
6 years ago
Reply to  ashlandateam

It was a playoff quality lineup you saw. Needed pitching. A 77 W team is not awful and when you have a decent core you fill the holes. The new owners should have invested in some pitching and tried to win before embarking on a rebuild to gain some goodwill. Instead they have lost a part of the fan base for the next decade, jeapordized their ability to make the best RSN deal in 2020, and made a mockery out competition. MLB should not have allowed an ownership group to buy the Marlins if they did not have enough money to operate it and cover the foreseeable losses in the first years

-2
francis_soyer
6 years ago
Reply to  ashlandateam

Sorry but they had a quality product last year.

You can’t complain about all the awesome talent they’re shedding and say they had no talent last year at the same time.

NOW they have no talent, but a week ago, they actually had a fairly decent squad.

-3
jdbolick
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

If they hadn’t just built a new stadium then I would suggest moving the team. I don’t see how the Marlins ever develop a real following regardless of what the team does from here on out.

2
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

[edit, replied to wrong comment]

0
Hughesmember
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

The main trouble is they can only manage to string together a couple years of .500 baseball and then hold a fire sale and go back to ~70 win season. I wouldn’t follow a team like that either.

Contrast that with Tampa, who had 6 seasons, 5 of which over 90 wins, 4 playoff runs. They’ve also had a star to follow in Longoria. If you can’t break 25,000 over that stretch, you should be moved.

0
sadtrombonemember
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

Let’s wait to see what the actual return was for the Marlins. It’s likely this trade was made to actually improve the baseball team (eventually). It doesn’t sound like the Cardinals were forced to take Chin or Prado in lieu of prospects.

11
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  sadtrombone

Agreed. This one looks to be a team that doesn’t have a realistic contention window until several years out trading away a good player with limited team control (2 years) for a return that looks to be prospects with more years of team control.

4
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

As Dave intimated in another article, the situation in Miami isn’t as clear cut as people would like it. I think we saw how ownership change of the Dodgers really turned that franchise around in short order and so it’s easy to equate that recent success to the Marlins today. But having to pick up $400M plus in debt in addition to a core that likely won’t be around in 1-2 years anyway, the choices facing the new office aren’t exactly ideal no matter which direction they go. Loria is out, and in exchange for that mercy the new ownership group has to be responsible for his (and ultimately baseball’s) failure to hold him accountable.

16
Roger McDowell Hot Foot
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

This seems much more clear-cut than the Stanton megadeal salary dump to me. Marcell Ozuna is the exact kind of player that a sanely run team should not need to trade.

-10
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

Depends on whether you think Ozuna is worth more to you in prospects than he is to the product currently on the field. Doesn’t it? He has two years of arbitration remaining and represented by an agent who will try to maximize his contract. Miami is cash restrained until that debt is under control either way, but if acting now on a guy who just had a career year can bring you back some quality prospects that’ll be ready by the time you CAN put a competing team on the field, that move makes a lot of sense. These trades have to be placed in a 4 dimensional context. Ozuna is a cheap, well above average producer riding high at this very moment. How important is that right now to a franchise who may struggle just to win 75 games and can’t do much to add on?

16
Roger McDowell Hot Foot
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

There shouldn’t be this kind of urgency to make this kind of deal for 2020 and beyond — it ruins the negotiating position, as you can see from the rumored return, which is… fine, but certainly not “blew us away” exceptional for 2 full years of a cost-controlled and very good young player. This is the kind of return you can probably get for Ozuna basically anytime you pick up the phone, including at the trading deadline — there’s no strategic reason to do it preemptively. I don’t care what kind of 4-dimensional chess you think this is, you don’t win by forcing sacrifices when you’re already behind.

-7
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

Part of that 4 dimensional thinking includes what you think Ozuna will do this coming year. Waiting until the trading deadline can absolutely have consequences. He just finished a career year in which he was an all-star and flashed 40-homer power that he has NEVER shown before. You deal these kinds of assets at the height of their value, and there are plenty of arguments to say that now is the time, especially as he’s likely to reach 8 digits on arbitration. Paying his salary, watching him regress and then dealing him at a time when he has fewer years of control means you get less back. Is it possible the return could get better later on? Sure. Is it likely? Absolutely not. Meanwhile you’re on the hook for $6-7M just to find out.

12
Aaron Judge's Gavel
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

I seriously doubt the Marlins window of contention is in the next 2 years. Ozuna’s value will only decrease since he is a FA after 2019. This is an easy move to make, and one they should make. If Ozuna had like 5 or 6 years of control remaining, then sure it’s questionable. But they need to convert their current assets into future value at this time so that they have a crop of young guys that come up around 2020-2023. That’s really the only path for them given their situation. Which is highly preferable to keeping Ozuna and winning a couple extra games this year and next, and then losing him for nothing as a FA after 2019 when they are still losing more games than they win.

15
Roger McDowell Hot Foot
6 years ago
Reply to  Aaron Judge's Gavel

These all feel like generic arguments that it was a good idea to consider trading Ozuna for something — not arguments that this specific trade was a value-maximizing and strategically sound one.

-7
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

What would be the strategy in waiting around? He’s a free agent in 2 seasons. His agent is Scott Boras. He just had a career year that he is not likely to repeat. He loses team control and therefore value for each game he plays in a Marlins uniform.

The team is trying to cut costs and accumulate quality prospects while making a dent in their incoming balance sheet. If not right this very moment, when is the best time for a team in this position to make this kind of trade?

The only way they could max out further is if Ozuna takes an additional, sizeable step forward and becomes some sort of uber star. Is that something you’d bet money on?

8
Roger McDowell Hot Foot
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

I’m going to hold off on passing any further judgement until it’s clear what the package they got in return was, but if it was really Alcantara and lower-level guys, that doesn’t seem like even valuing Ozuna at his present performance level, much less at his upside. (But yes, I also disagree that that was necessarily or obviously an outlier “career year” rather than a guy playing up to his true talent level. I’m getting the sense that a lot of the people liking this trade as rumored are putting a pretty low valuation on Ozuna.)

-9
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

I don’t discount the possibility that Ozuna really is this good (even though he’s never shown it before at any level) but that possibility is pretty small. Even then, the step forward that he took is the same as much of all of baseball, which diminishes returns on this apparent new talent. But for argument’s sake, lets say the Marlins pay him another year and he does a repeat to better establish himself as a 4-5 WAR player. Great. You know a little more than you did, but you also lost a year of control AND you paid him to do it. Your team probably didn’t make it to the playoffs and now he’s one year away from leaving you for nothing. Present knowledge always trumps future knowledge. The Marlins have a player that is highly coveted now.

Lastly, as far as these deals go, this is the new normal whether you like it or not. Alcantra is a quality prospect who can dial it up as a starter and is already a season into AAA. They get 3 more lower levels guys they can play with. That’s actually about the going rate these days for corner outfielders who can mash. JD Martinez didn’t go for all that much either. Neither did Justin Upton. While they had less team control, they also had better track records. Dee Gordon’s a quality player on a team friendly contract who went for one B-level prospect and a couple of lower tier lottery tickets. We’re not in the Erik Bedard era anymore. Teams are much more wary now than they’ve ever been about giving up the farm.

6
robbotis
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

“Teams are much more wary now than they’ve ever been about giving up the farm.”
Unless you’re the Nationals!

-3
baltic wolfmember
6 years ago
Reply to  robbotis

Didn’t you mean the Red Sox? At least, the Nats have held on to Robles.
Boston’s farm system is depleted ever since Dombrowski took over.

-2
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

RMHF – if by present performance level you mean his 2017, that IS his upside going by career numbers.

Let’s do the surplus value math: Steamer has Ozuna projected for 3.5 WAR in 2018. Two years of that is 7 WAR. At $8 to $10 million per WAR, that’s $56 to $70 million. But he’s also going to make $25 to $30 million combined in his final two arb years, so the surplus value there is somewhere in the range of $30 to $45 million.

Alcantara is about a $22 million asset going by Fangraphs prospect value. We’ll have to see the names on the three lower-level guys, but they should be worth at least a few million each and could easily each be worth in the $5 to $10 million range if they’re interesting prospects in A ball.

So the surplus value math looks to check out, pending the names of the lower level guys, to be somewhere in that $30 to $45 million range, and very possibly at the high-end of it.

Maybe the Marlins are pursuing something of a “quantity over quality” approach in taking those 3 other names versus one name in the high minors, but that can make sense for a team with a barren minor league system (rated worst in the majors by some sources prior to 2017) and a contention window several years out.

3
jdbolick
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

Alcantara’s FV dropped to 50 after a rough season, so his estimated prospect value would be ~$14 million. I hope the rest of the package is strong, because that’s a lot of difference to make up.

1
scotch pilgrim
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

Considering we don’t know the full package the Marlins got back, isn’t this all anyone can talk about?

0
Cool Lester Smoothmember
6 years ago
Reply to  scotch pilgrim

There’s an old saying about saying nothing, when you don’t have all the info.

0
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

RMHF – sure, we should evaluate the return that the Marlins got for Ozuna. The rumors swirling, though, had something like 6 to 8 teams interested in Ozuna – https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/12/6-to-8-teams-interested-in-marcell-ozuna.html

And you definitely don’t have any guarantee that many teams are willing to pay up for a player with 1.5 years of control at the trade deadline, as some teams drop out of contention during the year, interest is dependent on positional fit, and other teams fill their open spots in free agency this off-season. Plus Ozuna’s performance downside is a risk, as pointed out by others.

In other words, if 6-8 teams are interested not, I see it as hope more than logic to think that Ozuna will net a bigger return in-season. The realized return may just be the market for a player who has surplus value but will make something like $25 million to $30 million in his last two arb years (total, both years combined) and whose last 4 year WAR totals starting from 2017 are 4.8, 2.5, 1.2, and 3.9.

0
scotch pilgrim
6 years ago
Reply to  Aaron Judge's Gavel

Right. So we’ll see what they do with Yelich, who’s under team control for 5 more years at less than $60mil. That’s the guy you keep, unless you’re blown away (or stupid or cheap).

1
Pirates Hurdles
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

He only has 2 years of control left, seems like he is exactly the type of player you would trade if contention is out of reach.

3
daynlokki
6 years ago
Reply to  Pirates Hurdles

Yup, two years of control, no chance to compete, no chance to resign, you trade when you can get value for him. Why hold onto him just to get less when your team is going nowhere this season?

3
OTMHeartBBCmember
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

Dodgers had a god tier farm system when the new owners took over. Miami, not so much

3
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  OTMHeartBBC

They also had an ownership group with deep pockets which they used to their full content, which can sometimes be the expectation just because things are new. But this situation is certainly different and yeah you’re right. Miami’s system is nowhere near what the Dodgers had at the time. That just makes rebuilding all the more appropriate. It’s a difficult proposition to invest capital into a current product that has merely a puncher’s chance and a short window in which to do it. But what’s unique about Miami’s situation is that they’re not starting at zero. They’re starting much worse than that. And so you can either take your chances before the inevitable Stanton opt-out and Ozuna leaving and HOPE you win enough to make it worth your while, OR you can cut costs, get ahead of their finances, accumulate prospects and be ready to go in 3-4 years. Again, neither option is great but the latter can at least place the new group in a better position for long-term success.

13
jdbolick
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

We’ll see what they got for Ozuna, but the Stanton and Gordon deals were far more heavily weighted toward reducing costs than getting prospects, which is a very bad look for a new ownership group. The problem is that MLB allowed the Sherman group to take on Loria’s debt as part of the purchase price, which is effectively no different than a prospective owner taking out a 400 million dollar loan in order to finance the purchase. Not having sufficient funds to make the purchase outright creates the pressure to cut costs wherever possible, even at the expense of the organization’s overall strength. Given the many times Marlins fans had already been burned, it is something that Major League Baseball should not have allowed.

0
jmaicardimember
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

I completely agree with this. It just begs the question as to whether any other deal would have gotten Loria out of there. Maybe he doesn’t make the sale UNLESS someone takes on the debt. The distasteful alternative is Loria continuing to leach the franchise dry. It’s one of those decisions where it’s like, do you take all your lumps now or slowly poison yourself over years?

0
daynlokki
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

Gordon deal isn’t as bad as you think. Guy has a PED suspension under his belt and just a few years ago they would have gotten absolutely nothing for him. Everyone sees Ozuna and just sees this last season for him, he’s hit over 23 hrs and over .270 exactly once (hint, last year). The possible variance in WAR for him is astounding.

1
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

I agree with AMB.

And the other side of taking that chance with Stanton is that, if he doesn’t opt out, there’s a decent chance that you’ve come out the other side of that with a guy making about $30 million per year over 7 years but in most of those years performing like 2016 Stanton (1.8 WAR in 119 games in an injury-shortened season), which is why he didn’t opt-out. It goes back to the whole reason that even high-revenue teams were very reluctant to take on that contract: the upside is 3 years of really good production from Stanton and then he opts out, but the downside is a 10-year contract that’s an albatross.

For Miami, the three really good years would still be only a puncher’s chance at the playoffs, and the potential albatross years could weigh down a lower-revenue team trying to supplement cost-controlled homegrown players if the farm system is rebuilt.

3
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

“But having to pick up $400M plus in debt in addition to a core that likely won’t be around in 1-2 years anyway”

I agree on the second point, but I think that the debt is something of a canard for the reductions that we’ve seen so far. That prior article by Dave Cameron wasn’t a very good effort at walking through that math. Go through the math of a $130+ million Opening Day payroll and the Marlins’ revenue comparables being the Rays and A’s (who run $40 to $60 million lower than that payroll), and the Marlins were going to cut just to get payroll in line with what their revenue supports. If they take it down to $55 million or something, then debt service could be a factor.

FWIW, it’s pretty common these days for acquisitions of MLB teams to involve quite a bit of debt. Of the last five sales prior to this one (Padres, Dodgers, Cubs, Astros, and Rangers), the only one that didn’t was the Padres (who do have stadium debt, but reportedly no other debt).

The Cubs in particular have a screwy leveraged partnership structure that the seller demanded for tax reasons that put about $675 million of debt on the team, that can’t be changed until 2019, and that makes it so that the Ricketts couldn’t run operating losses even if they wanted to do so ( http://www.bleachernation.com/2014/03/19/the-chicago-cubs-financial-story-the-payroll-the-debt-and-the-syncing-of-baseball-and-business-plans/ ).

When the Rangers sold for about $600 million in 2010, it reportedly included about $160 million of new debt and about $210 million of assumed liabilities ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2010/08/10/texas-rangers-sold-for-record-price/#2f250200bbe3 ).

When the Astros sold to Crane for about $700 million, at least $220 million of that purchase was debt-financed ( http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/06/06/Finance/Astros.aspx ).

The Dodgers’ sale reportedly involved assuming $400 million of debt and the financing involved $1.2 billion that sounds very debt-like (“will be repaid with interest”, per an L.A. Times story) which I suspect could be preferred stock. http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-debt-payroll-20161126-story.html

The difference with essentially all of those other teams is that the revenue would support the MLB payroll. The one outlier exception are the Dodgers, who have reportedly run up some operating losses, but operate in a very different market with lots of revenue potential. My best guess from the outside is that they probably saw that spending in part as a temporary cost of doing business to get their massive long-term local TV deal (25 years, $8.35 billion) and try to get enough carriage to make sure it worked. On the baseball side, it also bridged them through while they strengthened their farm system to the point where they could reduce payroll while still being very good, which we now see them doing.

3
Cool Lester Smoothmember
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

Counterpoint:

It’s way easier (and more fun!) to not look any of this stuff up, and bitch about the Marlins ownership being moneygrubbers for trying to get a team with Rays size revenue down to a Rays size payroll!

Ranting is easy. Reading is hard.

4
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  Cool Lester Smooth

Right, and if the $130 million payroll was buying a team like the 2017 Astros, with a business argument of “take some upfront losses as a business investment toward probable playoff runs, building the fan base, higher attendance, and a better local TV deal after 2020″, then I can see a logical argument that a well-capitalized group should try that.

But it’s not: it’s bringing back the 2017 team, where Stanton’s MVP season drove attendance to … less than 1.6 million, down about 150k from the prior year (and the average of the 3 prior years).

And people such as Paul say,”just add a couple pitchers”. Which, with a barren farm system, means paying about $15-million AAV (give or take) for 2-ish WAR guys like Cobb, Lynn, and Chapman, on multi-year deals. And what do two or three of those guys get? A fringe wild card contender that is projected for about 82-85 wins and is now really, really hosed financially if this bet on a possible, playoff run doesn’t work out because payroll is up another $30 to $45 million.

There’s an irony here that Loria, after being cheap for so many years, then left the Marlins with payroll commitments that were simply out of whack with the team’s revenue prior to these recent trades. Although, there’s less of an irony to it considering that Loria tended to really backload these deals (not just Stanton, but also ones such as Chen) to save cash up-front, and I suspect that the farm system weakness is also related to him being cheap in particularly dumb ways such as trading away competitive balance draft picks and not spending enough on scouting.

4
Paul22
6 years ago
Reply to  jmaicardi

That debt just reduced the amount of cash they needed for the sale (the debt was included as part of the sale price, 800 cash, 400 assumed debt). The problem was the debt that was created to come up with the 800 million cash, with interest rates of 14% for 100 million that has a 3 year pay back). God knows what the rest of the financing looks like. They are still trying to raise 150 million.

The Dodgers invested in their team post sale. Marlins have done the reverse

Put simply this group had no business buying a MLB team and Manfred should be held to account

-5
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  Paul22

By Paul’s logic, did the Ricketts have no business buying the Cubs? Did the Rangers’ ownership group have no business buying the Rangers? Did Crane have no business buying the Astros?

Maybe you’re going to say that you don’t like any of these deals, and I suppose that you can. But this isn’t a Marlins-specific issue, it’s how baseball teams are sold these days.

What is Marlins-specific is to have the prior owner enter into a bunch of player contracts that would have committed the team to a 2018 payroll that’s way out of whack with revenue.

4
Cool Lester Smoothmember
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

The issue with your argument is that this trade does not flip off the fanbase, and the owners are not cutting costs to “shovel money in their pockets.”

-9
Cool Lester Smoothmember
6 years ago
Reply to  Cool Lester Smooth

I’d be interested to hear an affirmative argument as to how this trade either flips off the fanbase or shows the ownership group to be shoveling money into their pockets.

4
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  Cool Lester Smooth

It may flip off the fanbase. Even a fair number of commenters here – which is a site that features articles nearly every day about how the value of a player is very tied to his contract status – didn’t understand why Stanton returned what he did. Among the general public, people sure as hell didn’t understand it with rare exceptions. And, TBF, a commenter below points out that the new ownership group has done a very poor job of laying out to the public a long-term plan of how the team gets good again.

It doesn’t show the latter, though again people refuse to acknowledge the reality of the situation.

3
Jaymember
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

Still not clear what the package going back to Miami is, but I don’t see the issue with this deal in principle. A non-competitor trading away a player with limited control in exchange for prospects is pretty standard.

10
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

A couple reasons for that:

(1) Because there’s not really any evidence of “shoveling money into their pockets” under new ownership, at least not with the reductions to date. Going by the last Forbes estimates (which are for the 2016 season), the Marlins had basically the same revenue as the Rays (Marlins were $1 million higher) and A’s (Marlins were $10 million lower). In 2017, BTW, Marlins’ attendance was lower than 2016. The Marlins Opening Day payroll for 2018 was going to be $130 million before they started cutting because of all the backloading of contracts under Loria. Would we expect the Rays or A’s to open the season with a payroll at that level? Both of those teams have been $40 to $60 million below that level in recent years. The money-shoveling was when Loria was running $45 to $50 million payrolls a few years ago, not for 2018.

(2) Because, combining their baseball situation with the aformentioned financial situation, they were pretty much stuck without trading some of their good players to get what they could in prospect return. That $130 million payroll that’s out of line with revenue would have returned basically the same 77-win as last year, maybe projected to be 1 or 2 wins higher. The farm system is barren: ranked last in the majors by some sources before 2017. So how do you improve that team if the revenue doesn’t support existing payroll commitments, much less adding a lot more? And the farm can’t provide reinforcements either directly or with trade chips?

I’ll fully agree that Loria screwed up the market and team with his bad ownership, but that’s already happened. The question now is how to deal with the situation going forward.

6
jdbolick
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

(1) Because there’s not really any evidence of “shoveling money into their pockets” under new ownership, at least not with the reductions to date.

That is blatantly false, which you already know from our other argument. The Stanton and Gordon deals were absolutely about “shoveling money into their pockets,” or more precisely shoveling money into the $400 million debt the Sherman group assumed from Loria in order to finance the purchase. According to SI, Jeter stated his intention of cutting the team’s payroll down “to as low as $55 million in 2018.” This is despite the fact that, according to Forbes, the Marlins only had an operating loss of $2.2 million last season with a payroll of $115 million, after running operating gains of $15.8 million in 2016 and $15.4 million in 2015. It is true that the 2018 payroll was expected to increase, but before these moves it was reasonable to believe that the new ownership might lead to significantly improved attendance which would help offset those costs. The stated intention of massively slashing payroll along with the meager prospects returns for Gordon and Stanton shows that these moves are primarily about money, not building a long-term winner.

So how do you improve that team if the revenue doesn’t support existing payroll commitments, much less adding a lot more?

By prioritizing prospects rather than payroll reduction in those trades.

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Cool Lester Smoothmember
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

Ah, so this is evidence of malfeasance because the Marlins didn’t believe that changing ownership groups would drive attendance more than a player chasing 61 did?

3
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  Cool Lester Smooth

Yeah, the phrase “hope is not a strategy” immediately comes to mind with the idea that new ownership is going to lead to a big attendance boost in 2018.

From what I can tell, there were two versions of Loria, with some incompetence part of both of them: “cheap Loria” (most of his ownership) and occasionally “deluded Loria”, who on the couple of occasions that he did up payroll (2012, the last couple years) apparently thought that it was guaranteed that attendance would suddenly shoot up to 3 million over a single season or two. So “deluded Loria” thought that all he had to do was backload contracts a bit and the money would work.

It of course didn’t work, which was fairly predictable unless a ton broke right for the baseball team.

Several of the commenters here refuse to understand, paraphrasing Lester, that a team with revenue like the Rays (or A’s) is going to spend on payroll like the Rays (or A’s). So those commenters who don’t accept that idea are putting forward ideas for the Marlins that look a lot like “deluded Loria” thinking.

2
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

I won’t rehash the full discussion, as it already occurred in a prior comments section for anyone who is interested – https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-the-marlins-did-and-didnt-mess-up/

The TLDR version is that I successfully countered every mistaken argument jd had and the conclusions here are that (1) the Marlins 2018 financials would logically look terrible with a $130+ million Opening Day payroll and (2) the Dodgers are the only one of the five prior new ownership groups (also Padres, Astros, Rangers, and Cubs) who were willing/able to incur substantial operating losses after taking over a team.

2
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

“This is despite the fact that, according to Forbes, the Marlins only had an operating loss of $2.2 million last season with a payroll of $115 million”

That is simply WRONG. The Forbes numbers, from April 2017, are estimates looking back at the 2016 season, when the Marlins’ opening day payroll was $74 million. It’s readily apparent in seeing that Forbes lists “player expenses” of $100 million. Benefits of around $13 million per year that every team pays for player pensions and healthcare bridge about half of this gap, and the other part of it is logically whatever combination of other 40-man player salaries, earned player bonuses, draft/IFA bonuses, minor league salaries, and employer payroll taxes go into that number.

It’s also readily apparent how MLB years line up with Forbes by seeing that Forbes shows a big jump in Marlins payroll for “2013”. In fact, it was the 2012 season when the Marlins had big increases in opening day payroll ( http://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league/miami-marlins/ ) due to Reyes, Buehrle, etc. followed shortly thereafter by slashing payroll for 2013.

It’s a bit confusing, but it’s just that Forbes releases this report in April of each year and for whatever reason labels everything by that date rather than the MLB season with which it lines up.

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jdbolick
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave T

That is simply WRONG. The Forbes numbers, from April 2017, are estimates looking back at the 2016 season, when the Marlins’ opening day payroll was $74 million.

The Forbes estimates looking back at the 2016 season are included in the 2016 calculating of their operating income, which Forbes put at +$15.8 million (thanks to + ~$50 million in revenue sharing). The 2017 operating income of -$2.2 million is based on 2017 expenditures. Why would the end of year operating income figure be based on the previous season’s expenditures? You’re making things up in an attempt to avoid admitting that the facts prove your argument conclusively wrong.

And according to another link you provided ( http://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league/miami-marlins/ ), the Marlins paid out a total of $123,574,388 to their 40 man roster during the 2016 season.

-1
Dave T
6 years ago
Reply to  jdbolick

“And according to another link you provided ( http://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league/miami-marlins/ ), the Marlins paid out a total of $123,574,388 to their 40 man roster during the 2016 season.”

Unfortunately Cot’s doesn’t provide the underlying detailed build-up for that number, because that number doesn’t make any sense. I already provided thoughts for bridging between the 2016 Opening Day payroll ($74 million) to the $100 million “player expense” number used by Forbes. To be clear, those costs (player pensions, amateur draft/IFA bonuses, etc.) would also need to be added to the $130+ million 2018 Opening Day payroll (before recent trades), so an ~$60 million payroll increase over two years is an apples to apples comparison.

We can see the detail by player and dollar amount for the Marlins’ $74 million Opening Day payroll in 2016, so that number makes sense.

Look at the Marlins’ 2016 transactions ( https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIA/2016-transactions.shtml ), and the only in-season addition with a significant salary was Andrew Cashner. The Padres also reportedly covered all but $225k of his post-trade salary ( https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/07/andrew-cashner-trade-marlins-padres.html ).

The only thing that makes sense to me is if the ending 40-man payroll number is calculated similarly to the luxury tax and uses contract AAV while also adding in the player health/pension benefits cost. The Marlins had several contracts in 2016 with AAV’s much higher than the single-year salary: Stanton (+$16 million), Gordon (+$6.7 million), Yelich (+$6 million), and Chen (+$3.5 million). The only multi-year contract going the other way is Prado (-$1.0 million).

In other words, it’s not plausible to think that ending 40-man payroll number at Cot’s was the Marlins’ actual cash payroll in 2016. The numbers don’t add up to get there. It’s clearly not calculated on the same basis as the 2017 Opening Day payroll, which is actual cash payroll for the year. In any case, that ending 40-nam number is also much higher (more than $20 million) than the payroll/player cost that Forbes used to estimate that the Marlins generated a small operating loss in 2016.

0
frangipard
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

I suggest that MLB needs some kind of independent arbiter who can govern the owners and if needed overrule them. This person could be called, oh, I dunno … a “Commissioner” or some such, and be empowered to act in the best interests of the game.

1
HappyFunBallmember
6 years ago
Reply to  frangipard

That’s the Commissioner’s job? Interesting. I wonder if the owners who appoint him feel the same way?

6
frangipard
6 years ago
Reply to  HappyFunBall

Um, yeah, it is. Or was, back when baseball had actual commissioners. Read some history.

-6
sadtrombonemember
6 years ago
Reply to  frangipard

Fay Vincent says hello

0
Brownie19
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

Um. The franchise $400M in debt. I don’t know how much money is going into their pockets…

3
baltic wolfmember
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

Looks like they’re just doing what the Astros did a few years ago. If the owners and the commish were okay with that, why wouldn’t they let the Marlins gut their present team too?
Is Bour the next to go? If so, where?

1
Drakos
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

Why would the league do that? They had to know that this would happen when they approved this ownership group. And it’s not like this is the first time an ownership group has been approved that didn’t have the money to avoid salary dumps like this.

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Paul22
6 years ago
Reply to  sideshowraheem

They approved the new ownership group and must have known their intentions. They should have just taken them over and shut them down and made players available via a draft. Worse than Loria. At least he won 2 championships and left a team that had a playoff caliber lineup. Needed some pitching after his ace was killed, but thats what you would hope the new owners would do. Put some money into the business you just bought like the Dodgers did

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Cool Lester Smoothmember
6 years ago
Reply to  Paul22

…I’m not whether it’s funnier that you think Loria was involved in the 1997 WS, or that LA and Miami are similarly lucrative markets.

3