Jeffrey Loria, whom you might know as Azazel, Beelzebub, Ol' Scratch, or by his given name "The Great Satan, Dark Lord of the Underworld" has commenced gutting a Marlins team he put together roughly 12 months ago in order to justify fleecing the city of Miami into building him a new stadium. ("But it'll help revitalize the neighborhood!" says stupid people who don't understand that that happens when the city puts money behind a well thought out neighborhood plan with or without the existence of a local sports teams home field). Outside of a few moronic sabermetricians ("Their marginal win per dollar spent will go through the roof!") everyone thinks this is terrible. Unless of course you are a fan of the Nats, Phillies, Braves or Mets. The Marlins weren't good last year and they'll be worse than they needed to be for the next couple of years. That means more wins for these teams.
For the Nats especially this will help, because this down time for the Marlins coincides directly when the Nats will be fighting it out for everything from Wild Cards (hey, the Braves could have a good year) to home field advantage. But how much will it help them?
In 2012 here were the NL East teams records vs the Marlins
WSN : 9-9
ATL : 14-4
PHI : 10-8
NYM : 12-6
Both the Mets and Braves aren't going to necessarily gain much from the Marlins destruction in comparison to this past year. It will help them in that they won't lose more games, but if the Braves and Mets want to get more than 94 and 74 wins respectively, it's not going to come just from Miami becoming a doormat in front of them.
The Nats and the Phillies though, I think both these teams can probably expect 2-4 more wins just because of this. That doesn't mean the Nats are definitely looking at a 100 win season. There is WAY too much going on to say that. But they should definitely bounce back against this team over the next couple of years giving them a nice theoretical cushion to start the year (While other teams may have had some bad luck vs the Marlins this year, Pittsburgh going 1-4 for example, anything can happen in 6 games. Even the worst team has a winning record vs somebody and even good teams have bad stretches vs also-rans. So you can't say Marlins are worse, Pittsburgh will win a couple more games. Play a team 3 times that many times though and you start to get a proper comparison)
Is this automatic? Of course not. The Nats could go 9-9 again next year. Hell, they could go 8-10 or 7-11. It's not impossible. But trades like this make those results far less likely. The needle has moved for the Nats, from an expected record against Miami of something like 11-7 to something like 13-5. That may not seem like much but remember the Nats won HFA by two games, the Cardinals won the 2nd WC by two games. Every little bit helps. This helps. So thank Loria right after you splash him with holy water and watch him burn.
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This is exactly what I was thinking when I heard about the trade. Star players moving from the NL East to the AL East? Sounds good to me!
(Well, it does mean fewer competative games and lowers the value of the games we watch, so we are losers in this sense. But it makes it more likely that we'll get more playoff games against good teams, which are the most competative of them all.)
I immediately had the same 'good for us' reaction. When I looked at it, though, from a pure baseball perspective, it doesn't seem like a horrible trade. They stink, the guys traded are old enough that they won't be there when the team is good, and they seem to have received some decent players/prospects. I haven't scoured the internet yet, but it would be interesting to see how analysts compare the Red Sox trade with this one.
But sheesh, how angry must the Miami politicians and local fans be over the new stadium? I wouldn't be surprised if there are some lawsuits against Loria for fraud. Plus the other owners have got to hate this guy for taking their money and embarrassing the sport like this.
*affects
Grammar nazi out.
Part of the problem seems to be that ballpark though. The Nats rely on power to score so much, it's hard to get the offense going in that cave, but I guess AAA arms can't hurt.
You have to wonder how little the Marlins will be allowed to spend this year. I think they will be able to sign some minor league contract-type veterans who want to keep playing, and one of those guys will actually be good against us.
I like Bryce's idea...as long as they're selling off, make 'em an offer for Stanton! ^_^
Did you see this? Huh? Huh? Didya? will you blog about the Expos AND the Nats if this happened? :)
http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/2012/11/13/the-marlins-a-modest-proposal/
Even better since it would be an AL team, I could root for both :)
cassander - well I could have done without the AL East thing but hey - gotta beat the man to be the man.
Wally - It's not a horrible trade baseball wise no. Not a good one, I don't think, but certainly defensible. But everything outside of the product on the field is terrible and since this isn't a step on the way to a 2016-2019 Marlins dynasty you kind of have to side with the haters. Maybe they can get a ton for Stanton? Like Rendon and Meyer plus more perhaps?
Ollie - dammit.
blovy8 - understood but those 5-3 losses are gonna flip. I also see that important September 5.40 ERA Randy Wolf shutout coming to smack the Nats in the face.
Dezo - Rendon and Meyer not good enough? Throw in Goodwin and Rosenbaum. Get it done.
Z11 - Didn't see that. I think Montreal is out as long as Selig is in power. He won't accept the blame of the whole Expos fiasco that will certainly fall if they try a move back. In reality both teams are pretty much stuck.
(If they ask me - Durham would be a great place - swap the AAA and major league team. But that's my bias. There are better places to be in terms of population and location. Charlotte, for one, has more people in the actual city and is smack in the middle of a lot of moderately sized places like Spartanburg, Columbia, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Greensboro) and the location of the current AAA stadium is just a big field (in SC) with lots of room to grow. Now that would make it more of a Philly situation than a fun downtown park but whatcha going to do.
Besides the fact that this will make the Nats schedule easier, it kind of sucks because the Nats are--most likely--precluded from reaping any windfall from the Marlins fire-sale. Nalasco would be a pretty good 5th starter, but they won't trade him within the division...will they?
@Pig Pen:
Why not? That whole "don't trade within your division" concept is predicated on the idea that you're playing to win, and we've pretty much ruled that out as a motivation for Loria.
(Ideally, of course, a trade improves both teams, like the Nats/A's seemed to have a handle on doing last year. And then again, if someone within my division will give me Ramos for Capps I'll make that trade in a heartbeat. So really, the not-within-the-division rule is rooted in the kind of conservatism that makes NFL coaches not go for it on fourth down even when the stats say they should, because GMs are more afraid of a bad outcome ("You gave our rivals Surprise Breakout Superstar for Guy Who Got Hurt!") then they are desirous of making a move to improve the team.)
I really feel for those Marlins fans... you know, the ones who actually WENT to the games... paid their money, and were promised good things coming soon...
It feels too familiar, my ties going back to Montreal with this franchise... maybe the Fish will be playing some games in Puerto Rico next year? Sad. Really very sad.
Loria really is the devil.
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