Marlins' Trades: Look in the Mirror

As dedicated Marlins fans—we go to 20 games a year and watch almost every other game on TV—my wife and I are surely disappointed that the new Marlins ownership has lowered player salaries by jettisoning three starters—Dee Gordon, Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna.

But as realists, we are not at all surprised. How could it be otherwise?

Anyone focused on reality, as opposed to emotion-driven name-calling—in other words, anyone who considers it necessary to base opinions on the facts as they are and not as one wants them to be—knew that holding onto these high-priced stars made no long-term sense.

Why? Because of a few undeniable facts, both of the baseball and financial variety.

First, the baseball facts:

1.             The team was a chronic loser with Stanton and Gordon and Ozuna. Let’s look at their record since they moved into Marlins Park in 2012:

Year	Record	Games Out in NL East	Games Stanton Played	…Ozuna	…Gordon
2012	69-93	29	123	0	0
2013	62-100	34	116	0	0
2014	77-85	19	145	153	0
2015	71-91	19	74	123	145
2016	79-82	15.5	119	148	79
2017	77-85	20	159	159	158

2.             Their starting pitching—even had Jose Fernandez not died—was mediocre or worse. You need four starters to win. One does not do it. Aside from the young starter who came from nowhere, Jose Urena, starters the Marlins used in 2017 were over-the-hill or marginal—think Dan Straley,  Adam Conley, Edinson Volquez, Tom Koehler, and Vance Worley. Yes, Urena had a good 2017 (14-3 W/L, 3.82 E.R.A., 1.273 WHIP), but no one can say whether what he displayed last year is replicable. But for every Urena there was a Justin Nicolino, an Odrisamer Despaigne, or, my favorite, a Wei-Yin Chen, an oft-injured lefty who parlayed one decent year (2014 at age 28) with the Orioles into a ludicrous 5-year, $80 million backloaded contract (he’ll earn $24,600,000 in 2020). This, from the same management team that lavished millions on John Buck, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Heath Bell, and similar busts.

3.             Their relief pitching was equally suspect. Of the 5 Marlins pitchers with the most relief appearances, they had WHIP of 1.200, 1.379, 1,339, 1.392, and 1.553. The The Marlins dished out major dollars to a 37-year-old submariner, Brad Ziegler, whose best years were long behind him: his cumulative ERA since debuting in 2008 (including 2017) was 2.61; in 2017, 4.79. His average WHIP, 1.252; 2017, 1.553.

4.             Their depth was non-existent. Compare the Astros’ 2017 top three non-starting position players to the Marlins’:

	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA
Astros
Marwin Gonzalez	134	515	455	67	138	34	0	23	90	8	3	49	99	.303
Evan Gattis	84	325	300	41	79	22	0	12	55	0	1	18	50	.263
Jake Marisnick	106	259	230	50	56	10	0	16	35	9	4	20	90	.243
Marlins
JT Riddle	70	247	228	20	57	13	1	3	31	0	2	12	50	.250
Ichiro Suzuki	136	215	196	19	50	6	0	3	20	1	1	17	35	.255
Tyler Moore	104	203	187	17	43	14	0	6	30	0	0	10	56	.230

5.             As usual, the Marlins’ minor league system was bare. At the end of the 2017, their minor league system was ranked 28^th by Baseball America. Even after the trades of Gordon, Stanton and Ozuna, not a single guy in their farm system was rated in Baseball’s Top 100 by MLB Pipeline. Just look at their 2013-2017 top draft choices to get an idea why:

a.     2013 Colin Moran, 3B (now with Astros, .206 BA, 34 AB);

b.    2013 Matt Krook, LHP (never signed by Marlins);

c.     2014 Tyler Kolek, RHP (still in Rookie League);

d.    2014 Blake Anderson, C (switched to pitcher, Gulf League);

e.    2015 Josh Naylor, 1B (traded to Padres in 2016; low minor leagues)

f.      2016 Braxton Garrett, LHP (yet to play: Tommy John surgery)

g.    2017 Trevor Rogers (yet to play)

How did the Marlins get that way? Were all their front-office baseball people total dolts? Maybe they were below-average talent evaluators, but is that the sole reason for the Marlins’ sustained mediocrity? Not likely. More likely it’s at least largely, if not exclusively, a lack of cash to spend on first-class scouts, cross-checkers, data analysts and the other sources of baseball knowledge. Any question why is there not enough cash?

That leads to the financial facts.

1.             It has been widely noted that the Marlins have been last or near to last in the National League in attendance for years. But what is the effect of this lousy attendance on team revenues?

This is the Marlins’ reported home attendance since 2012, when they moved to Marlins Park (still named generically). The “Gap in Dollars” estimates that, as Fortune reports, the average Marlins ticket-buyer spent $33 per ticket plus concessions per game.

Year	Marlins	ML Average	Marlins’ Rank	Difference	Gap in Dollars
2012	2,219,444	2,495,309	18	275,865	9,103,543
2013	1,586,322	2,467,563	29	881,241	29,080,959
2014	1,732,283	2,457,987	27	725,704	23,948,245
2015	1,752,235	2,458,668	28	706,433	23,312,280
2016	1,712,417	2,438,636	28	726,219	23,965,214
2017	1,651,997	2,422,347	28	770,350	25,421,564

For nostalgia’s sake, let’s look at 2003, the last year the Marlins made the playoffs and won the World Series:

Year	Marlins	ML Average	Marlins’ Rank	Difference	Gap in Dollars
2003	1,303,214	2,256,300	28	953,086	33,358,003

2.             But that’s only attendance and concessions. How about local TV revenue. Figures from Fangraph for 2016 show that Miami is locked into a local TV contract through 2019 paying them $20 million a year; the mean payment per team was $53.5 million, while the median was $46 million. Split the difference, and the Marlins bank $30 million a year less than the average team from local TV rights. Meanwhile, media reports claim that the Marlins earn next to nothing from radio rights. So, between attendance and TV revenues, they’re in the hole about $55 million a year (throwing out 2012 attendance, their first year in the new park). No wonder they had to lower their payroll by $25 million a year—and, we can pray, put some of the difference into a quality farm system and analytics group.

Finally, let’s compare the years at Marlins Park when Stanton was injured for a major portion of the season and when he was not injured, to see if the fans turned out to see their star when he was playing.

Year	Games Stanton played	Marlins Attendance
2012	123	2,219,444
2013	116	1,586,322
2014	145	1,732,283
2015	74	1,752,235
2016	119	1,712,417
2017	159	1,651,997

As you can see, there’s no correlation. Indeed, in 2017, when he had the greatest year any Marlin has ever had and likely will ever have, attendance dropped overall, even though he played in 159 games.

So, for all who seek to cast blame for this situation, why blame the owners, capitalists all—from Wayne Huizenga to John Henry to Jeffrey Loria to Bruce Sherman/Derek Jeter. Who can blame them for either growing tired of losing money or not wanting to lose money from the outset? Who would willingly buy a business to lose money? Yes, business losses can be written off a tax return, but until people pay taxes at a 100% rate, no one comes out ahead by incurring business losses.

The only solution to this team’s financial woes will be increased attendance and TV viewership. But what chance is there that, as the Miami Herald has reported the Sherman/Jeter business plan reflected, attendance revenue and local TV revenue are going to increase sharply?

If you’re looking for people to blame, look at the people who don’t go to Marlins games, don’t listen to them on the radio, and don’t watch them on TV. No one is required to do any of the three. But if people want to get angry and fulminate, but stay even somewhat tethered to reality, they should start by looking in the mirror.

When you’re though looking in the mirror, concede this: this is a lousy baseball town. Then ask whether you’re willing to do anything about it.