PhxPhin

Go Hawks Absolutely awesome and a long time coming

Apparently Livan has gone into full auction mode http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/12/18/livan-hernandez-is-auctioning-off-his-world-series-ring-and-mvp/ Interesting to see what some of the stuff went for http://www.lelands.com/Auction/CategoryView/3907/Fall-2013-Catalog-Aution/Sports/The-Livan-Hernandez-Collection His 1997 WS Ring brought in $18,752.10 - which was the most expensive item The first pitch baseball for the Nationals didn't meet it's $5,000 reserve His WS MVP was just under $10k, which is interesting as unlike a ring there is no real stripped down value in there - it's lucite & a baseball - however, it's not something shared by everyone on the roster I found the Silver Slugger award interesting as well

The Marlins have put themselves in a position where they have to offer more in the contract than others to get any "prime" FA There isn't a lot of draw to the Marlins right now - they haven't had success, they don't have the clubhouse, city or ownership draw The Red Sox are the Red Sox - they had a bad year, shed a bunch of payroll, but have been a consistent playoff team, had pedroia, papi and others that are respected vets and they still spent something like $125M over 7 guys and I think the largest commitment was in the $40M range - no deal longer than 3 years, most 1-2 year deals with the impact this year a little over $50M Miami wouldn't spend that much and even if they did and were able to land like players to like deals (which they wouldn't be able to) there just isn't enough on this team to have those guys provide that much of a boost .... I don't think it would get them even to a playoff contender, let alone a WS contender As for Hech - I hate that as fans of the Marlins you pretty much have to resign yourself that a guy who isn't productive is pretty much going to hang out for a while due to a lack of options and more holes on the team to fill while we try to buy into some promise about what he could develop into I can't buy into the first year as a full starter talk or anything like that either - the diamondbacks also traded for a SS with a funny name - one who is younger with less experience at all levels and while not a world beater by any means he at least showed enough to be thought of as at worst a stop gap and someone that may not be a complete anchor on your team Even if Hech develops to where he's consistently not one of the worst regulars at his position in baseball and lands where he's in that 15th-20th worst player at his position that's still someone you need to look to upgrade

Moran will also be the Marlins representative in the Bowman Hitting Challenge this Saturday ...... sounds kind of goofy, but could be fun http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/winterleagues/hitting_challenge.jsp

Again, I'm not sure why it's even remotely relevant unless they are letting Perry Hill help pick players .... in which case it's more of a FO problem, than a Perry Hill problem From my understanding he is there to make infielders better at their position on the field, their technique and a whole bunch of other stuff that comes from playing the position It's the FOs responsibility to give him the players to coach the only way I could see this being an issue is if the FO approached him with advanced statistics about their own players range, strengths/weaknesses or how to coach up the infielders to a specific opponent or situation and he wasn't receptive to the input I don't think those conversations are happening though Until the point where advanced statistics actually interface with him and he rejects to listen to them in doing his job then it's a non-issue Now if you want to have a conversation about if the FO should provide that information then that's something to really discuss

Ladies and Gentlemen - Your Miami Marlins!! I mean, the Juan Pierre deal ended up working out fine, right? I wonder if the extra $100k was to buy out all those high dollar incentives that Juan Pierre received

I think it's hard to say given the high level of dysfunction ...... a whole bunch of people in the credit line and a whole bunch of people looking to push blame with very little understanding of roles, etc An example of this would be that in September of 2011 the Marlins hired Marty Scott to replace Jim Fleming as VP of Player Development. At the time Loria was grumbling about the quality and depth of the farm system - this was following the Fernandez draft of 2011 Of course they don't actually fire Fleming ..... they make him a "special assistant" to Beinfest The whole thing is a cluster........

Johnson & Gomez get a game each

Jennings and Beinfest aren't dumb guys. They've had their respective jobs for a while because they are great evaluators of talent and consistently replenish the system with talent (Beckett/JJ/Stanton/Willingham/etc...) Beckett & Willingham were before either Beinfest or Jennings and JJ was before Jennings I'm really not sure what Jennings has done to inspire much confidence - I'm not seeing any great results at any organization that he's been a part of and the Marlins scouting/drafting wasn't all that great while he was wearing those hats

sucks for him that MLB seemed to arbitrarily reject the renewal of his waiver after it expired

Nice - they are moving the games from Phoenix Muni to Camelback Ranch in Glendale - which is within 15 minutes of my house Hopefully the schedule works out a little more favorable to actually be able to watch the games than last year - definitely want to check out a few of those players .... just looked and there are 11 6:35 starts on the total schedule (although only 4 at home) and a couple home weekend games ... should be able to make a few this year

Yeah - my wife told me last night that a former Marlins pitcher died in Bartlett Lake .......... never heard of the guy, but a sad way to go and kind of an odd set of circumstances as well

why did Bell work around Stanton this time?! Last time was clearly just a test from God and now God is disapointed that he didn't respond to the challenge

Awesome ending ... couldn't ask for anything better

found it in the Juan Pierre signs thread Pierre would earn a $25,000 bonus if he's an All-Star, $25,000 each for winning a Gold Glove or Silver Slugger, $50,000 if he's an LCS MVP, $100,000 if he's the World Series MVP and $100,000 if he's the league MVP. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8653126/miami-marlins-salary-dump-trade-toronto-blue-jays-finalized So yeah - a cool extra $300k if he posts a historic season as a 35 year old ......... i seriously would have loved to have been in on that negotiation JP/Agent - "wait, only an extra $50k if I'm an all star AND a gold glove winner?! If I did that I'd have an awesome season,that's not much of an incentive" Marlins (sarcastically) - "you're right ... how about this ... if you have that kind of season you oculd be league MVP so why don't we double that $50k to $100k just for that award ... now you're up to $150k if you pull the trifecta" JP/Agent - "that's more like it ... how's the team looking this year? I know you have a new ballpark and all and are making a push? You think a league MVP season would put the team over the top?" Marlins (now fully laughing) - "of course .... in fact you know that $100k for league MVP .... since we'd be bound to be in the playoffs why don't we make it an extra $100k if you can be a WS MVP - shoot, we'll even throw in $50k for a LCS MVP" JP/Agent - "let's get to work"