Old Timer

maybe we need oz fire hitting coach I doubt that will happen anytime soon, but I would love to know what Loria is thinking Loria has to be steaming mad. This is NOT what he expected. Question will be who pays for this if the season goes like this all year ? I don't think it'll be Ozzie, but there will be changes to the staff, that's for sure. And will there be a change in the FO ?

according to @Marlins on Twitter..... DON'T MISS @LoMoMarlins, @HeathBell21,@Giancarlo27_, and other members of the Miami Marlins on the @todayshow tomorrow morning after 10AM!

Washington could be the next version of the Rays.....they look good and are only going to get better. If we win 2 of 3 I will be crazy happy this weekend.

The Nats really do look good this year. Espinosa and Zimmerman are young studs and LaRoche is hitting like he did at the beginning of his career again. Pretty scary. They are going to be in this all year I am afraid. We could win 87 games and be in 3rd or 4th in the division EASY.

Disappointed not to see Lomo or Infante in the lineup. Big series for being so early in the year. Hope we can take 2 of 3! Edited to add: Anybody have any idea how I can watch the game online. Nationals are blacked out here in NC . You are kinda SOL unless you know someone with an MLB.TV account and they let you use it.

Why is Infante out for the 3rd game in a row ? EDIT : Never mind just saw he has a strained groin

Nice to see the sweep

I think many here just automatically try to refute anything I post here "just because" not because they really disagree with anything I say. I find it strange and fascinating...... Not even close. You say some really questionable things that warrant flak and rebuttal. Don't you ever wonder why nobody ever comes to your defense when you get going on one particular topic? Haven't you every considered that what you say might only make senses in your own mind? Do you actually think that the posters here actually thought there was a real chance that someone would try to kill Ozzie? You think people actually thought that Ozzie would be fired, but we disagreed just to spite you? Are you really that narcissistic? No but there is a DEFINITE bully mentality that prevails on this board, more than any other that I have ever seen on any other board. There is a cadre that posters here and they have a little circle that no one is allowed to enter unless they follow the party line.

Many on here also didn't understand all the hoopla over Ozzie's comments, and I said I understood and why it was a big deal. Many here said it was nothing. Ozzie got suspended for 5 games. It was something. You can't even pretend that your analysis of the Guillen situation was remotely accurate. You said that Guillen would be likely assassinated and/or fired. And of course I posted that originally in a jestingly manner, but you take it literally. Okay

But I believe that with my work experience in Miami-Dade government I have a pretty good argument as to why there are not sellouts, What? :lol What's not to understand ? For 28 years I have worked with demographic numbers not only county wide but broken down to even neighborhood size and understand this county, dare I say better than most people that post on this board. What do you really have to offer this thread other than posts that do nothing more than try to incite ? You are expecting people to take what you say at face value because you claim to be an authority figure. That's a huge fallacy and is something that you are prone to quite frequently here. If you want to have a debate based on sound logic, I suggest you begin by reconsidering your own course of argumentation, because it's severely lacking. And since you seem to know Miami so well...why isn't Ozzie Guillen six feet under yet? I never said it WOULD happen, but only that it COULD happen, based on my past experience with the kind of people who were demonstrating last week. How can I be held as a liar when I only said something was a possibility and never said it was a definite ? If you don't wish to take what I say and my opinions are based on my expertise then fine, nothing I can do short of telling you my name & having you research my creditials. So just for my own curiosity, can you tell us why there haven't been complete sellouts for all the games so far ? Just posting that South Florida has bad sports fans doesn't cut it. Give me real reasons.

Also - Admin lives in New York ... is he not allowed to complain about attendance, even though he's been a fan since the team began? He can complain but if he does, it just looks like whining. If you can't help the situation, just droning on about does nothing. I go to several games a year, I travel down from New York just to go in fact. I went to 19 home games a few years back in fact so I think I can talk about attendance just like any local fan can personally. You can if you wish but do you really know all the quirks of South Fla and its demographics ? Many on here also didn't understand all the hoopla over Ozzie's comments, and I said I understood and why it was a big deal. Many here said it was nothing. Ozzie got suspended for 5 games. It was something. I think many here just automatically try to refute anything I post here "just because" not because they really disagree with anything I say. I find it strange and fascinating...... But Admin did you really expect there to be sellouts or near sellouts even after the 1st week ? If so then you really don't know or understand South Fla they way you may think you do.

I have yet to see anyone refute my posts. Give me a logical refute and I will debate them. Pretty sure that people have refuted everything; you are just pretending not to hear it. Please give me the examples of refutes to my arguments, because I only posted it about an hour ago.

But I believe that with my work experience in Miami-Dade government I have a pretty good argument as to why there are not sellouts, What? :lol What's not to understand ? For 28 years I have worked with demographic numbers not only county wide but broken down to even neighborhood size and understand this county, dare I say better than most people that post on this board. What do you really have to offer this thread other than posts that do nothing more than try to incite ?

At the same time, you have a lot of people on here who DO live in Miami or surrounding areas saying the exact same thing, yet since the person isn't from there, they can't have the same say? It's not logical. I have yet to see anyone refute my posts. Give me a logical refute and I will debate them. But I believe that with my work experience in Miami-Dade government I have a pretty good argument as to why there are not sellouts, and that anyone that expected there to be sellouts at every game or even close to it was flat out being unrealistic. I am waiting to hear someone refute my argument in a logical and non-personal but professional way and someone that lives in Miami today. Go to it....the gauntlet has been laid down.

No it's not that simple. When your wife is extremely tied to her family you just don't up and say "we are leaving because we must live in Floirda because otherwise I can't do a simple observation and say that Miami needs fans to go to the ballpark." Old timer, these arguments about a person having to live in Florida otherwise you can't do this or say this are just flat out wrong. Oh you can say them, but you have no validity in the statements. I don't comment on things in NC because I don't live there, never have and don't know anything about the place, so I won't make judgements about the place. Plain and simple. Yes people need to go to the stadium, and they are in much higher numbers than in years past. Why isn't it enough for some people, I don't know ? But if they thought that every game was going to be a sellout then they just don't understand South Fla, and its dynamics enough to know that is an unrealistic expectation, and they shouldn't put their expectations onto the South Fla sports fan or community in general unless they know that community well enough to make a clear & logical opinion on it. Most people that don't live in Miami or have only visited a few times and for a few days at the time, still don't have a real clue to the dynamics that go into what makes South Fla tick. Therefore they shouldn't make statements about South Fla, or its fans unless they have a direct knowledge about that place. Visiting a few times doesn't give you that perspective.

They can't JUST CAN'T sign this guy to a new deal......let him walk please.

Ricky being Ricky.....he clears the bases for the other team

For those complaining about the attendance - if you don't live in South Fla and if you are worried so much about it, then move here and contribute to the attendance. if not then STFU about it already. Le sigh. Thankfully I'm moving back to South Florida soon, so +1 me to attendance for a few games hopefully. Also - Admin lives in New York ... is he not allowed to complain about attendance, even though he's been a fan since the team began? He can complain but if he does, it just looks like whining. If you can't help the situation, just droning on about does nothing. This topic and thread should be closed it does nothing to change the situation, it is what it is. Complaining about it is just a dead topic. In that logic, you have no right to complain about Beinfest, because there is nothing you as an individual can do that will change it you. That goes foe basically all the other crap we complain about too if that's the case. This something you can change if you wish......you could move here and change the equation. You can do that, its a matter of wanting to do it or not.

One thing to consider is that the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach market may be incredibly spread out, relative to other markets, especially when one considers the location of the park. It may not be fair to compare it to other metropolitan areas. As I posted earlier this market cannot fairly be compared to even smaller markets, because they have generational ties to their franchises that can go back 4 or 5 generations for some of them. This is a new market for MLB (relatively speaking) and with these markets it can be more closely compared to are just a few and that is Phoenix and Tampa Bay. And even with that you are comparing cities with vastly different demographics. Phoenix has a significant part of its newer population as older & retired, and therefore possibly already attached to another team, and that also goes in Tampa Bay. However the population in South Florida and particularly Miami-Dade County and to a lesser extent but still significantly in Boward has changed in recent years, even since the Marlins have arrived on the scene. There are significantly lower numbers of retired people living in Miami-Dade County now than there were 20 years ago due to a number of reasons. 1st Hurricane Andrew - that displaced 250,000 people all by itself, in southern Miami-Dade, a large number of which were retirees who lived in South Dade as military pensioners. Homestead AFB used to have a full service medical hospital and medical service center as well as a full service BX (Air Force base exchange) that retirees could use. That attracted thousands to trailer parks and lower income retiree centric housing. When those people became displaced after the storm many of them left Miami completely and were replaced by Hispanics many of which were Mexican and other Central American nationalities. Even though baseball is played in those countries, due to the difference in culture, those people would not normally be as attracted to baseball. 2nd South Beach & Aventura areas of Miami have completely changed their demographics in the last 15 or so years. Those area were mainly populated by older retired Jewish couples that had moved here from mostly the northeast. As many of them died off or moved away, they have been replaced by a younger & more Hispanic demographic. Many of which are not die hard baseball fans. Some of them even come from countries where baseball is not even played very much (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, etc). That also gives the Marlins a harder population in which to draw from. This is something the Marlins are trying to do - attract the Hispanics because they make up about 65% of the Miami-Dade County population now. Non-Hispanic whites are about 15% and Afro-Americans about 15%. (http://hagasecontar.yaeshora.info/news?id=0402) Broward county has experienced to a lesser degree the same kind of demographic change, with an ever larger expansion of their Hispanic population, and the older Jewish population retreating in large numbers. Too you have to also factor in the homosexual population growth in Broward County, which now is a significant population in that county, much like it was for many years in San Francisco. Boward County I believe has the 4th or 5th largest homosexual demographic now in the nation. That demographic is not known to support sports as a priority so you have that factor working also against the Marlins. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida#Demographics In recent decades (starting around the 1980s), the city has become known for having a large gay community and being a popular vacation spot for gay and lesbian tourists. Even though the LGBTpresence is noticeable all over Fort Lauderdale, the highest concentration of gay and lesbian residents are in the neighborhoods of Victoria Park and Middle River Terrace, and in the townships ofOakland Park and Wilton Manors, with the latter often being called the 'Gay-borhood' or the 'Gay village'. These factors as well as the media explosion I mentioned in my previous post, all point towards the Marlins having a much harder time in selling the Marlins to the South Fla population. I'm sure that many of you that live in very white-bred homogenized and strictly All-American cities like St Louis or Nashville or Cincinnati cannot begin to comprehend the diversity that exists in this community (and frankly makes it so effing great to live here) and how much harder it is to sell a sport that is not usually a top priority in those cultural-centric communities we have here. Bottom line, its a much tougher sell here than just about any other market in the US, and that is a fact.

For those complaining about the attendance - if you don't live in South Fla and if you are worried so much about it, then move here and contribute to the attendance. if not then STFU about it already. Le sigh. Thankfully I'm moving back to South Florida soon, so +1 me to attendance for a few games hopefully. Also - Admin lives in New York ... is he not allowed to complain about attendance, even though he's been a fan since the team began? He can complain but if he does, it just looks like whining. If you can't help the situation, just droning on about does nothing. This topic and thread should be closed it does nothing to change the situation, it is what it is. Complaining about it is just a dead topic.

Beinfest has almost never had money to spend in the draft. The Marlins have routinely been among the bottom 5 in draft spending. Terrible strategy. If you had spent on the scouting and draft, then you could possibly have been the Tampa Bay Rays, with their farm system and this new stadium. Just think about that. As it is, its the Nationals that are going to be that team, and I can see us becoming the next Baltimore Orioles. I'm afraid Loria will sooner rather than later get tired of shelling out big cash if he is not seeing the results. The fans here to will get weary of a team that doesn't produce on the field. This is a critical year. We have to win to keep their interest.

Just to put it in perspective ... The teams in bold had higher attendance then us. 6 out of the 15 teams, and those were the yankees, red sox, giants, brewers, cards, giants, angels ... all big market teams To be fair, south florida is the 8th largest MSA by population in the country, after NY, LA, chicago, houston, dallas, philly, and DC. There are more people here than in boston, st.louis, san fran, etc. We should "be" one of those big-market teams, if going solely by market size. Boston, Philly & St Louis etc. also have generations of history behind them. For us to be compared to them is always ridiculous. Better comparisons will always be Phoenix & Tampa and to a lesser extent San Diego & LA. Phoenix and Tampa are similar to Miami as they both have populations that are made up of residents that are generally are 1st, and perhaps 2nd generation living there. San Diego & LA are both sort of similar since that even though they have been large cities for a while, they both have large %'s of their residents that are 1st & 2nd generations. Another big problem for teams like Miami, Tampa and Phoenix will always have is the explosion of media in the game. Even as little as 20 years ago when the Marlins 1st came into the league, there was no internet coverage of the game, and neither was there much TV coverage other than Mets, Cubs, Braves and Yankees. ESPN had perhaps a game or two a week, and NBC had their Saturday afternoon games. Today, you can live in Miami, and see every single Yankees game, chat with other Yankee fans on their message boards, tweet with Yankee fans and even Yankee beat writers, and even better tweet directly with Yankee players. Who the hell needs the Marlins ? That is why the Marlins, and I think Tampa and Phoenix will all find it much harder than other more established franchises to gain fiercely loyal long term fans. The only way to do this is to win, and continue to compete hard for those fans. This is where I feel Loria in some ways let his franchise down. He turned off a lot of potential loyal fans by going the route he did - el cheapo - back in 2006. But I understand he had to make a business decision, and I am sure it was difficult to do, since he knew that going by the route he wasn't going to be able to really compete unless he got very, very lucky. The team competed on the field, but as it went on year after year of very little star power (Hanley was really the only "star" he had after 2006, and in 2006 that was just "potential star" actually) and the crowds got smaller and smaller. Fans never saw any hope so they just said why come to come, if its only going to ultimately be frustrating at the end of the season. If you analyze other teams you'll see much the same has happened to them as well. Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Baltimore and Cleveland have all seen the same thing happen to their fanchises. 20 years ago KC & Pittsburgh, and 12-15 years ago Baltimore & Cleveland, and as little as 4 years ago Seattle, were averaging 25,000 a game or more. Last night Seattle had one of its lowest attendances ever, and last year they had their lowest ever at 11,500 (or so). I'm sure Houston is joining this bunch later this year, if they haven't already. Whats more troubling than anything is that all of these teams had exactly what the Marlins said they needed to compete and that is a new stadium (all got one except for KC which extensively has remodeled its stadium in the last 4 or 5 years). They all found out it took more than just a shiny new toy to compete. That is where Loria may have his next problem. He needs to start diverting every dollar he can into scouting. Drafting the next generation of players is the only way to eventually compete with teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and others with deeper pockets. You need to be able to continually be drafting the next Giancarlo Stanton because you will not be able to keep all of your players once the newness of the stadium wears off and the fans say, okay, "Nice stadium, but ????" Giancarlo Stanton is going to cost the Marlins at least $ 125 million to keep. If you have Hanley, JJ and Stanton all on the team making $ 10 million + you will have to have a number of cost controlled players on your team just to be able to afford those 3. Hitting HRs in the draft will be the best and cheapest way to do that, and that means starting to hit on those 1st round draft picks. I can't remember the last time the Marlins actually had a 1st round pick that actually made it as a star. Coghlan did win RoY but since then has been a bit of a disappointment. But just look at the picks since 2002......Hermida 2002 (for the most part a bust), Jeffrey Allison 2003 (complete bust), Taylor Tankersley 2004 (bust), 2005 we took Volstad, Aaron Tompson, Jacob Marceaux, Ryan Tucker and Sean West - F I V E - pitchers and only one of them even made it to the majors with some significant playing time (that draft alone should have gotten Beinfest fired), Brett Sinkbeil & Chris Coghlan 2006 (with Coglan only making MLB). For the picks 2007 and on I don't think its fair to call them busts yet, but Skipworth is getting very close. But think of this, had Beinfest hit on just one of those 8 pitchers he drafted in the 1st round, Mark Buerhle would have been unecessary. You could have used that money to get an established CF or put more money into your BP, or upgrade on the bench, or dare I say SCOUTING. Many people here disagree but I think Loria can do better than Beinfest, and when Theo Epstein became available this year, I think he should have been all over him in getting him here.

What are peoples expectations? Does anyone really think they are going to draw 30,000 a game over the course of the season? I would anticipate that they would grab somewhere between 25k-27k on average over the season ..... putting them in that range between 16th-20th in the league The stadium barely has the capacity to be a top 10 attendance teams It is what it is ........ another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone is going to be buckled to their seat - especially with a new ballpark Open concourses make it easy to wander, people want to check out different views, places like the budweiser bar will draw people in - I went to a game at target field it's 1st season and maybe spent 3 1/2 innings actually in my seat - about the same amount I spent in one of the bars that overlooked the field 16th to 20th in the NL ? Who are those other 4 mystery teams ? :huh lame oh noes - he said league to refer to all of major league baseball when discussing attendance of all teams ........ i'm going to make a dumbass comment about AL v NL because i'm too daft to understand context.................... I understood the context completely. That is an inexcusable mistake for one to make.

For those complaining about the attendance - if you don't live in South Fla and if you are worried so much about it, then move here and contribute to the attendance. if not then STFU about it already.

What are peoples expectations? Does anyone really think they are going to draw 30,000 a game over the course of the season? I would anticipate that they would grab somewhere between 25k-27k on average over the season ..... putting them in that range between 16th-20th in the league The stadium barely has the capacity to be a top 10 attendance teams It is what it is ........ another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone is going to be buckled to their seat - especially with a new ballpark Open concourses make it easy to wander, people want to check out different views, places like the budweiser bar will draw people in - I went to a game at target field it's 1st season and maybe spent 3 1/2 innings actually in my seat - about the same amount I spent in one of the bars that overlooked the field 16th to 20th in the NL ? Who are those other 4 mystery teams ? :huh