fauowls44

I don't see a problem with this. Having extra money that can be used in the future towards the upkeep of the stadium is a good thing. In theory, it prevents the team from going back to the city 10 years from now and saying it needs help paying for a new scoreboard or something.

That is how Loria will get what fans are left, sign former players or players with connection to fla, the guy is 37, what is good about the signing? He can still get on base and run. He's also 35, not 37.

Oh please. Enough with this "Loria sucks, so the ballpark deal sucks" crap. The stadium was necessary for whomever owned the team. If Wayne or John Henry still owned the team, the ballpark deal would look pretty much exactly the same. You can hate Loria for a lot of reasons, but the ballpark is not one of them. It's the one thing that he's done right as an owner. The ballpark will be here long after Loria owns the team and if Braman wasn't involved, the ballpark would have opened a year earlier and we'd be a year closer to Loria selling the team.

If he had a dream about baseball, I bet it was to play in the majors and he already did that. People get played so easily. And some people are also just jaded and no fun. Why can't people just see a nice story and be happy for the guy? He earned a shot and, through no fault of his own, it was immediately taken from him. Now, thanks to our awful season, we are in a position to do something nice and give him that chance back. It's not like this sets some kind of bad percedent or something....he was one of two people EVER in the history of Majors to have his career essentially ended by the 1st pitch they saw (and it just happened to be here against the Marlins)...I doubt this situation comes up again in any of our life times. It's also not as if he's been out of baseball, he's been playing in the WBC. The players on the team all seem to be for it (the players who are losing an AB), so I don't know why anyone else would object. It'll be a nice moment for all involved on Tuesday. Just enjoy it and stop complaining. If you'd rather see Gil Valaquez or Scott Cousins get bat instead, then tune in after the 1st inning.

To me this is a wonderful gesture for the organization to offer, and jokes about him being better/worse than what we have or any other jokes are uncalled for. It's 1 at bat in a meaningless game, and to me it's the highlight of the season for the franchise in what's been a disastrous year. If the franchise gets good PR it's well-deserved. Agreed. Call it a publicity stunt or whatever, but it's a really, really cool thing the Marlins are doing for someone who deserves this chance (afterall, it was a Marlin that ended his career in the first place). Besides, there's nothing wrong with trying to collect a little bit of positive karma from doing a good deed. This year has been such a disaster, maybe this is just what we need to help make us right with the Universe...or something like that.

Anyone know how this works $ wise? Do they just give him a pro-rated salary? Is he doing it for free? I saw a tweet saying he was donating his 1-day salary to charity.

I don't like it. Because you don't like good stories about doing something nice for someone who had his dream taken away?

Ruggiano is inexpensive, controlled, and probably at least as solid as Cody Ross. He was just buried in the Tampa Bay system that produced Hamilton, Crawford, Upton, Joyce, Jennings, Zobrist, Gross, Fuld, and Young. The Rays system didn't produce most of those guys,or Ruggiano either. The reason he wasn't in the Majors is he wasn't good enough, maybe he's gotten better, but he certainly doesn't have the power of Cody Ross and shouldn't be anything more than a fourth outfielder if the Marlins are serious about competing in 2013. Doesn't have Cody Ross' power? Cody's career high in home runs is 24. You don't think Ruggiano could produce 20-25 home runs over a full season? The Ross comparison is actually a very good one. Cody is has a career .788 OPS and Ruggiano can certainly be that. Is he THIS good? No, but he has shown this year that he can hit and produce if given a chance.

Hopefully by calling him up now, they are committed to giving him the starting job. No point in calling him up to take over Hayes' role.

Zaslow in the morning, 790 the Ticket, has continuously repeated it's not a fire sale and he's liked the trades we've made uhhh 790 is the marlins channel, of course they like the trades. if ticket prices were raised suddenly now, they would say it is justified. Because it's impossible to actually believe that this was not a fire sale or that these are actually good baseball deals? Well I don't consider it a fire sale and I actually think the Malins did well in these deals....and I believe those things while also not being a Beinfest fan.

People still listen to WQAM? That afternoon drive show is unlistenable...just terrible radio.

Bottom line: rather than fire one lousy batting coach, we trade away 3/4 of our opening day IF --all of whom are relatively young and are 3 years removed from being allstars, plus-320 hitters, or in Hanley's case, both. Genius. For sh'ts and giggles, can someone pls post Hanley's, Gaby's, and LoMos OPS pre- and post-Eduardo? Next year will suck almost as much as this year. It will suck less not because we'll win more games (we won't) but at least next year we will expect to suck. Didn't Hanley, Gaby, and LoMo also struggle before Perez was hired last year? I'm not saying Perez is a good coach, but to blame all of the team's struggles on him is just silly. Beyond that, I refuse to believe that the team is forcing Ozzie (who they are paying a lot of money to win ball games) to keep a terrible hitting coach if he thinks he's a problem. Maybe I'm wrong, but this season has been a disaster on many levels...Don't you think that if they thought the solution was to simply replace the hitting coach, they would have done it?Its probably a coincidence but lomo and Gaby started to suck once mallee was fired. Sanchez slumped in the 2nd half of 2010 as well...and I'm going to go out on a limb and say someone doesn't go from quality hitter to sucking because of a new hitting coach.

Bottom line: rather than fire one lousy batting coach, we trade away 3/4 of our opening day IF --all of whom are relatively young and are 3 years removed from being allstars, plus-320 hitters, or in Hanley's case, both. Genius. For sh'ts and giggles, can someone pls post Hanley's, Gaby's, and LoMos OPS pre- and post-Eduardo? Next year will suck almost as much as this year. It will suck less not because we'll win more games (we won't) but at least next year we will expect to suck. Didn't Hanley, Gaby, and LoMo also struggle before Perez was hired last year? I'm not saying Perez is a good coach, but to blame all of the team's struggles on him is just silly. Beyond that, I refuse to believe that the team is forcing Ozzie (who they are paying a lot of money to win ball games) to keep a terrible hitting coach if he thinks he's a problem. Maybe I'm wrong, but this season has been a disaster on many levels...Don't you think that if they thought the solution was to simply replace the hitting coach, they would have done it?

I dont see what makes the article awful. I love the Marlins. I love baseball. But our front office is a bunch of crooks. The city streets are filled with the blood that they shed when they stole millions from taxpayers by lying over and over again about profits and revenue sharing. Then they promise one thing and do another. They are crooks. I'm so tired of the misplaced anger.... Filled with blood?? LOL. First of all, money wasn't stolen...unless you consider politicians agreeing to take tax money from tourists to build a stadium stealing. Second, what promises did they break? To spend money? They did...they just spent it wrong. Are they required to keep spending money on bad players just because of the new stadium? This is where I disagree with the loud, angry, Marlins fan. The stadium ensures we'll have a baseball team forever...that's it. It doesn't ensure keeping every player or spending endless dollars. Circumstances change. Hanley wasn't worth his contract. Just because they got a stadium built, doesn't require them to have to keep someone that is not performing. Be angry that the front office has done a bad job for a long time, but please, enough with the over dramatic "the owners are crooks" talk. It's just dumb. They wanted to win. Do you honestly they WANTED to do this this season?? So go ahead and yell, scream, and complain, but at least scream about the right thing.

And so it begins. I wish they wouldn't have included Stanton in all this. I don't think you can get fair value for him. I mean why would you trade him for prospects, he is a prospect. It just makes no sense unless it's all about the money. Which with this owner, it is. "They" haven't included him in anything. The Marlins didn't announce anything. Just because someone is "reporting" that everyone is available (including Stanton) if we become sellers, 1. doesn't make that so, and 2. doesn't mean they are actively looking to trade Stanton or anyone. Saying everyone is available at the right price hardly means they want to deal Stanton. Besides, if everything that gets reported was true, Stanton would have been in Boston 4 years ago. OOOOhhh I'm sorry. I thought this was the thread where you were supposed to comment on that subject. MY BAD. Go ahead and comment all you like, but at least post about what actually happened here. You said that you wished "they" hadn't included Stanton....and I'm just pointing out that "they" didn't include anyone. Buster Onley reported something (and there are a long list of cases in which reports, especially in this modern age of reporting, where ESPN or other reporters say something that isn't, let's just say, entirely true). There is a big difference between "they", who I took as you meaning the Marlins, saying "Stanton is available in trades!" and Onley reporting what he did in that blog.

And so it begins. I wish they wouldn't have included Stanton in all this. I don't think you can get fair value for him. I mean why would you trade him for prospects, he is a prospect. It just makes no sense unless it's all about the money. Which with this owner, it is. "They" haven't included him in anything. The Marlins didn't announce anything. Just because someone is "reporting" that everyone is available (including Stanton) if we become sellers, 1. doesn't make that so, and 2. doesn't mean they are actively looking to trade Stanton or anyone. Saying everyone is available at the right price hardly means they want to deal Stanton. Besides, if everything that gets reported was true, Stanton would have been in Boston 4 years ago.

And all this griping for no reason.... Heaney has signed for $2.6 million per Jim Callis.

Again, blowouts. Exactly. These run differential numbers are skewed by a handful (or 2 handsful) of June losses. In just 3 games, we lost 11-0 twice, 15-5...that's -32 in runs right there, but it still only counts as 3 losses. In all, we were out-scored by 6 or more runs 9 times in June. That is the reason for the bad run differential. I wouldn't make any real conclusions about that number other than we were blown out way too often in June.

Both can be nice players off the bench, but if either is starting on a regular basis, we are in trouble. This team needs Boni healthy and for Gaby and Lomo to start hitting (or a trade for another MLB caliber bat) or we aren't going anywhere.

Anyone know why Jose Fernandez only went one inning after striking out the side?

I wish people would shut the f*** up about the park dimensions and "suppression" of home runs. The park is ranked 11th of 16 in HR/game. It's defintely a pitchers park, but let's not pretend it's some crazy abnormality. I also wonder how much the quality of the Marlins starting pitching (a lot of groundballs) and the struggling offense has to do with that home run rate. Remember that the Marlins have been on the road a bunch so there's not a huge sampling. Oh...i agree. I didn't really pay attention to the majority of the article. Only the part that I bolded since I found it rather interesting and kinda horrible at the same time. Why is this horrible? Have you forgotten what it is like to sit in heat, humidity, and rain? Leave it closed until the playoffs!

At the game tonight. Bought tix at the gate. They have to do a better job of moving the lines at the gates. We got here at game time. There were about 15 people in front of us in line, but it took an hour to get tickets and get in the stadium. Umm...this seems to be your problem. If you go to any place right at the start of the event, you are going to have a line. Why not just buy tickets in advance? Or go to one of the many kiosks that sell tickets. They are much faster and usually have no lines. I honestly don't get all the complaining about attendance. Our attendance has been good and we've had a number of games on school nights and at the same time of NBA/NHL playoff games for local teams. Besides, 30K+ is a HUGE jump for this team. You have to take into account where we came from...DEAD LAST in attendance in all of baseball. Our season ticket base was non-existent. It's hard for a market to go from 0 to sold out every game. Sure, Minnesota sold out every game of their new park a few years back, but that just doesn't happen in every market. Our attendance numbers are right in line with other park openings in "better/more traditional" baseball markets like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Detroit, Houston, Washington, and Pittsburgh.

I agree with some of the above posters and I haven't even been to a game at the new park yet but will be soon. You can even tell on TV, it's quite most of the game then Hanley hits a bomb and it goes nuts haha. One thing to consider is the new ballpark people walking around checking out all of the new features and what not. Could be another factor in why it looks empty at first and fills up towards the 2nd and 3rd The seats definitely look more empty than they are. A lot of people barely spend any time in their seat. They walk the promenade and watch the game from there. It also seems like walking around and meeting up with friends who are at the game is a big thing too. I always see groups of people just standing and talking. The one thing I am kinda dissapointed in is the multiple articles I have read about how you don't even feel like you are at a baseball game with the pools/DJ/and girls in bikinis. Yeah these things are all great but it would be cool to have the feel of a traditional baseball stadium. But hey, this is Miami. On my phone but the article is on hardballtalk.com if anyone is interested I've been to 4 games at the new park now, and that is just not true at all. All that extra stuff is there, but you have to seek it out if you want it. It's not as if they have DJs and girls in bikinis in every section...it's in one specific area. You most definately feel you are at a ball game. It's an excellent park.

The Twins sold out almost every game of the first season at Target Field. There's really no good reason for why the Marlins haven't been drawing 34,000+ for every game on this homestand. You can't compare Miami to Minnesota. The Twins weren't coming off decades of drawing basically nobody to their games. They had an existing fanbase. They had drawn over 2 million fans to the Metrodome 5 straight years prior to moving to Target Field. The Marlins are basically starting from scratch in terms of people attending games (plenty are used to just watching on TV). It's hard to go from no attendnace to sold out every night, especially on a school night during the week. And the fact that it's a weeknight with school the next day certainly is a factor....it's a factor everywhere in baseball with few exceptions. Weeknight attendance is lower early in the year and gets better during the summer. Washington is in first place and they had 17,000 last night. Atlanta had 18,000, Arizona had 19,000. Even the Yankees had just over 40,000 (78% of their capacity) tonight. The point is, people need to stop over analyzing attendance at the new park. The fact that is we drew 24,000 on a night we used to draw 4,000. That's progress.

I'd think that the second night of the coolest ballpark ever should trump all of that. I guess I'm just not one to make excuses when it comes to attendance. Well you simply cannot discount the fact that there were about 40,000 other sports fans buying tickets to other events going on that the same time. Not to mention that you have to add on who knows how many other local sports fans that chose to watch on TV so that they can see all 3 events at the same time on top of that number. I don't think this is an excuse for attendance...this was a legitimate reason. Having all 3 games go on at the same time in the same region hurts all 3 teams attendance wise. You don't think that of the approximately 40,000 Heat/Panthers ticket buyers, at least a few thousand of them wouldn't have chosen to attend the Marlins game last night had the other event(s) not have been taking place? I'm proof of this...I would have gone to the Marlins game, but I chose to go to the Panthers game.