Seems like we were just here with the Marlins, no?

 

Eight years ago, in a stretch of nine months from November 11, 1997 through July 31, 1998, the Marlins traded 12 key members of their championship team, including five regulars, two of their starters and their closer. The deals, ostensibly made to help the team escape massive financial losses, sent the team into a five-year funk in which they lost 457 games and became a non-entity on the sports landscape.

 

They emerged from this period, however, to win their second World Championship in 2003. That team?s best hitter? Derrek Lee, acquired during the first fire sale.

 

This winter, they went back to the well. With no new ballpark under construction and the same destructive lease in place that enabled then-owner Wayne Huizenga to lie about the team?s finances in ?97, the Marlins have once again torn apart their roster--and payroll--to acquire younger, cheaper players. What?s scary is that they appear to have done a much better job this time around, with less material to work with.

 

Consider that after 1997, the Marlins dealt away nearly 60% of the championship team?s at-bats, eight hitters who combined for a .269./364/.439 line with 111 of the team?s 136 home runs. Of the 65.6 Wins Above Replacement the 1997 Marlins generated, 50.5 was gone by August 1 of the following season.

 

What?s galling is how poor a job they did in making all those trades. Lee became a good player, though not a superstar until he went to Chicago. A.J. Burnett and Preston Wilson, acquired in separate deals from the Mets (note: for purposes of this exercise, the Marlins are being credited not for Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile, but for the prospects they were subsequently flipped for), both became productive players. No one else, of the 22 prospects acquired in 10 trades, amounted to anything at the major-league level. Eleven never reached the majors, and two others did, but not for the Marlins. The only players to accumulate even one win above replacement were the Lee, Burnett, Wilson and Jesus Sanchez.

 

It?s easy to look back now and say that Oscar Henriquez and Rafael Medina and Rob Stratton weren?t good prospects, but at the time, each was considered to have a reasonable chance of success. Looking at the list of 22, though, the only ones I can remember being excited about are Lee and Ed Yarnall, who was responsible for some of the more outlandish misses in BP annuals. The Marlins, in large part due to their desperation, didn?t leverage their talent well. That they got three productive major leaguers is a credit to them, but you?d like to think you?d do better.

 

This time, I think they have. In this winter?s deals, they?ve picked up one player--Mike Jacobs---who is ready to contribute immediately, and two pitchers (Travis Bowyer and Sergio Mitre) who also fit that description. You could put Ricky Nolasco in this category as well. Beyond that, they added two of the top 15 or so pitching prospects in baseball in Yusmeiro Petit and Anibel Sanchez, as well as a tools prospect who?s a reasonable gamble in Hanley Ramirez. Add in upside plays in Gaby Hernandez, Renyel Pinto, Jesus Delgado and Harvey Garcia, and the collection of players the Marlins acquired this winter looks like a nice haul.

 

They didn?t give up as much, either. More of the 2005 Marlins? production was contained in free agents; the 1997 Marlins didn?t lose anyone of note to free agency (but did lose Tony Saunders in the expansion draft), while the ?05 version lost Burnett as well as regulars Juan Encarnacion and Alex Gonzalez.

 

The net effect is that not only do the 2006 Marlins look to be much better than their 1998 predecessors, but their route back to contention should be a shorter trip. This fire sale was executed with much more skill than the previous one, and the players acquired should far outshine the ones picked up eight years ago. Hindsight may be 20/20, but the first fire sale didn?t bring in any players ready for the majors, and the caliber of pitchers in the deals pales in comparison to the ones just picked up.

 

This doesn?t make the Marlins? relationship with the city of Miami any better, nor does it excuse their usurious lease with their ex-owner, which has always been their real problem. It is, however, a credit to Admin Beinfest, who danced through a difficult situation and has given the Marlins a chance to regain their footing much faster than anyone would have expected.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4757

There was some talk after the '03 series and how that team was built, about what a good job Dombrowski had done after the first fire sale in putting the building blocks together for the future...

 

But as a lot of people have stated and this article sums it up pretty well... Dealin' Dave probably got too much credit in this case.

Now we'll see if Beinfest is truly a master, or if God was answering alot of prayers in 2003.....when he was super.

I understand the intention of the article (close to major league ready talent is better than anything), but I take issue with a few things:

 

1) How can they truly think that this sell-off was executed flawlessly when it leaves us with holes at three positions catcher/leftfield, centerfield and secondbase? Not to mention, there is no one remotely resembling a major league leadoff hitter on the team or on the near horizon.

 

2) Having young pitching is nice, but when the team had 5 first round picks in the previous draft, and spent them all on pitching, already had two young top of the line starters (Willis, Olsen) and it's first two major deals (Beckett, Delgado) brought back quality pitching prospects, doesn't the law of diminishing returns have to apply? The Marlins dropped the ball on the Pierre trade by adding more pitching that they didn't already need and they seemingly left a better deal on the table with Seattle that would have netted them (reportedly) Jeremy Reed.

 

3) How could they say that Derrek Lee was the best hitter on the '03 team?

The guy that started this thread and myself have been wondering for quite a while why more position players weren't brought back in these trades. The fact that Eric Reed, Chris Aguila, Pokey Reese all could be starting has to scare some people. It's also possible that if Ramirez isn't ready that Amezaga or Andino could be at shortstop.

 

If I'm an opposing team.....I pitch to Cabrera the way everyone pitches to Bonds and make Mike Jacobs beat me. I saw a recent line-up projection that had Reed and Aguila #1 and #2 in the line-up.

 

It's great to have all this young pitching stock-piled.......but they need to move some of it. I'm for trading Olsen for Gathright and signing Terrance Long to play left.

If anything it's a good report on Beinfest and his staff. I agree they went overboard on acquiring pitching talent. But we still have to wait to see how this all plays out. Everyone needs pitching and we have plenty of arms to trade to fill holes. It's not such a bad strategy to wait to see how all these young players work out and then reassess team needs. Beinfest doesn't have to be in too much of a hurry as this year will be a loss regardless.

If anything it's a good report on Beinfest and his staff. I agree they went overboard on acquiring pitching talent. But we still have to wait to see how this all plays out. Everyone needs pitching and we have plenty of arms to trade to fill holes. It's not such a bad strategy to wait to see how all these young players work out and then reassess team needs. Beinfest doesn't have to be in too much of a hurry as this year will be a loss regardless.

 

 

Maybe I'm being crazy/stupid, but isn't the glut of AA pitching we have going to hurt the development of most players? Some guys may have to repeat a level, some may be pushed to a level too high because of roster constraints.

 

I'm reserving final judgement until opening day (since most outlets seem to suggest that the Marlins will be quite active in the spring), but if the team goes into the season with as many AA/AAA pitchers as they do, I think it's a failure as a lot of those players' development will be compromised, and that ruins value.

Maybe some of them will be in the bullpen for the Marlins. I just don't understand why they didn't get more position players back.

Young, quality pitching is coin of the realm.

Kind of "ironic" for a "Payroll Challenged" team to have a "wealth" of pitching....

 

I've been saying this for years, I don't have a problem with stock piling pitching but there is such a thing as "too much"

 

SOme of you will say, there is never too much young pitching to accumulate, even after all those picks last year were spent on young arms...

 

My response to that is: I seriously doubt we would have all those holes/question marks at 2nd base, LF, CF, and catcher right now (at this time I have no idea where Hammer will play so to me it is a ?) if we had drafted a bit more in position players... That weakness is now awfully glaring because we have no one really worthy to call up and plug into those positions...all we had was Hermida.... It also became evident during the play-off run last year when injuries hurt the line-up and we had to rely on the bench and players like Andino because there were not enough options in the farm system...