After a good night’s sleep and long hours thinking hard about what had just happened, maybe the trade of Dan Uggla to the Braves is going to be a good thing for the Florida Marlins.

 

At first, I was fuming and even sent out numerous messages to people about how much confidence I had lost with President of Baseball Operations Admin Beinfest. By the way, I’m trying to figure out what role Mike Hill has with this team since he is the GM, but Beinfest seems to be making all the moves.

 

Upon the new breaking early Tuesday evening, I was livid. So livid that after exchanging tweets with some avid Marlins fans that I know, I was so upset that I couldn’t even think about anymore.

 

But here is where sleep kicked in. Upon waking up this morning and reading all the stories and angles of everything that has gone on with HIS NAME IS DAN UGGLA! After really studying and reading about the turned down deal (4 years for 48 million) and his demand of 5 years and 71 million, I think the Marlins did what they had to do.

 

But despite having a good night’s rest, I still believe the Marlins probably could have done a little better than Omar Infante and Mike Dunn. Infante is an All-Star, who will likely replace Uggla at 2B, and Dunn is a rookie pitcher that will slide into the LOGGY role in our pen. But for someone who put up the numbers Uggla has put up the past few years, I think we sold too early.

 

Why not wait for the winter meetings next month and drive up his price? Only one person can answer that and his name is Admin Beinfest.

 

Now the other news that just broke today is that the Marlins are interested in Justin Upton from the Diamondbacks. The rumor being swirled around is that of Logan Morrison and Ricky Nolasco. Now even though I would love Upton on the Marlins, he is the same age as LOMO and not sure (without really looking up numbers) how much of an upgrade he would be over Morrison. Also to think that you have to give up our No. 2 starter also to get him, I think that asking price might be a bit much.

 

Lastly, I think the Marlins have been hoodwinked into a large contract for catcher John Buck. This contract is the largest Free Agent contract the Marlins have made since signing Carlos Delgado to a four-year, 52-million dollar deal in 2006, and we all know how that worked out for the Fish.

 

So in hindsight, Beinfest, I’ll give you a little bit of my confidence back, but you are going to earn the rest of it back after making a deal where we are going to have to face Uggla 19 times a year.

 

Hopefully for Marlins fans, Beinfest will step up and get a deal done to bring some good players to town especially with that new building that is going up on the hallowed grounds of the Old Orange Bowl.

 

Minor League News

 

- Outfielder Brett Carroll signed with the Kansas City Royals after becoming a minor-league free agent earlier this offseason

- Left-handed pitcher Dan Meyer agreed to terms with the Philadelphia Phillies. He was designated for assignment twice last season by the Marlins.

- Third baseman/First baseman Dallas McPherson signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox this afternoon (per David Villavicencio)

 

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I basically agree with most of what you said, except for the Upton bit. He'd be a sizable improvement over Morrison (definitely so in the long run) and I'd love to have him over here, but I also agree that we should try and hold onto Morrison if we do make a push for him. We still have Nunez to give away and the D'Backs need relief pitching, our bullpen is in a pretty solid shape that it can allow us to give up some good RP prospects, and Gaby Sanchez has come off a good season. I think we should steer towards trading those pieces + Nolasco, rather than giving up Morrison.

 

To me it all depends on what Beinfest does from here on out. Sometimes things look terrible until the bigger picture is seen and I'm hoping this is the case.

I mostly agree with everything you said but I really don't know what else we could've gotten for Uggla had we waited a little longer. Everybody knew we weren't signing him so people would've lowballed us. I think the pieces we got back in this trade will help us tremendously and I honestly believe we are a better team today than what he had on October 3rd when we beat the Pirates.

Regarding Upton, I'd do a Ricky/LoMo and a low tier prospect for Justin Upton in a heart beat. Upton can play CF for us and he's a just a beast inside the batter box.

Let's give Mr. Beinfest all the trust he's gained through the seasons he's been here since he keeps on putting competitive teams on the field over and over again with the lowest payroll in the Majors.