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Derek Jeter: "First Day of a New Era"


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Stanton is going to hurt more- the season he just had and the hope a new ownership brought people is going to crush this fan base. 

 

Cabrera was eating himself out of the NL until they traded him, and while great we got what many considered an amazing return for him. 

 

Stanton's contract is considered an albatross, and it's driving his value down- regardless of what he did on the field. In a few years, his contract will look like a bargain. Harper and Trout, are going to easily get 30MM + in a bidding war, and probably clear 350mm. Stanton is the highest paid now, but not for long. 

 

 

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Fox Sports Fla better think long and hard about the ratings in store for them on Marlins telecasts if Stanton goes and the team ends up losing 95 or more games with the core largely gone. Better for them, and for the team, for the TV rights package to be renegotiated now, and the possible additional Marlins TV revenue to maybe help in keeping G and some of the core pieces with the team. I fully get that Ozuna will have to be traded for pitching.

 

If Stanton is salary dumped, I honestly don't see this franchise recovering with the fans for a very long time, if ever.   

 

That’s a good point. And yes, I see a Stanton trade really hurting an already jaded and very often ignorant fan base. 

 

 

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The guys on The Ringer MLB Show had a very level headed discussion about former players running ball club operations.  Among other things they discussed the lack of experience Jeter has even when compared to modern day examples like Dave Stewart and Jerry DiPoto.  Not that either of those guys represent success (certainly not Stewart), but they at the very least took their role after having spent time working in front offices, which Jeter has not done. 

 

A complete rebuild can actually be exciting at certain points in time but only if competent people are orchestrating it.  Sadly that is not the case here.  The Astros hired Jeff Luhnow away from the Cardinals to start their rebuild.  That is exciting (side note: we cannot go into this expecting results like the Astros.  Every team wants to do this now so expecting 100 wins in four years is setting yourself up for disappointment).  Derek Jeter is not exciting and as el penguino pointed out retaining Michael Hill is a disaster.  The only possible positive spin I can think of is that he is being retained as a way of transitioning and even that is sad because it underscores the complete lack of credentials Jeter has for heading up baseball operations. 

 

The press conference also illustrates another sad element to all of this and that is Jeter clearly thinks that he can fly relatively under the radar while he learns on the job because he is so used to the spotlight in New York. 

 

To make this really effective the piece you keep is Yelich.  He’s got his best years ahead of him at a great price.  The Stanton situation is unfortunate because it is impossible to spend our way into a competitive position in the short term and rebuilding around him will only make for an unhappy Stanton. 

 

 

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I honestly wonder why they are retaining Hill. I guess it isn't the money then because Loria is paying off the contracts of the other four exectives that were let go. Does Jeter really think Hill is good? 

 

I like that their purusing some respected names and pretty much will land them but having Hill still in charge cancels it all out.

 

 

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Like you all I’m trying to get some perspective on all this and in doing so I decided to look to recent history.  The current day idea of what we all think a quality President of Baseball Operations/General Manager should look like really took shape about ten plus years ago.  Ten seasons ago we had seen Tampa Bay make the World Series in Friedman’s third season running the organization alongside Gerry Hunsicker, and Theo had won two rings in Boston by then.  With ten being a nice round number I decided to look at all the changes in ownership in baseball during the last ten years to see how the new owners handled their baseball operations people and see if what is happening here bears any resemblance to what happened before us.

 

There were five changes in ownership over that period of time.  This excludes ownership changes due to death (Yankees, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers) and the Mariners sale which was a situation where minority shareholders bought Nintendo’s shares.  I’m looking only at situations where new blood comes in to own a team with the chance that a house cleaning is in order.

 

2009 Cubs purchased by the Ricketts – Incumbent GM Jim Hendry.  Hendry to me is a mixed bag.  The Cubs made many post seasons when he was there, but they also had one of the highest payrolls consistently and they were able to spend their way into being competitive but it clearly was a matter of resources and not Hendry’s brilliance.  Two years later they let him go and brought in Theo/Jed Hoyer in 2011. 

 

2010 Rangers purchased by Ray Davis – Incumbent GM was Jon Daniels and they rightfully retained him.  The Rangers have had great success under his watch before and since the sale.

 

2011 Astros purchased by Jim Crane – Ed Wade is the incumbent GM.  Immediately after the sale they brought in Jeff Luhnow from St. Louis.  This was a clearly smart move.  The Astros glory days were orchestrated by Hunsicker and Wade came in after Hunsicker left for Tampa Bay.  Wade drove their organization into the groud, and Luhnow has over seen the resurrection.

 

2012 Padres purchased by Ron Fowler – Josh Byrnes was the incumbent GM and was retained by ownership.  He was fired two years later (and landed with the Dodgers) and they hired AJ Preller who had been with the Rangers baseball operations for ten years

 

2012 Dodgers – Ned Colletti had been general manager and still works in the front office along with a whole bunch of other ex-GM’s alongside Andrew Friedman.

 

So in our sample of five we see one instance where an instant change was made (Houston), two instances where the GM was retained and is still with the organization (Rangers/Dodgers), and two where the GM was fired two years later (Cubs/Padres).  Five teams…that is 15% of the league, and we see three different groups of outcomes.  The one instance where the GM was fired upon sale was Houston and in that case there was a clear need.  I would say more clear than with the Marlins.  Wade took over an organization that was a perennial playoff team, and had made the World Series and mismanaged them.

 

It wouldn’t be shocking to see Jeter try and hire people from the Yankees front office since that is all he knows.  Does that ensure long term security for Hill?  I would think not.  I don’t believe keeping Hill around is in the best interest of the organization, but it is also unfair to lay the sad state of affairs all at his feet.  Yes, he’s made some poor decisions but when you look at the farm and see how little there is there, situations like that are systemic and not because of one man.

 

The big negative to take from all this is that of the five sales I looked at, the teams that had success stories after the fact had executives with proven track records of success in charge.  Jeter is not that.  So this is all very frightening, but Michael Hill is the least of my concerns at this point in time.

 

 

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There is a rumor that Jim Hendry is on the short list of people to head the baseball operations division.

 

I know it's early, but Jeter's managing is already alarming.

 

I missed that Hendry rumor, thought you were joking, googled it, then became very sad.  He’s with the Yankees now which lends credence to it all.  If given the choice between Hendry or Jeter being the actual President of Baseball Ops I’d obviously take Hendry in a heartbeat but his experience with the Cubs, to me, doesn’t translate well to the Marlins current predicament. 

 

Apropos of nothing, here’s a quote from the Chicago Tribune from Hendry about his time with the Cubs

 

"We really thought we could've won it in '03 and '04, and then we of course took a different path with the club going on sale in '07 and '08," Hendry said. "I felt like if we didn't do it by '09, it was going to be hard, that things were going to have to change economically. So I don't look at it like 'Oh, poor me,' but that we had two or three real good runs at it, did well and didn't get over the hump. They will now, and I think they're going to be the best team in the game for a few years."

 

 

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I can't even think of a baseball operations executive who has performed as poorly as Michael Hill.

 

Arguably Dave Stewart but I see your point. I do have to wonder though, or maybe I'm creating a silver lining on this gray cloud, can Mike Hill do better without Loria's influence and with better executives around him? Maybe if Hill is just one part of a new front office under Jeter's direction, maybe he does better? Probably just wishful thinking but it's a thought. 

 

 

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How much credit does Hendry actually deserve for the Cubs success in 2003-2004 though? Sosa, Alou, Zambrano, Wood, and Prior had already been in the organization before he took over as GM.

 

In my opinion, none.  As you illustrated there were major pieces already in place and he had a massive budget at his disposal.

 

Mike Hill might be one man, but he presided over a ton of bad personnel moves and inadequate minor league development. The poor state of the Marlins baseball operations division is unprecedented when it comes to organizations facing ownership changes.

 

This really sums it all up. 

 

Arguably Dave Stewart but I see your point. I do have to wonder though, or maybe I'm creating a silver lining on this gray cloud, can Mike Hill do better without Loria's influence and with better executives around him? Maybe if Hill is just one part of a new front office under Jeter's direction, maybe he does better? Probably just wishful thinking but it's a thought. 

 

Perhaps.  What you are proposing is what the Dodgers have done in retaining Colletti while hiring numerous ex-GMs.  For me though this isn't appropriate for the Marlins.  When Sternberg took control over the Rays in 2005 they very swiftly removed Chuck LaMar and put Friedman and Hunsicker in charge.  LaMar was never a GM again after that.  His tenure as Devil Rays GM is considered a failure by all measures, particularly when you adjust for the fact that he benefited from so many high picks.

 

It seems at this juncture it appears Jeter holds all the power for making decisions on who stays and goes.  The guy owns part of the team!  He's not going anywhere.  This is such a major ongoing story and it deserves everyone's attention this winter. 

 

 

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Why is that an awful idea if mostly everyone else was fired too? 

 

Because there are current players, current contracts, carryover, negotiations... someone still has to be here to know what the fuck is going on. To help transition. 

 

Im just making this up because I'm trying to imagine a way he gets fired still. 

 

 

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I've been away for a few days but just finished reading through all 8 pages.  Along the way there were probably a good 5-6 posts I wanted to quote, but I'll save everyone the annoyance and just say a couple things.

 

First off, I'm 100% convinced Stanton will be moved.  If they were planning on keeping him they would have flat out said, "the 2017 NL MVP is not going anywhere. We have zero interest in moving him."  Financially, it makes no sense to keep him on with the team but I'm also convinced that Jeter and Sherman are idiots and don't understand how fragile the remaining fanbase really is in Miami.  They've seen literally every big name player in his prime shipped off either in his prime or just before his prime.  Nobody else on the team is a fan draw.  And although Stanton is only 1/3 of that insanely talented outfield, nobody is showing up to games to see Yelich or Ozuna. So yeah, they either already have it in their heads that Stanton will be gone or they're going to be shady and make the team around him so miserable that he wants to go and they'll basically force him into demanding a trade. I don't blame G one bit if he ends up wanting to go.  I'd be tired of losing too and to start all over in my prime years?  yeah, no thanks. 

 

Second, I have zero confidence in people that only hire from what they know and don't bother asking around and doing some actual research.  Sorry, but the Yankees front office is not the end-all be-all of existence.  Pilfering almost exclusively from there is like trading only with the Padres all season and will net you about the same level of success.  If you have no experience and you truly want to make your mark you need to be a bit more bold with your choices.  BUST YOUR ASS. Do the dirt digging, find some real diamonds in the rough.  Look towards the future.  I don't want a whole scouting department filled with people that would've voted for Jeter to win all those gold gloves because "he's a gamer who passes the eye test".  There's usually a reason why the retreads are always available.  They know how to operate a machine but they couldn't tell you how it really works. 

 

Finally, someone made a post about how they don't understand why we'd stop being fans now if we stayed through the Loria years but the new group came and dumped salaries to give it a shot doing it their way.  To this I say that we've stayed fans through the Loria years because we inherently believed that almost anyone would be better than Loria.  For the longest time now people were correctly assuming he'd sell after the ASG was in Miami this year - and those people were correct.  We believed that better days were coming. We'd get a new owner with a real passion - certainly MLB wouldn't allow another team to be sold to a person with shallow pockets (relatively speaking), right? Then this comes along and MLB goes ga-ga over having Jeter in the front office as if he's in his prime and somehow because he always won at life he'll win at this too.  There have been literally zero things said by this group that doesn't scream of nickel and dime, whether it's wrapped in thinly veiled fluff, or outright ominous, that makes the longtime fan truly believe things are going to get better.  Our light at the end of that long dark tunnel does indeed to appear to have been an oncoming subway car.  For some of us, I'm sure that means we're just going to stand there and let it run us over and finally kill whatever thin sliver of hope we once held.  14 years since we got to see a playoff team and from the sound of it, that is going to stretch to at least 20 years, with the next 2 -3  years being utterly miserable. "Starting in RF and leading off for your 2018 Marlins, Ichiro....."

 

 

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I do agree that it was telling that they already started couching their language as soon as they took over the team. It's pretty clear that they know they are going to have to move some guys because they can't afford the current roster. But getting rid of Stanton is going to destroy whatever goodwill this ownership would have coming in, even if it's the financially responsible thing to do because they are stuck with this situation.

 

So while I can't say 100% that Stanton will not be back next year, I think it's probably 70-80% likely he goes. An even bigger issue is, are you going to be able to get even a portion of his value back in trade? I tend to think they are not going to get as much as they think they will. The size of the contract and Stanton's opt-out clause in a few years make it difficult. I agree with Keith Law's assertion in his recent book that you can't ever get enough value back for a superstar to make up for losing him even if the prospects or players you get back in return all pan out as expected, which as we know (Cabrera deal) rarely happens.

 

 

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The problem with keeping Stanton through a rebuild is that by the time the rebuild is complete he’ll be 30 at the very least and in modern baseball that is when your skill set starts declining and in Stanton’s case the salary increases.  His age; the state of the team; and the economics of his contract don’t make it a very good match.  

 

Sucks to say because he’s the main draw right now 

 

 

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