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Gammons/The Athletic: The Marlins are working to earn back Miami's trust, but the forecast is hazy


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” … Only a few hundred spectators remained at the end.”

 

— Associated Press report on the Aug. 28 game between the Reds and Marlins in Miami that went 12 innings.

 

The fact is only 6,466 people paid to see the game in the first place. That crowd got a lot of laughs on national talk radio, but, to be fair, there was this little thing called a hurricane on its way to Miami.

 

Still, the 6,466 is apparently also fact. “We announce our crowds by the number of tickets saved,” says Derek Jeter. “These are real numbers. We feel we need to do this. Part of what we have to do in building the Marlins is gaining public trust, and truth is part of that process.”

 

In a market that seemingly believed that it was the target of never-ending pranks by Major League Baseball, the word “trust” is the first word of a long-needed reboot.

 

“One of the problems with the Marlins is there’s no loyalty felt in the Miami area,”...

 

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Really it's a whole lot of the same old same old Marlins talk - Loria ordered young pitchers to be traded for garbage.  Attendance sucks.  The team sucks.  PR blunders early on in Jeter tenure.  People are mad for the ballpark cost.  Jeter's worked to regain trust.  The players acquired look promising, but will the Miami market ever come around?  Blah blah.

 

Forgot to include the link:

 

https://theathletic.com/1181562/2019/09/04/gammons-the-marlins-are-working-to-earn-back-miamis-trust-but-the-forecast-is-hazy/

 

 

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So what did they say is the reason for "the forecast is lazy?"

 

Just because attendance is bad in late August of a 100 loss season for a mid week game vs an unpopular opponent just as a major hurricane is forming? 

 

Or did they say something more? 

 

Everyone knows they’re in the midst of a rebuild so they’ve turned their collective eyes toward the excitement of the upcoming Dolphins season ........ 

 

 

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So what did they say is the reason for "the forecast is lazy?"

 

Just because attendance is bad in late August of a 100 loss season for a mid week game vs an unpopular opponent just as a major hurricane is forming? 

 

Or did they say something more? 

 

Basically.  He says the future is hazy because attendance sucks, the team sucks, will baseball ever matter to people in Florida?  Will people trust the team again after fire sales?  etc.

 

 

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Basically.  He says the future is hazy because attendance sucks, the team sucks, will baseball ever matter to people in Florida?  Will people trust the team again after fire sales?  etc.

 

So because they have a negative past it's impossible for them to ever have a positive future.

 

I can understand skepticism, especially through journalism, but sometimes it feels like they're saying "because it rained yesterday it can't be sunny tomorrow." 

 

 

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Attendance is bad because of the drums and blaring horns in the outfield.  Instead of attracting more people, the sound is just as bad as the cow bells in Tampa.  Get rid of them and attendance goes up to about 6,500 . OK, before an attack, this is in jest.  As to attendance, those of us here for the long haul have heard it all before and now it is just noise from the media.  Don't care how they look at it or Gammons.  

 

 

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So because they have a negative past it's impossible for them to ever have a positive future.

 

I can understand skepticism, especially through journalism, but sometimes it feels like they're saying "because it rained yesterday it can't be sunny tomorrow." 

 

It's really just the same rehashed article over and over again.

 

They also brought up Tampa Bay and how they're winning but have very little attendance too.

 

 

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Gammons is also running loose with facts.  He claims the marlins had the highest payroll in baseball in 1997.  Not so 

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1997-misc.shtml

 

Yeah, but the one thing that the Marlins were first in baseball in was increase in attendance compared to the year before. They were 4th in that in 2003 as well. Something tells me that this area will support a team when it is winning.

 

 

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Yeah, but the one thing that the Marlins were first in baseball in was increase in attendance compared to the year before. They were 4th in that in 2004 as well. Something tells me that this area will support a team when it is winning.

 

Oh I absolutely believe that.  Miami/South Florida is very much a bandwagon town.

 

Fans didn't have a chance to follow up the '97 winning team with attendance the next year once they gutted it.

 

 

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Yeah, but the one thing that the Marlins were first in baseball in was increase in attendance compared to the year before. They were 4th in that in 2004 as well. Something tells me that this area will support a team when it is winning.

 

The marlins also drew well relative to the league in the four years before the World Series season.  

 

 

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This is the formula:

 

1. Have a team that appears exciting during spring training.  Have the public all lathered up that the Marlins are something worth their time.  

 

2. Have the preseason hyped team actually win early thus justifying the hype. 

 

3. This will in turn create a buzz heading into the summer and people will come because they’ve been hearing about how great the marlins are since March and they’re actually winning

 

i don’t believe this has ever happened outside of the inaugural season honeymoon period.  Even the World Series teams came as a surprise to most casuals.  There hasn’t been a team in spring with massive hype that actually delivered right out of the gates. 

 

Also it would help if the heat started sucking and people weren’t watching nba playoffs in April May and June. 

 

 

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This is the formula:

 

1. Have a team that appears exciting during spring training.  Have the public all lathered up that the Marlins are something worth their time.  

 

2. Have the preseason hyped team actually win early thus justifying the hype. 

 

3. This will in turn create a buzz heading into the summer and people will come because they’ve been hearing about how great the marlins are since March and they’re actually winning

 

i don’t believe this has ever happened outside of the inaugural season honeymoon period.  Even the World Series teams came as a surprise to most casuals.  There hasn’t been a team in spring with massive hype that actually delivered right out of the gates. 

 

Also it would help if the heat started sucking and people weren’t watching nba playoffs in April May and June. 

 

The state of S. Florida sports in general right now is rather lame. It would be nice to see the Marlins make some noise in the offseason to generate at least a tiny bit of hype going into their season and see if they can snare a few more "fans" who look forward more to MLB games than they would going to NFL games.  Although it's going to be incredibly hard to avoid the Tank for Tua hype the Dolphins will no doubt be riding high on come next NFL draft, training camp, etc. cycle. Still, the opportunity exists to get a bit more coverage with Dolphins being lucky to eke out even 2 wins this upcoming season.

 

 

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The state of S. Florida sports in general right now is rather lame. It would be nice to see the Marlins make some noise in the offseason to generate at least a tiny bit of hype going into their season and see if they can snare a few more "fans" who look forward more to MLB games than they would going to NFL games.  Although it's going to be incredibly hard to avoid the Tank for Tua hype the Dolphins will no doubt be riding high on come next NFL draft, training camp, etc. cycle. Still, the opportunity exists to get a bit more coverage with Dolphins being lucky to eke out even 2 wins this upcoming season.

 

I don’t disagree with any of this.  But I want to make clear that I don’t think the marlins should be making any free agent splashes.  The team isn’t there yet.  The best case scenario would be to have a nice sized core of players that cane through the system all have breakout years in 2020 so that in 2021 the hype machine around these guys can crank up.  

 

 

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Hopefully no one actually believes that one of the reasons attendance was bad vs the Reds was because of an approaching hurricane. 

 

Attendance is bad whether there’s a storm or not. 

 

I thought the same, also at that point the storm was not the threat it became later in the week. But Gammons was implying it so who knows what he thinks about it.  

 

 

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Also, I heard on the radio last week, in discussion of that low attendance during the Reds series that, even though the gimmicks like Bark at the Park and Heritage Nights were all nicely done that all the Marlins need to do to increase attendance is to bring in good players and that that was the bottom line, it was a simple as that with nothing else to it.

 

 

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Now’s not the time to write an attendance article about any market.  Markets with baseball teams this far out of the playoffs at this point in the season don’t draw.  Period end of discussion.  It has been this way since before any of us were alive.  It is a long season.  Most normal people (I do not include myself in this population) turn their attention to other things this time of year unless the local team is in a playoff race.  This isn’t Marlins specific at all.  That isn’t to say the Marlins don’t have an attendance problem. They do.  But the Cincinnati series isn’t good evidence to use when analyzing the situation. 

 

Also, people need to stop mentioning Tampa Bay and Miami in the same attendance conversations.  The circumstances are nothing alike.  They are both Florida markets and that is where the comparison stops.  I feel very confident that if the Marlins were winning at the rate the Rays have won over the past ten years that attendance in Miami would be just fine.  If I’m wrong about that then I welcome all examination of what could possibly be wrong with this market.  But until that happens I think it’s a conversation to table for another time.  People underestimate how ownership can impact a franchise for such a long period of time.  The fact that Bruce Sherman is a silent owner, to me, is a good thing which can only help the process ongoing now. 

 

In 2021 I suspect some think pieces will come out about attendance again in light of how well the rebuild has gone.  At that point an examination could be done as to whether or not the rebuild has gone well or not.  That’s a sliding scale and its also premature to talk about that now. 

 

 

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Also, I heard on the radio last week, in discussion of that low attendance during the Reds series that, even though the gimmicks like Bark at the Park and Heritage Nights were all nicely done that all the Marlins need to do to increase attendance is to bring in good players and that that was the bottom line, it was a simple as that with nothing else to it.

 

We were just two good players away!

 

 

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