1 minute ago, rmc523 said:

Sounds like I need to pull out the letter from last year and copy paste it.

Check and see if the eulogy was just stuck to that letter while you're at it please.

3 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

Sounds like I need to pull out the letter from last year and copy paste it.

Sadly, I didn't have to update anything from last year, except for adding the complete lack of anything THIS offseason too.

 

Dear Bruce Sherman, Kim Ng, the Marlins Organization, and MLB,

Thank you for destroying a passion for a team and sport that has lasted for decades.

As a native south Floridian, and someone who is only 3 years older than the Marlins organization itself, I have naturally been a fan since the team’s inception, but my real passion for the team started around 15 years ago.  Since then, I’ve found myself increasingly more involved in following the team’s transactions, purchasing various hats, jerseys, memorabilia, and even went as far as creating and entire Marlins-themed room in my house.  My family and I have gone to countless games over the years and have been season ticket holders.  I’ve stuck with this team through the endless fire-sales and rebuilds that were always touted as the “last time”….until the next one.  Fans didn’t even get to finish celebrating 1997’s Championship before its dismantling; 2006 was because we needed to reset payroll because of no stadium.  2012 things were supposed to be different with the stadium, only for another fire-sale to occur mid-season after just a few months.  Then with the incoming Sherman/Jeter group, yet another selloff began – goodbye went the best outfield in baseball, goodbye went the best catcher in baseball, all in the name of “sustainability” and yet again resetting what was already a bottom/lower third payroll.  I realize current ownership cannot be held responsible for the actions of previous ownerships group, but the move to begin yet another dismantling of the team – while perhaps the right long term move if additional spending was included long term – was utterly tone-deaf to a fan base that has continually been teased and abused over decades.

Even so, I stuck with the team, clinging to that promise that money would be spent when the time is right.  To be fair, ownership has done well rebuilding the farm, and that left hope that things have been on the right track.   The 2021-2022 offseason also started well, but post-lockout the team was to be frozen, unable or unwilling to do anything, continuing to waste years of control of the pitching core that has been built.  They have failed to take that next step the team needs to win in a competitive division.  Instead of “2 pitchers away”, we’re now multiple bars away.  And we’ve seen countless free agent targets that could help this team sign for reasonable $100M deals.  I am deeply concerned if this team will ever be able to retain or sign any noteworthy free agents if we cannot entertain any $100M deals.  This offseason, we've seen no intention of signing or trading for anyone that can help this team, just the usual "in on" older players that are sure to implode upon arriving, all while ignoring critical players that will help solve the team's problems.  If more signings are not affordable, MAKE TRADES....do something, please.  If neither of these are options, the team needs to be sold to someone who can afford to have more than a bottom payroll.

One may wonder after all the ups and downs, why now?  Why is now the breaking point?  It’s because there seems to be no follow through on the promise of spending to support the core after years of promises.  If ownership and the front office doesn’t care, why should I?  If they’re waiting for fans to show up to spend, it unfortunately won’t happen because the fan base has been burned too many times.  Look at the Panthers – fans will come out for a winning team.  Fans will come out for a winning Marlins team, but are afraid to support the team because they’re worried about ownership yet again abandoning the team.  On top of that, aside from the shortened 2020 season, the team has done nothing but continually lose, and ownership didn’t add to the team after a year of success in 2020.

The line of not wanting to mortgage the future is understandable, but fans don’t care about having the best farm system for years on end.  We want the team to win, and the team is not doing that, we just have “sustainable” losing.  Significant free agent signings could have been made without affecting the farm.  Significant trades could be made while retaining most of the farm.  Moves need/needed to be made for this team to be successful.  Instead we have seen every other team in the division make significant signings, including some players we were targeting.  All while we stand pat, “monitoring” and doing nothing.  It is incredibly frustrating as a fan to have all this hope to then have nothing happen.  The endless “wait for the prospects” line is tiring.
I say all this knowing I am not the only die hard fan fed up with the team’s actions, and I know the die hard fans are now ready to jump ship and stop supporting.  I was hoping that the powers that be would realize that, but they seem to continue to be tone deaf to the fan base.

At the end of the day, as a true fan, I find it extremely difficult to adopt another team, and there will always be a part of me that still supports the Marlins as my hometown team, but the actions – or rather lack of actions – this offseason after years of preaching “we’ll spend when the time is right”, has caused me to become apathetic and just move on from the Marlins and baseball in general.

I’d like to thank the Marlins for providing entertainment over the years, and the fun time watching the various stars, from Miguel Cabrera, to that fun scrappy ’06 team, up through Stanton, Yelich, Ozuna, but until this ownership group realizes they’re going to have to actually invest in the team, to both be successful, and rebuild the fanbase that has been continually teased and heartbroken, I cannot continue to put my passion into this team as I have the last 15+ years.

Thank you from a fan,
Remmy

Sherman and Ng not deserve to have a smart fan like @MarlinsLou.

I just have 0 hope any more. There's ZERO indication they're going to sign anyone. There's ZERO indication they're willing to make trades to improve the team.

They don't care, why should I?

17 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

I just have 0 hope any more. There's ZERO indication they're going to sign anyone. There's ZERO indication they're willing to make trades to improve the team.

They don't care, why should I?

They'll make trades. 

13 minutes ago, SilverBullet said:

They'll make trades. 

What, Sandy for a bag of baseballs?

Sherman and Ng are absolute jokes. If you do not have the money to hand out these mega-contracts, then you need to be extremely competent and creative in how you build your team. Sherman and Ng are not that....

3 minutes ago, jsprt14 said:

Sherman and Ng are absolute jokes. If you do not have the money to hand out these mega-contracts, then you need to be extremely competent and creative in how you build your team. Sherman and Ng are not that....

Their approach seems to be to do absolutely nothing

1 minute ago, SonOfJack said:

Their approach seems to be to do absolutely nothing

Look at the Mariners for instance...they have not broken the bank in free agency, but have a GM who is relentless.

2 minutes ago, jsprt14 said:

Look at the Mariners for instance...they have not broken the bank in free agency, but have a GM who is relentless.

Relentlessly searching for spare change between the couch cushions for Bruce. 

One again, Derek Jeter is at the root of this current mess. MLB decided to let him play owner with someone else's money. Then when Jeter's rebuild failed miserably (awful front office hirings,  mostly lackluster trades, and inept draft picks) he ran to Sherman to spend for players. When that didn't work, he cried his way back to New York.

Edited December 14, 20223 yr by jsprt14

36 minutes ago, SilverBullet said:

They'll make trades. 

Other teams know how clueless Ng and Co. are. They most likely offer ridiculous trades and then stick by them hoping Ng agrees eventually.

Sherman not only cheap in payroll but also cheap in the salaries for the GM and the manager, that's why they have a rookie GM and a rookie manager. 

22 minutes ago, jsprt14 said:

Look at the Mariners for instance...they have not broken the bank in free agency, but have a GM who is relentless.

This is a good example on relentless, but the Mariners are running $120-150m budgets last 5 years (excluding 1 year and covid year).

If Bruce let Kim have Mariners budgets, we'd have Correa, Eflin, Turner/Drury, and be able to trade two current SP + one mega prospect trade to get Reynolds/Arizona CF and a fancy RP on top, plus maybe more. So we can pray for future Mariners budgets too.

1 hour ago, TaiwanAstros said:

Sherman and Ng not deserve to have a smart fan like @MarlinsLou.

They don't deserve ANY of us.

I checked out 4 months last season, but winter springs optimism. I'll check out again even earlier this year for sure absent real moves.

1 hour ago, hovertical said:

I also worry they're so obsessed with keeping Captain Rojas in there that they'll continue to run him out there almost every day until we'll be wishing he was as "good" as he was this past offseason.

If they fix CF, 1B/3B platoon partner for Cooper/Berti, upgrade Fortes or Stallings, and get another pitcher - SURE. Rojas/Wendle could easily be a competent 2.5-3 WAR scenario over 900+ PA (fangraphs has them 3.6 WAR over 1,000 PA which seems optimistic to me so I'm shaving a "win" here).

So go get Alek Thomas

Actually sign Justin Turner

Figure out some trade for Danny Jansen

Sign a pitcher - and you have budget for Rodon but shit, there are many that work here, and if you didn't lose 2 big ones for Thomas and Jansen here this can even be a good reliever.

 

Like is that bare minimum plan hard? Or are we going to keep dancing the Cha Cha?

 

11 minutes ago, MarlinsLou said:

 

Like is that bare minimum plan hard? Or are we going to keep dancing the Cha Cha?

 

Please. It's Chi Chi. And it will be salsa dancing instead.

17 minutes ago, MarlinsLou said:

If they fix CF, 1B/3B platoon partner for Cooper/Berti, upgrade Fortes or Stallings, and get another pitcher - SURE. Rojas/Wendle could easily be a competent 2.5-3 WAR scenario over 900+ PA (fangraphs has them 3.6 WAR over 1,000 PA which seems optimistic to me so I'm shaving a "win" here).

So go get Alek Thomas

Actually sign Justin Turner

Figure out some trade for Danny Jansen

Sign a pitcher - and you have budget for Rodon but shit, there are many that work here, and if you didn't lose 2 big ones for Thomas and Jansen here this can even be a good reliever.

 

Like is that bare minimum plan hard? Or are we going to keep dancing the Cha Cha?

 

I like how the names keep changing as more players drop off the board. Soon enough these players also won't be available. Is there a Plan Z?

20 minutes ago, SonOfJack said:

I like how the names keep changing as more players drop off the board. Soon enough these players also won't be available. Is there a Plan Z?

No, we're about the end of the road here for the Marlins to become adults. It's getting close to impossible to find 10+ wins this offseason without a CHUNK guy like Rodon/Swanson.

Plan Z would I suppose be give the Pirates a nuclear prospect deal for Reynolds/Bednar and/or Eury is thrown into the mix for Corbin Carroll. While still moving SP for the Arraez/Rosario/Polanco/Jansen kind of guys who are likely available and are clear upgrades, plus then really going to the SP scrapheap and finding many CHEAP Thompson 2021/Bass 2022 contributors to bridge to whatever SP is left in the farm and hope Sandy/the rest can carry them. But now you've hurt 25-29 doing this basically exclusively through the farm and the whole point of free agency is to generate value. So this makes less sense too as you can't do this solely through your own drafting. Even the Rays sign Eflin.

So the final answer, Plan Z is moving the goal post to opening day 2024 and beating your chest with this:

Sandy, Pablo, Rogers, Eury, Luzardo
Cabrera, Meyer, Sixto, Bender, Chargois/Enright/Whoever
Garrett, Eder, Scott/Okert

Could be the best staff in baseball even if they don't hit, so now we rinse/repeat - is Bruce going to spend on bats NOW with a Fortes-X-Jazz-X-Groshans/Berti-DLC/Sanchez-X-Garcia-Soler core and nothing else as Berry/Salas/Cappe are still 1-2 years away? To note, there is no high end CF in next year's free agency class again so this is the definition of insanity.

 

4 minutes ago, MarlinsLou said:

is Bruce going to spend

No

2 hours ago, rmc523 said:

I just have 0 hope any more. There's ZERO indication they're going to sign anyone. There's ZERO indication they're willing to make trades to improve the team.

They don't care, why should I?

Every month when the auto draw is paid for my tix, I ask myself what is wrong with me.  Oh, yea, I remember, I get priority for the post season.  Ha ha.  It is hard to have any passion for this organization.

21 minutes ago, SonOfJack said:

No

Doesn't seem like it.

My guess is they do get a CF (Reynolds, Arizona, etc.), sign some underwhelming 1B/3B type, sign some extremely cheap underwhelming pitching (Bass-$3m type), and then win 79 games and gaslight everyone that we did awesome, we won 10+ games with a sub $90m payroll. I wonder who will be left at that point.

13 minutes ago, MarlinsLou said:

I wonder who will be left at that point.

Most of us here probably. If we haven't left yet, we are unlikely to.

14 minutes ago, MarlinsLou said:

Doesn't seem like it.

My guess is they do get a CF (Reynolds, Arizona, etc.), sign some underwhelming 1B/3B type, sign some extremely cheap underwhelming pitching (Bass-$3m type), and then win 79 games and gaslight everyone that we did awesome, we won 10+ games with a sub $90m payroll. I wonder who will be left at that point.

This is exactly what's gonna happen. Though I don't think they get anyone as good as Reynolds in center because the Pirates won't budge or another team will put in a better offer.

They will make trades because they essentially have to do so (and a fringe free agent or two) but it still won't be enough. It'll be just enough to be better than 2022 so that they can tout "progress."

3 minutes ago, SonOfJack said:

Most of us here probably. If we haven't left yet, we are unlikely to.

To be fair, this entire blog is more fun than the team so the question isn't who will still be "here" (the boards) the question is who will still actually be tuning in to the games and/or going to the ballpark.