When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

05.23.2008
Fla by Night

Who are these Marlins, and why do they mock us so? Oh, God, why? They trade two of their biggest stars, they start the year with a payroll lower than a Dunder Mifflin sub-regional office, and they bounce out to a 28-19 record, a half-game behind the best teams in the league. The only consolation is that they play before crowds that can hide behind the swarms of insects attracted to the Dolphin Stadium floodlights. I'm not sure why that consoles me, but the Germans probably have a word for it.

One way the Marlins are doing it is with exceptional young hitters. Shortstop Hanley Ramirez, if you haven't noticed, was 2006 rookie of the year and last year made the top ten in MVP votes. Second baseman Dan Uggla's glove work resembles his last name, but he's got mad p0wr skl1!!z, as the kids say these days. He came out of nowhere in '06 to debut at the age of 26, hit 27 home runs, and he hasn't stopped. Another late bloomer, LF Josh Willingham, is also crushing the ball this year. With those three righties, I'm going to cringe every time Barry Zito releases a pitch tonight. (Though oddly enough, Uggla's career splits show him better against righties.) If Zito can throw well against this lineup, it'll be a good sign.

The pitcher Zito's facing tonight, lefty Scott Olsen, is having a superficially excellent year (4-1, 2.82 ERA), but his horrendous K/BB rate (27/26) could catch up to him soon. Another lefty, journeyman Mark Hendrickson, is also having a nice year, but I'd expect him to return to career norms.

Whether Florida's hot start is a mirage or not, the bigger point is how the team managed to rebuild so well. They got a truckload of talent for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, including Detroit's top two prospects. Lefty Andrew Miller is already in the Marlin rotation and outdueled Arizona's Danny Haren yesterday.

Miller aside, the haul Florida got from Detroit isn't as impressive at first glance as the group of youngsters Billy Beane received for Haren. Still, it's a lesson Giants' management has stubbornly ignored: be unafraid to trade high-priced stars if they're not going to help you win anytime soon. Problem is, the Giants high-priced "stars" are too high priced and aren't really stars.

But there's an equal and perhaps opposite lesson, and it's hiding among those insects I mentioned earlier. Florida has a fun young team; the franchise, despite the occasional fire sale, has proven it can rebound quickly and go all the way. And the South Florida fans could give a shit. Here are the attendance records. Even when competitive, the figures are nearly last in the league. That's also a lesson Giants' management has no doubt absorbed. Fire sales makes fans angry, which is why the S.F. brass bends over backwards to avoid the appearance of rebuilding. This could be a Magowan thing, and under Neukom, we might see the Giants more willing to gut the joint and start anew.

Willing, maybe; able, no. It'll always be a room-by-room remodel, not a total overhaul, and I'll give you 75 guesses why. Albatross, thy name is Zito.

There are differences, of course. The Marlins play in a multi-purpose park surrounded by parking lot and suburb. The Giants have their cozy waterfront nest. The Marlins can count on rain every day. We have cold foggy summer nights, but day games are spectacular. (Ahem, what's up with those 6pm Saturday starts?)

Until the Bonds-and-the-Seven-Dwarves strategy collapsed in 2005-2006 (remember, in '04 the Giants won 91 games), the Giants were happy to be competitive. The Marlins seem to be extreme boom or extreme bust, and in their part of the world, it's not a good marketing strategy. So, to tie all these ramblings up into a pretty little package, I leave you to watch the Giants-Marlins this weekend and ponder this question:

Would you rather have been a Giants fan or a Marlins fan over the past ten years? Two World Series and subsequent fire sales, or eight years of consistent competitiveness until the foundation rotted out from underneath? Discuss.



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[May 23, 2008 1:37 PM]  |  link  |  reply
trilljester said

No matter how you look at it, the Marlins have 2 World Series victories and the SAN FRANCISCO Giants have 0.

The Giants organization has a much more storied history, better ballpark, city, fans, etc.. but that glaring fact is hard to ignore.

I am glad I am a Giants fan though. No matter how painful it gets.

[May 23, 2008 2:51 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

My question was meant more like this: putting aside team loyalty, would you prefer rooting for a team that tears down every few years if things aren't going well, or a team that tries to be consistent with incremental changes? (A better example than the Giants would be the Braves.)

[May 23, 2008 3:11 PM]  |  link  |  reply
MrLomez said

Isn't the point of this whole enterprise to win the World Series?

I would take the Marlins model in a heartbeat.

"It's better to burn out then to fade away."

Does that apply here?

[May 23, 2008 3:48 PM]  |  link  |  reply
moonman said

I believe the 6PM Saturday games are scheduled so that CSN can broadcast them at all. Doesn't Fox have the rights to all MLB games on Saturday during the day?

[May 23, 2008 4:24 PM]  |  link  |  reply
trilljester said

I like a team that tears down and rebuilds if things aren't working. Dump big salaries via trades (if possible) and get back prospects and rebuild within.

Note that Atlanta hasn't been to the World Series in a very long time, so can we say that they're successful? They did win their World Series recently with an amazing group of pitchers. The Big Three and a good bullpen. A couple of big bats that came from within too. But that was 1995, right?

[May 23, 2008 5:46 PM]  |  link  |  reply
bigO said

I would have forgiven EVERYTHING if the Giants had only won in '02.

[May 23, 2008 7:08 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

I don't think that's a fair question, of course you want to "chose" the World Series winner. Whether you chose to go attend the games when they stink is another issue.

The thing about the Marlins is that they follow what I've been calling the Phoenix Re-building Theory, because in baseball, to get the really good draft picks where you improve your odds of selecting a good player double or quadruple fold over other teams, you have to really stink as a team.

No half-heartedly measure, like the Giants during the 70's, no you have to kiss the belly of the slug like the Braves did before they got good, or the Tigers before they got good, or even the Yankees before they got good (they were middle-dwellers for a long while too), or even the Giants just before Humm Baby. To be in the middle is to be among the living dead, as far as baseball is concerned, because only the worse teams get the great Top 5 pick overall (45% chance good player). Even the next level down is about half that (picks 6-10, about 25% chance, 21-30, about 10% chance).

The difference between the Marlins and, say, the Pirates and Royals, is that their management, despite all their flaws, appear to have the experts they need to make good personnel choices when trading and drafting.

People blast Sabean talent evaluation but signing free agents is much different from trading, because you can only sign what is available, and the only major trade mistake has been the A.J. trade and losing Nathan et al, and I suspect he didn't even make the trade. How could he, after so many years on the job as GM, not know that he needed to run it by Magowan before pulling the trigger with the Twins? Which Magowan claimed in an interview at one point when he disavowed any connection with that trade. I still think that was Colletti's doing ("Sabean is real good about letting us go out and try new things," Ned once said, sort of, kind of, don't remember exact quote)

Anyway, as loathsome as the Marlin's ownership is, they apparently learned well under the feet of Dombrowski when he was their GM (or maybe is still riding his coattails from the scouting organization he built for them, but at least they were smart enough to pay them enough to stay with the Marlins).

And that's the key to the re-build/torch way of management, personnel evaluation, look at the A's, both Connie Mack and Charlie O'Finley, both would build up winners then tore them down only to rebuild again (OK, Charlie only rebuilt once, but still). Success and lack of money forced these teams to sell off their best players in trades, but if you have the expertise, you can rebuild again from the ruins of your last team.

Florida just seems to have raised it to a new art form, however.

However, the Giants, in order to follow this pattern, would probably have traded away Bonds prior to 2002, in order to avoid him going free agent, Jeff Kent too, maybe in the middle of his historic 73 homer season.

Schmidt, Burks, too, not sure who else would have qualified. But you basically have to take your shot at success for a couple of years then sell out and restart again.

But it's dicey, what if the Marlins got in return what the A's got for Hudson? They would be swimming with the fishes right now instead of being praised.

[May 24, 2008 1:25 AM]  |  link  |  reply
darthvedder said

The Marlins have two World series victories but no division titles. They have not come within 5 games of winning the division. Their previous owner killed baseball in one city only to move to another city and try it. The Marlins should not be praised. They are the essence of what is wrong. Meaningless titles won and then sold to the highest bidder. These people don't care about baseball. Hell there not even bandwagon fans.

[May 24, 2008 1:44 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Frank said

I would have been sick and angry if the Giants had sold of the best players after '02. I enjoyed several of the years following, feeling like they had a legit chance to get back to the series. We would have doubtless won if Nen hadn't been injured. And his loss also cost us greatly in '03 and '04. Then the unexpected loss of Bonds in '05 pretty much doomed us.
No, I don't like the Florida model - and it doesn't appear Floridians do, either.

[May 24, 2008 2:46 PM]  |  link  |  reply
John Perricone said

ELM,

Florida didn't trade their high-priced talent, they traded their QUALITY talent, that wasn't high-priced yet.

The Giants have NONE of that, other than Lincecum and Cain, (and I am falling off the Cain bandwagon fast).

With Sabean and company's track record, drafting Beane's kind of talent seems completely unlikely, so now what?

[May 26, 2008 10:07 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Zo said

Well, after their first world series victory (as a wild card) Florida indeed sold off high priced and quality talent. Sheffield, Nen, Leiter, Alou. Livan, the MVferchrissakesP was not high priced yet. The second time around, they won with lesser priced talent. I think that, if anything, this shows less a successful model than how the vagaries of a late season hot streak have changed baseball. The teams that excel all year are no longer in the world series. Remember 2000? Best record in the NL until the Mets had a hot streak for about 3 weeks? The Marlins have two world series rings, in part because of astute talent evaluation, but not because of their pitch-everything model. I think attendance is the key to a successful model, in spite of the fact that a rich man can become richer without fan support. But, if given a chance, I would like to see a game there, I hear that Miami has the best Cuban food of all the stadia in MLB.