I've been running around, getting in too much baseball, which I didn't think was possible.
Fredi's firing took everyone by surprise. He's not a great manager, but has improved over the years. Samson made it known early that if this team of studs didn't make the playoffs, it was all Fredi's fault. Then he went into a panic when Valentine met with the O's. According to Samson, the decision to fire Fredi was made the previous Thursday, and after a quick call to see if Valentine would be interested, Fredi was fired five days later, with Loria reportedly only finding out that morning as well. Then Valentine never met with the Marlins FO, only having a phone conversation in which he laid out his parameters, which kept Samson out of the baseball ops. Then, Samson decided Valentine was unacceptable and told the press without telling Valentine that he was not longer being considered. Loria is rumored to furious with the little twerp. Samson is Loria's former son-in-law and sees himself taking ownership after Loria passes away. Maybe this will finally get him the hell out of baseball. He would be much worse than even Loria.
Samson lays awake at night trying to think up more stupid ways of embarrassing the franchise. Frankly, I find his mere existence on this planet embarrassing. The Marlins now have only one coach/manager with previous MLB experience, St Claire, as all the others not fired quit the following Saturday. St Claire knew he was otherwise unemployable, though it sounds like he will not be returning after the season.
The Marlins have announced they are entertaining trade offers for everyone other than Johnson and Hanley through the non-waiver deadline. They are not necessarily openly shopping, but let it be known that they are open to be a landfill for worthless prospects for whatever talent they may have.
Fredi sounds like a lock for Atlanta, which is where he lived during the off-season. Even the Marlins fans hope the Braves sign him to a minimum wage salary his first year just so Loria has to pay the difference between that and Fredi's remaining guarantee.
Ah, feel the international love for Jeffrey Loria
by: Ethan J. Skolnick June 29th, 2010 | 8:57 PM
You may have heard — on a local radio show or two — that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria wasn’t enamored with a column that I wrote Friday night, a column that wasn’t primarily about him and was tame compared to other offerings.
So I thought I’d make it easy on the owner, and compile a collection of quotes about him from writers around the nation, in light of the Marlins’ mishandled managerial “search.” I won’t even bother with the Bobby Cox or Stan Van Gundy stuff or this Facebook page.
This was from Navin Vaswani of the Toronto Globe and Mail:
“I think of Jeffrey Loria, their despised — in most baseball circles — owner. If you were to put Loria in a room with the three die-hard Expos fans I know, there’s no way he makes it out alive. No. Way.”
This was from Scott Miller of cbssports.com:
“Owner Jeffrey Loria has always run a three-ring circus, his Marlins as much about illusion and sawing a man in half (former managers Fredi Gonzalez, Joe Girardi, etc.) as about wholesome fun and cotton candy.”
So was this:
“Who would be crazy enough to go near this job? Bottom line is, what Loria wants is what the Marlins will get. And sanity will continue to be held hostage in South Florida, with no clean ending in sight.”
This was from Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“What a yutz. For the record, the Marlins’ $57 million payroll on opening day ranked 26th out of 30 teams. In the National League East, they trail Philadelphia ($141.9 million, fourth), New York ($134.4 million, fifth), the Braves ($84.4 million, 15th) and even Washington ($61.4 million, 23rd). When a team has a lower payroll than the Washington Nationals, the owner should respond by building bronze statues for a manager that goes 34-36, not by firing him.”
This was from Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports:
“Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has discarded another good man, Fredi Gonzalez apparently being no better at whipping up a good chicken salad than Joe Girardi was. Five months after the league and the players’ union rebuked Loria for putting his own franchise at a competitive and economic disadvantage, and a month after Gonzalez stood amid speculation his job was in jeopardy and benched a jaking Hanley Ramirez(notes), Loria fired his manager.”
This was from Buster Olney of ESPN:
“Loria has invested a relative pittance in his product over the last five seasons, and every year, the Marlins have competed, mainly because of the good work of Larry Beinfest and the Florida managers and the other folks in baseball operations. If Loria’s standard for success is only to make the playoffs and that expectation has not been met and he wants to play the blame game, well, he could look in the mirror.”
This was from Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com:
“At best, the Marlins are confused. At worst, they are in turmoil. Either way, they are an embarrassment. I would not be the least surprised to see this saga twist and turn a few more times. Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is a low-rent George Steinbrenner, and Valentine might be his Billy Martin, minus the drinking.”
Tonight, on an ESPN special about NBA free agency, Pat Riley was put on the list of NBA owners. Riley is a Heat owner, of course, but one with a modest stake. Micky Arison is the controlling partner, and has been for close to two decades. Of course, it’s better for the public not to know much about the owner than to know enough to know he’s a problem.
Which is what the public knows about Jeffrey Loria.
Sun-Sentinel
