The Florida Marlins and Path Dependence

The Florida Marlins' offseason acquisition of Javier Vazquez was months in the making:

The Marlins have admired him for years. Vazquez was with the Montreal Expos during the two years Jeffrey Loria, now the Marlins owner, owned the club.

They have recognized his talent from the opposing dugout when Vazquez was with the Expos and Braves.

Knowing that Vazquez was struggling with the Yankees last season and would become a free agent, the Marlins sent scouts to New York late in the season to check him out.

"We kept an eye on him," Beinfest said. "We felt he was a guy who could come back here and do really well for us."

Okay, so it's not quite path dependence, but the Marlins seem to have made up their mind about Vazquez long before signing him. Hopefully the scouting confirmed their already-high opinion of Vazquez last year, and wasn't just a perfunctory green light from the scouting department.