We Sense a Branding Opportunity

You see T+A, we see $$$ (also T+A)

This weekend we learned via Deadspin that the Kansas City Royals are now selling souvenir bottles of water from the iconic Kaufmann Stadium fountain:

click to embiggen

Sure, as Deadspin's Samer Kalaf points out, this is a waste of $19.99 for the fans, but if people are willing to pay money for this bauble, why wouldn't the Royals give them what they want?

This obviously got us thinking about the Marlins. There are so many things Jeffrey Loria and Co. could be selling from the Marlins Park waste bins. Some suggestions from the Diehards:

• Spent water from the aquarium behind home plate and the Clevelander pool (if you want to be a total copycat)
• Dead aquarium fish (we're not saying you should kill fish for the purpose of commerce, but all those fish will die someday, and when that happens, sell!)
• Paint chips gleaned from the Clevelander body-painted dancers
• Dead lightbulbs from the centerfield home run sculpture
• Giancarlo Stanton's used Gatorade cups (we'd pay top $ in hopes of harvesting enough DNA to build an army of Giancarlo clones)

That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. Tweet us your ideas.

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Jeffrey Loria Won't Let Micky Arison Buy the Marlins

Micky Arison 

Every few weeks or so we see people in our Twitter timeline calling for Miami Heat owner Micky Arison to purchase the Marlins from Jeffrey Loria. It turns out Arison is pretty warm to that idea...

Going back to last year, Heat owner Micky Arison has expressed interest in buying the Marlins from Jeffrey Loria, according to a Major League Baseball official close to the situation.

But Loria isn't interested in selling to Arison, Jeb Bush or anyone else who has inquired.

That was from Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Jackson mentions that Loria has no intention to sell, and why would he? He got a sweetheart of a deal from MLB when he bought the team (getting the Montreal Expos off his hand in addition to an interest-free loan to cover the portion of the Marlins sale price that wasn't offset from the sale of the Expos), not to mention the albatross of a stadium deal that local governments awarded him years ago. It costs him literally nothing to own the Marlins (there's a reason he's considered such a villain in these parts: his ruthless efficacy).

What would it take to convince Loria to sell the Marlins? Jackson notes that he likes being a baseball owner, and despite the team's struggles he plans to stick around (indeed, his oft-reported stubbornness probably plays a role in this: wouldn't you keep this team long enough to see it succeed and vindicate your own vision?).

The answer comes down to money. Loria bought the Marlins for $158.5 million in 2002, and Forbes estimated the team's value at $520 million last season. He is probably not strapped for cash now, but if he ever becomes so, he will make a very handsome profit on his investment. But while Loria is among the "poorest" of sports owners (one site estimates his net worth at $500 million, less than half that of Angels owner Arte Moreno), he's not exactly eating ramen, either.

So don't get your hopes up.

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Loria Shells Out the Dough (Sorta...) for Jose

Jeffrey Loria did something recently that is a little out of character: he willingly gave one of his players a bigger raise than necessary. Sun Sentinel Marlins reporter Juan C. Rodriguez tweeted Sunday that reigning NL Rookie of the Year Jose Fernandez will earn $635,000 this season, well above the $500,000 he was scheduled to make under his rookie contract (though still at a ridiculously steep discount relative to what he could get in the open market).

Notorious for his reluctance to pay pre-arbitration players anything above CBA-mandated minimums (and also for low-balling players in salary arbitration on multiple occasions), Loria is definitely taking a new tack with regards to Fernandez. A day before he was awarded the ROY last fall, Fernandez was surprised by a visit from his grandmother, Olga, who left Cuba to see him for the first time since his defection six years prior. Loria and the team helped orchestrate the reunion, a fact Fernandez made sure everyone knew:

Ther is no way i could ever thank Jeff Loria for all he has done for me!! He gave me a chance and now my grandma! pic.twitter.com/eQ5D0Dlkyv
— jose fernandez (@josefernandez77) November 11, 2013

Considering the fact that Giancarlo Stanton (the other All-Star that Marlins fans would love to see rewarded with a long-term deal) seems less likely to agree to any kind of contract extension with the Marlins by the day, perhaps Loria has learned a lesson or two about building a relationship with his players long before he enters into a contract negotiation with them. Those lessons, plus a good-faith effort to build around his young stars, would go a long way toward making the Marlins a preferred destination among free agents in addition to giving them a better opportunity to retain talent.

But is a photo op and a modest raise all he can do? Loria could make an even bigger statement by doing what so many other teams have done with young stars and extend Fernandez's contract now, five full seasons before he can go on the open market. It will cost him more in the short term, but would also allow the Marlins to limit his salary during arbitration years and thereafter. It is what Tampa did with Evan Longoria, and Minnesota with Joe Mauer, to name a few examples.

This is a start, though, and hopefully the first of many management concessions to come in the ongoing relationship between Fernandez and the Marlins.

Speaking of dudes the Marlins should have locked up a long time ago, Giancarlo Stanton is either a reckless prankster, or he is resorting to possible self-harm as a negotiating tactic with Marlins brass. Regardless, we recommend he just leave the crocs alone...

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Reminder: No One Attends Marlins Games

Stop me if you've heard this one before. The Marlins will close off the upper deck during weekday home games:

Facing some of the worst attendance figures in MLB, the Marlins have decided to close off the upper bowl during weekday series starting next week. The 37,442 capacity of Marlins Park will shrink to around 27,000.

Team Sr. Vice President PJ Loyello told the Miami Herald Tuesday that the move "will give an overall better fan experience." The move also saves the team money on game operations, since fewer concession stands, ushers, and janitorial staff will be needed if nearly half the stadium is off limits to fans.

Well, some of us probably like having a full section of the upper bowl to themselves during games. But it's a relative no-brainer for the team. Closing off the upper bowl means they don't need to pay for the staff needed to serve and maintain those sections, and people with tickets for the upper bowl will just get moved to better seats at no extra charge. Still, it's just another reminder that the fancy new stadium in Little Havana has done nothing to solve the Marlins' attendance woes.

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Post-Fire Sale, Marlins Are Losing Money (Seriously)

Way back in November, after the dust had settled from the massive fire-sale trade between the Marlins and Blue Jays, we looked at the motives behind the trade (and others that helped the team cut its 2013 Opening Day payroll to around $39 million (according to the AP). We wrote:

The Marlins can profit without competing so long as they keep payroll low (the Kansas City Royals have been doing this for years). This was the team's strategy in the years leading up to the opening of Marlins Park; it is 100% more insidious now that they have opened a new stadium financed largely by local governments. The fans are legitimately outraged, and calls for Loria to sell the team are entirely justified.

But it looks like even with a bare-bones payroll the Marlins will still lose considerable money in 2013, according to a report from the Miami Herald. The Herald's Barry Jackson was able to look at (but not photocopy) ten years worth of team financial documents, and gave us the following tidbits:

• The Marlins lost $43 million* in 2003, the season they won a World Series.
• The team earned a combined $110 in profit from 2006-2009, when payroll was very low. That followed a four-year period in which the team lost $60 million.
• MLB revenue sharing payments ranged from $65 million to $75 million per year through 2009
• Loria gets paid via management fees disbursed to another company of his. The team paid $3.2 million in management fees in 2009. Loria also collects interest on money he has loaned the team (of which he is the controlling shareholder).
• The Marlins only get $17 million per year in local TV money (their contract expires in 2020), well below contracts of even teams in much smaller markets.
• The Marlins lost $47 million in 2012, and expect to lose money in 2013, even with a 60% reduction in player payroll.

A common theme expressed by fans after each of the team's three big fire sales (1998, 2005, 2012) is that if only the high-salaried players were allowed to stay, fans would flock to the ballpark and ticket sales would rise to the level necessary to support their payroll. That clearly did not happen in 2004 and 2005, when the core of the 2003 team was (for the most part) kept together and the Marlins continued to lose money. And last season's bump in attendance was not nearly enough to pay for the high salaries of Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez, and others. The Herald notes that David Samson recently claimed the team needs to sell over 30,000 tickets per game if it wants to break even on a payroll of $80 million. These numbers back up that claim (though MLB's national TV revenue will rise significantly this year, and the team clearly hamstrung itself by agreeing to such a cheap and long-term TV deal during the aughts).

But don't cry for Loria. His team is losing money, but Forbes values the Marlins at $520 million, over three times the $158 million price Loria paid for the team in 2002. He is vastly richer now than he was a decade ago, and he is still doing well enough that he apparently feels no pressure to sell his team and cash out.

*It should be noted that these are operating profits/losses, which by definition include some non-cash expenses like depreciation. So the actual cash earnings in those years are likely a bit higher, but that is just speculation on my part.

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Putting (Preferably Warm) Bodies in the Seats

The Miami Marlins opted against spending any money on their payroll (and by extension, their win-loss record) this season, and it has put their ticket office in a bind. Turns out (stop me if you've heard this one before) fans don't buy tickets to watch crappy teams. You can imagine our surprise when we figured this out.

So the Marlins have taken the unprecedented (we think) step of putting tickets to their April 8 home opener on Groupon (funniest line from the ad: "Limit 8 per person"). Our first reaction was that if the Marlins really wanted to put fans in the seats, they could have, you know, not traded away almost every good player on their roster last winter. But perhaps fielding a quad-A team while cashing MLB's revenue sharing checks is more profitable than spending an extra $30 million on payroll and not losing the trust of your fan base every seven years.

If only Groupon was around ten years ago. In 2002, Ted and I went to the Marlins' home opener, along with 23,875 other fans (or roughly two-thirds of Joe Robbie Stadium's baseball capacity). The highlight of the night came when a Mike Lowell home run was overturned (called a foul ball instead) and fans responded by throwing their schedule magnets (that night's giveaway) onto the field. The Marlins lost 10-2. Had our tickets been bundled with a merchandise voucher (as well as a voucher for tickets to another game, as in the current Groupon deal), we could all have thrown souvenir bats onto the field as well.

Here's to missed opportunities...

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Loria be Schemin'

Hey look! Someone investigated Jeff Loria's claim that tourists, not local residents paid most of the cost of constructing Marlins Park, and it turns out he's not being entirely truthful.

Politifact has the breakdown, courtesy of the Miami Herald.

Loria is borrowing from politicians’ playbooks here: He cherry-picked a fact that puts the situation in the best light while omitting a thorough explanation. On the surface, he is correct: Much of the public funding for the stadium came from hotel bed taxes largely (though not entirely) paid for by tourists.

But these are still tax revenues that belong to the taxpayer, and if it didn't go to the Marlins, it would have gone to some other public purpose to benefit those taxpayers. He also ignores that the county will be paying off that debt for decades. His implication that locals can shrug their shoulders at that public cost, and dismiss it as coming from the wallets of out of town tourists, is disingenuous.

There is an opportunity cost to building a bauble of a stadium, but can we really expect a guy who gave a $27 million contract to "proven closer" Heath Bell to understand what opportunity cost is?

Not that it matters. Loria has already won (and MLB revenue sharing money will keep the team from losing much - if any - money in the ensuing years, so he is pretty incapable of being punished). We can stop buying tickets and merchandise, but that likely still won't be enough to make Loria feel anything resembling regret.

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The Finances of a Fire Sale

(Note: for a solid baseball analysis of the Marlins' blockbuster trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, see Fish Stripes. We will focus on the business side of this deal).

The Miami Marlins made their business strategy quite clear when they shipped half their remaining 2012 starters to the Toronto Blue Jays for prospects and spare parts: Cut payroll costs to the bone and reap profits from MLB revenue sharing and other MLB cash streams.

Back in April, I wrote the following about the Marlins' new stadium for NBCMiami:

Since the Marlins are the sole tenant, and no longer have to pay rent to the Dolphins ownership group (which also owns Sun Life Stadium), the team will get to keep more of the ticket sales, concession and parking receipts from their home games than ever before. The Marlins will also get added revenue from hosting events at the stadium when baseball is not being played.

The promise of this extra money allowed the front office to go on a spending spree this winter, handing a $106 million contract to superstar shortstop Jose Reyes and significant deals to Heath Bell and Mark Buehrle. Those additions created even more buzz for the team heading into 2012, leading to a spike in ticket sales that will give the team even more revenue to spend on its roster.

This feedback loop has overnight transformed the Marlins franchise from a penny-pinching punchline to a major-market heavyweight that can compete with its rivals in Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta for big-ticket free agents and attention from the national media.

The team's struggles to compete proved that buying wins is not as easy as it looks, but the Marlins have opted to change course rather than reassess their personnel strategy. As a result, the team is looking at a few years of attendance that will make the late-1990s look like a golden age. Here is why they will profit regardless.

First, let's look at how much salary got dumped by the Marlins:

Yunel Escobar is the highest paid player the Marlins received. He will make $5 million in 2013, with team options for the same amount in 2014 and 2015. Jeff Mathis is arbitration eligible (he made $1.5 million in 2012) and will be a free agent next year. The rest are players under club control (pre-arbitration), they will make less than $1 million each next season. With big-bucks players like Hanley Ramirez and Heath Bell already gone (and Ricky Nolasco potentially on his way out as well), it is quite possible that the Marlins will open 2013 with a payroll well below $30 million.

You'll remember that a few years ago Deadspin leaked the Marlins' financial report for 2008 and 2009. I took another look at the team's balance sheet, income statement, and notes to back out a rough estimate of the team's operating profit in 2013. This is a good time to point out I made a number of assumptions, which will be detailed below.

The Marlins netted average revenue sharing proceeds of $46 million per year in 2008 and 2009, along with $31 million in MLB Central Fund revenue and $8 million in MLB properties royalties, for a total of $85 million in MLB (or non-Marlins) revenue. Stadium and television revenue (both numbers which are surely higher now, though by what degree is hard to estimate*) came in at roughly $40 million. Operating expenses excluding player salaries averaged $75 million in those years, with debt expense of $5.5 million. That gives the Marlins $45.5 million to work with: keep player payroll below that level, and the difference (less taxes) is all profit. Even with crappy attendance, a Marlins team with payroll in the $30 million range is highly profitable (we're disregarding noncash expenses like depreciation and amortization for simplicity).

One perspective that has been bandied about goes thusly: the team spent a lot of money on personnel in 2012, didn't win many games, and did not draw many fans either (no team had a lower attendance in the first season of a new stadium in the past 20 years, the Marlins' 2.2 million fans were 18th in MLB this season). If breaking the bank doesn't work (from a baseball and financial perspective), why pay millions to Reyes, Johnson, et al to lose? This makes financial sense in the short term, but less sense in the long term (the Marlins' brand equity was barely positive to begin with, it is under water now). How does the team expect to cultivate a fan base after such a fire sale?

Another blog (I've forgotten which one) compared the 2013 Marlins to The Producers: an intentional flop meant to make a quick buck. This is apt. The Marlins can profit without competing so long as they keep payroll low (the Kansas City Royals have been doing this for years). This was the team's strategy in the years leading up to the opening of Marlins Park; it is 100% more insidious now that they have opened a new stadium financed largely by local governments. The fans are legitimately outraged, and calls for Loria to sell the team are entirely justified.

There is only one problem: as The Biz of Baseball points out, Loria will have to pay the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County a ton of money if he sells the team in the next 6 years, so a sale is not imminent.

We are stuck with Loria, that is, if we even want to be Marlins fans anymore. That, more than the trade itself, is the saddest part of this entire episode.


Image via the one and only Adam Smoot
*Stadium revenue for those years was depressed by the bum deal the team was getting from Dolphin Stadium. Even if their attendance falls back to 2008-2009 levels or lower, the Marlins will keep more of those fan dollars spent at the stadium than they did a few years ago since they don't have to share revenues with the Miami Dolphins (who own Dolphin Stadium).

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There's no '$' in Bullpen

Over at Fish Stripes, Michael Jong plots the Marlins' bullpen performance versus payroll for the past five years: 

It is not a pretty picture. The team has spent a ton of money (mostly on Heath Bell and soon Juan Carlos Oviedo, once his suspension ends). And the bullpen has been much worse in 2012, though the fielding-independent stats suggest the bullpen is not entirely at fault. Jong argues that the steady FIP- stats (which is weighted against the rest of the league; in other words, the Marlins bullpen has been 6 to 10% better than the average MLB pitcher in each of the last five years).

Be warned.

Clearly, the Marlins have overpaid for relievers this year. Besides giving Heath Bell top dollar, the Marlins traded Cameron Maybin two years ago for Edward Mujica and Ryan Webb (Maybin's WAR in 2011-2012: 4.9; Webb and Mujica's combined: 1.4!). 

All those dollars could have been used to address actual areas of need. The Marlins have been forced to play a converted outfielder (Emilio Bonifacio) and a Quad-A guy (Justin Ruggiano, whose .457 BABIP suggests is bound for a big crash) in centerfield. They could have kept Maybin, or used Bell's money on a free agent like Yoenis Cespedes, and probably get the same results out of the bullpen this year. Paying top dollar for a "proven closer" will get good press in December, but it often comes with opportunity costs that end up hurting the team in the long run.

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Old Habits Die Hard

If you thought the Marlins free spending ways would mean their penny-pinching habits of the past would die out, think again.

The club's handling of guys with less than three years of service time is perturbing both their players and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association alike, according to a report on Fox Sports. Per the new collective bargaining agreement, the major league minimum salary is increasing from $414,000 to $480,000. The Marlins aren't required to pay their 0-3 players a dime more, but here’s the issue: Someone like Gaby Sanchez with more than two years of service time might be making the same salary as the considerably less accomplished Jose Ceda, who has logged 96 days.

Most teams have a pay scale for their non arbitration-eligible players. They give raises from one year to the next based on everything from awards won (Rookie of the Year, Silver Slugger, Player of the Week, Rookie of the Month, etc.) to service time accumulated. The Marlins are widely considered to have one of, if not the worst, scales out there.

This is both mind-bogglingly stupid and pretty hilarious. A team that re-signed a middling reliever who is languishing in the Domincan Republic with visa/identity issues to a $6 million deal doesn't want to give a few young players a raise of only tens of thousands of dollars. It is disturbing and pathetic, but really not all that surprising that the team wouldn't operate in good faith with guys like Gaby Sanchez, who was an All-Star and posted a 2.9 WAR last year. It's a wonder anyone would ever want to play here.

This is also coming off the heels of the Marlins recent arbitration cases (mainly, two losses against Anibal Sanchez and Emilio Bonifacio) where they went to court over small differences in salary offers. In Bonifacio's case, he got the $2.2 million he wanted instead of the $1.95 the Marlins were offering. Playing hardball for the last $250,000, after committing over $140 million in the winter? Soooooo Marlins.

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Can Loria Be Trusted?

It is still hard to fathom, but Team Loria wants to spend some serious cash this winter. But even reports of substantial offers to Jose Reyes and Albert Pujols are not enough to convince some observers that Loria is serious about loosening the purse strings. From Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal:

Many in the industry are skeptical of the Marlins’ sincerity, believing that the club will make offers that are competitive, but not good enough to accept — and that the players will sign with teams that have better chances to win.

First, it's good to know that people inside baseball trust Jeffrey Loria just as much as Marlins fans do (which is to say, not at all). Regardless, I think Loria is totally serious about signing at least one (if not more) of the big three free agents the Marlins have targeted (Pujols, Reyes and Buehrle). Here is why.

When discussing anything Loria does, there are two critical points to remember:

1. Loria has terrible PR instincts, and generally cares more about his own ego than he should. Pretty much everyone who follows baseball will agree with those assertions.
   
2. Regardless, he is a shrewd businessman (the sweetheart deal he engineered to sell the Expos to MLB and buy the Marlins is all the proof necessary to prove that point).

Point 2 is important, because Loria knows that the momentum gained from opening the new stadium will fade fast in Miami if he fields an uninspiring team in 2012. You may recall that when the Heat opened the American Airlines Arena during the 1999-2000 season, there were plenty of empty seats at times. That year's Heat team had little going for it, and the oft-fickle Miami fans could not be bothered to show up to games.

This is all to say that the buzz about the Marlins trying to land a big free agent is not buzz for its own sake. If the Marlins whiff on Pujols, Reyes, and Buehrle, then the effort to sign them will not translate into any real gain in ticket sales. And ticket sales drives all of Loria's moves right now. He has sunk a lot of money into the stadium, even though the city and county have picked up a lot of the tab. Loria needs ticket sales to make his investment worth it, and teaming up Hanley Ramirez and Mike Stanton with someone like Pujols or Reyes would go a long way towards achieving that goal.

It is also worth mentioning that the Marlins' stadium-related cash flows will improve significantly in the new stadium, even if they do not get a bump in attendance. The owners of Sun Life Stadium (i.e. Stephen Ross and his Miami Dolphins partners) got a substantial cut of the gate (This Forbes piece notes that the Marlins got no luxury box revenue and only 37% of parking). Besides that, proceeds from food and drink sales went to the stadium owners, not the team. So the Marlins do have cash to spend, making these offers to Reyes and Pujols seem like less of a buzz-generating move and more of a realistic acquisition attempt.

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Marlins in violation of the MLB debt service rules

I have no idea what this means. Not literally, I understand what a debt limit is, but whether that will lead to sanctions or penalties is anyone's guess at this point.

Under the debt service rule, Selig is authorized to impose whatever remedial measures he sees fit. The rule lists 16 possible actions Selig could take, among them an order that a team raise equity, a requirement that all team expenditures be approved by his office and the suspension of the team owner.

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Geography and Demography

Last night, Forbes.com posted an article by Patrick Rishe in which Rishe examines three factors which have made Super Bowl contestants Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh* Steelers two of the most popular (as in top 5) teams in the NFL. Their popularity has many predicting record ratings for this year's Super Bowl. Rishe examines three factors which have led them to their level of popularity, which both have sustained for a long while:

1. History, as explained by the "first-mover advantage." Both were early entrants in the league, both had near total access to the entire market share of NFL fans, and both won championships early (the Packers were the Team of the 60s in NFL lore, while the Steelers were the Team of the 70s). This access allowed them to conquer a new frontier, so to speak. Most importantly, "though both franchises had their struggles and extended bouts away from postseason play during the 80s, the market share and branding that took place years ago made it possible to rekindle those allegiances as both franchises slowly returned to glory in the 90s and beyond."
2. Geography. Pittsburgh and Green Bay are mid-level economic markets (Pittsburgh is the 22nd largest metropolitan area, Green Bay the 42nd). Smaller markets with successful teams "tend to breed more loyal and rabid fanbases," invoking the St. Louis Cardinals to bolster his argument. 
3. Financial structure. Due to the NFL's very equitable revenue sharing and hard salary cap, both franchises (Green Bay an anachronistic publicly-owned football team, Pittsburgh's controlling partners only control 30%) have the same financial resources as large-market teams in the NFL, allowing them equal access to the top players in the league. 

What does this have to do with the Florida Marlins? The Marlins' historic, geographic, and financial system are far from those of the Steelers and Packers. And the first two factors compound the third for the Marlins. As such, Marlins fans the world over are greeted with puzzled stares when they assert their fandom, and the team is saddled with the "terrible fanbase" tag, playing for bandwagon fans or no fans, with no exceptions or gray areas. But if you can credit structural factors to the growth of two fanbases, you can certainly point to them when explaining why your favorite team routinely plays in half empty stadiums.

The Marlins, as we all know, were a 1993 expansion team, beginning play nearly 90 years after the first World Series. By the time the Marlins had entered MLB, virtually everyone in America outside the home market (and many inside) already had a favorite baseball team. Ted and I had the Orioles (this was long enough ago for that to not be a bummer). I think people of my generation (born in the 1980s) all know one peer in Miami who could have become a Marlins fan as a kid but instead retained his or her prior allegiances. In short, the Marlins entered a saturated market.

On top of that, the Marlins are in the 7th largest metropolitan area, a market with ample entertainment options. And as a subset of the geographic factor, I would add that phsyical migration has improved the Packers' and Steelers' national brand while hindering the Marlins' profile. When Green Bay and Pittsburgh first joined the NFL in the 1920s, the term "rust belt" was decades from inception. The industrialized northeast and Great Lakes regions were among the most populous regions in America. But as the postindustrial decline set in after the 1960s, these areas saw huge numbers of residents leave the region (this migration continues today). Many of these rust belt residents have moved to the south, west, and sun belt states. They have taken their sports allegiences with them. This is why, as Kissing Suzy Kolber noted last week, you can find Steelers bars all over the country.

The Marlins, as you can no doubt infer from the previous paragraph, play in a destination city, where rust belters and immigrants from all over the hemisphere and world relocate daily. If you're a born and bred Indians fan from Ohio, you'll hold a grudge against the Marlins, not root for them. And every Marlins fan knows the indignity of going to a Mets (or Yankees or Red Sox) game and being outnumbered by the visiting fans.

To top it off, the Marlins play in a league which forces low-revenue teams to be ruthlessly smart and efficient to succeed, since they cannot afford the top players in the league unless they sign them to contract extensions below market value early in their career (as the Marlins have done with Hanley Ramirez and Josh Johnson and the Tampa Bay Rays did with Evan Longoria, among others). This is not to say that the Marlins or any other small market team cannot win a World Series, as we all know that is a fallacy. But these teams historically have had difficulty producing winning teams year-in and year-out, the very pattern of success which is almost required to build a fanbase in the modern era. The Marlins and Miami Heat have both seen their home attendance numbers plummet when either team struggled in the years following a championship season. Miami fans do not stick around for losers.

Of course, nothing is inevitable, and in a few decades, when the first wave of fans who grew up with the Marlins start raising their own broods of Marlins fans, or if the Marlins have a remarkable wave of success that hooks a bunch of people for life, the Marlins fanbase may not be a laughingstock. But it will take a confluence of significant events and trends to reverse the effect of the above factors, and frankly I'm not sure what that would look like. But at least I have some data to spout at a cocktail party. It's better than looking sheepish and saying nothing when asked to defend my fellow fans.

*By the way, my favorite thing about Pittsburgh? It is one of the few "-burgh" cities in America, because during World War I it resisted the urge to drop the h during a period of anti-German resentment. Indeed, the citizens had to campaign to restore the h in 1911.

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Commerce

It was only a matter of time before someone channeled the uproar over the Marlins' financial documents into an apathetic fashion statement.

There's more here. Now you know. Which is worse, my own ennui about the whole thing or this attempt to make a few bucks off of the fans' outrage without really doing anything to the source of that outrage. I'll leave that question to the philosophers...

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Marlins Comment On Financial Statements

"Financial statements of the team were recently released and hey look at that new stadium that will open soon!"

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Some Final Thoughts on the Marlins' Finances

It seems like everyone in South Florida is mad that the Marlins (a business franchise) are making profits while doing everything in their power to minimize costs (including player salaries) during a historic economic downturn. You know things are turned upside down when Craig of FishStripes is forced to defend Jeffrey Loria (sorry dude). I'm already tired of the uproar, so I'm going to just post some bullet points and call it a day.

• We have only seen financial documents for 2008 and 2009. According to Jeff Loria (whose words should be accompanied by many grains of salt), the team accrued a lot of debt between 2002 and 2005, when their Opening Day payrolls totaled $41 million, $45 million, $42 million, and $60 million, respectively (with much of that money deferred in the cases of high-salary guys like Pudge Rodriguez). Additionally, the team is also deducting some expenses for the new stadium, as Craig pointed out yesterday. When (if) the Marlins' revenue streams move towards the top half of Major League Baseball, they won't have to cut back after an extended period of (relative) overspending, but that is not the case now (as Maury Brown pointed out, the Marlins receive twice as much money from revenue sharing as they do from ticket sales and broadcasting rights).
• David Samson told Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post that MLB "will seek legal recourse to find the source" who leaked the financial documents to Deadspin. This is dumb, and the only reason MLB should do this is if they think it will prevent more documents from being leaked. It might stop this particular source, but leaks happen, and MLB would be better served by getting in front of the story and contending with the documents head on, rather than trying to unscramble this egg.
• Now the wizards who run the Miami city and county governments are mad that they didn't get to review the Marlins books before approving the massive public-private financing plan for the new stadium. I am of the Carl Hiaasen line of thinking concerning Miami politicians, i.e. they are all shady crooks who aren't all that concerned about the public good. This sounds like a bunch of lamenting that they were out-crooked by Loria and Samson, to which I say bummer. The exception in this case is Miami-Dade County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who demanded that the Marlins make their books available to lawmakers and voted against stadium funding when the Marlins refused.
• Greg Cote is mad. But then again, he's also the guy who publicly lambasted Norman Braman's attempts to foil the financing plan that paid for the bulk of the stadium costs (I would link his column here, but the Miami Herald does not make much of its archives available on the web). The lesson for the rest of us: ignore most sportswriters when it comes to politics, economics, and the public good.
• If you, as a fan, are mad that you are spending your own money on tickets and merchandise, and that the proceeds from those spending dollars are not going towards something useful, then stop buying tickets and merchandise. It's that simple. Jeff Loria does not care about your complaints on Twitter.
• One question for the fans: Knowing what we do about the way Loria and company sold the Expos to MLB to finance the purchase of the Marlins, should we be surprised at any level of malfeasance by the Marlins ownership? It's not like we all thought Loria was George Bailey. As the old adage goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
• As for my own feelings, I no longer live in South Florida, so my tax dollars are not going towards the new stadium, and I haven't attended a Marlins game since I left Miami in 2006. For that reason, it's difficult for me to get too exercised about the team fleecing the city and county, though I can certainly sympathize with those who do. Frankly, my political anger right now is reserved for Ken Cuccinelli, who thinks John Ashcroft is a good role model for Attorneys General.

Okay, we're all done with that for now.

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Step 1: Become Laughingstock. Step 2: Profit

2010 Balance Sheet Preview: $80,000 jewelry expense

This morning Deadspin published leaked financial statements from a number of MLB teams, including the Florida Marlins. I haven't had much time to parse the documents yet, but in 2008 and 2009 the team reported consolidated net incomes of $29.4 million and $3.9 million, respectively. I'll be taking a look at the financial statements tonight, and Deadspin will also provide more analysis, which I will link here as everything develops. It all should make for an interesting start to the week.

UPDATE: Maury Brown breaks down the numbers at Biz of Baseball. The Marlins pulled in over $90 million in revenue sharing money during 2008-2009, compared to a little over $30 million in broadcasting revenue over the same period. Suck on that, ghost of Steinbrenner. Also of note, the Fish spend about $30 million per year on player development, the most of any of the five teams whose records were posted by Deadspin.

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"It's not as greasy as people think."

Get your mind out of the gutter, folks. Scott Strickland is referring to his second job as a repo man. According to the Palm Beach Post, Strickland, who was was reassigned to Minor League camp this morning, said the other day he will probably return to his job as an auto repossession agent should he not make the big club out of Spring Training. With unemployment rate at 9.7 percent, he is happy to take what he can get.

Don't feel too bad for him though. The minor league job he gave up, which pays $12,000 a month during the season, means he would have made more money in four months than I will all year. And yes, I'm still kicking myself for quitting little league at age 12.


h/t: Big League Stew

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