Stop me if you've heard this one before

Remember the time last year when speculation abounded that Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest was not long for his job? He is back on the hot seat, according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports:

Beinfest is miserable, major league sources say. You would be miserable, too, if your owner over the past four years had gone from merely meddlesome to completely hands-on, even vetoing minor league call-ups for reasons unrelated to performance.

The Marlins’ power structure, according to sources, essentially consists of Loria and VP of player personnel Dan Jennings on one side and Beinfest and general manager Mike Hill on the other. Loria’s stepson, team president David Samson, has been all but invisible this season and also is on the outs with Loria, sources say.

The Miami Herald corroborated much of Rosenthal's report,:

Sources said Loria is now making most – if not all – of the baseball decisions, which is fueling speculation that president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest and team president David Samson could be ousted after the season.

“He has marginalized the front office,” said a major league source, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “The front office isn’t making decisions. Loria makes them all.”

Plenty of people have soured on Beinfest over the past few years, but even a subpar front-office-type is better than Loria at building a baseball team. Loria has long had the reputation of wanting one or more of "his guys" on the coaching staff (guys like Ozzie Guillen and Tino Martinez, both of whom have been the "Loria guy" at different points - and those worked out great, right??). It seems highly likely that if/when Beinfest is gone, another "Loria guy" will find himself in Beinfest's old position.

But if Loria hates one thing more than having his brilliant opinions ignored by his subordinates, it's paying money for someone to not be his team's president, and Beinfest is under contract until 2015. Perhaps Loria is trying to make life so uncomfortable for Beinfest that he quits, letting Loria off the hook for his next two years' worth of salary. If anyone is shrewd enough to pull off such a move, it is Jeffrey Loria, because:

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Marlins' Front Office Shortcomings Extend Beyond Beinfest

[Note: Inspired by Deadspin, Strip Club With Stanton has initiated a Marlins blogger roundtable. Our first topic is an assessment of Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest, who suddenly finds himself on the hot seat. SCWS' first entry can be read here, Michael Jong of Fish Stripes responds here.]

From: Dave
To: Ted, SCWS, Michael Jong

Gents,

Like you guys, I have been wondering whether the assumption that Larry Beinfest should be fired is a fair one. I think we don't need to rehash what you two have written thus far regarding his less-than-stellar draft record or his iffy-at-best trade and free agent history. While he has pulled off some remarkable steals (Dontrelle Willis et al for Antonio Alfonseca et al, Ricky Nolasco et al for Juan Pierre) and found some amazing value in the draft (it is still hard to believe that Giancarlo Stanton was a late second round pick), those hits are accompanied by very many misses.

But what interests me most at this time is who would replace Beinfest. Last week's report that Jeffrey Loria would promote VP of player personnel Dan Jennings is troubling. It is easy to blame Beinfest for the Marlins' recent string of bad personnel decisions, but he is far from the only culprit. After the first 2-3 rounds of the draft, senior front office officials are largely absent from the war room; it is the mid-level execs and scouts who search for value after the early rounds. And Beinfest certainly is not in charge of assembling scouting reports on free agents and trade targets.

The fact is, the Marlins seem to have issues throughout its personnel and scouting departments. Even when discounting for bad luck, Beinfest seems to be relying on the opinions of scouts who thought John Buck and Heath Bell were worth signing. Any new guy who replaces Beinfest will still have to rely on these scouts to make crucial decisions, since the nature of the business demands lots of delegation in the personnel department.

Making an internal hire only exacerbates the problem, as it signals to the rest of the front office that their inputs were not the problem, it was the guy at the top who mis-interpreted (or misused) them. An external hire cannot immediately address the organizational problems, but someone from outside the Marlins organization will be much more likely to initiate a shake-up of the staff and look to bring in better talent evaluators from other clubs.

Firing Beinfest and promoting Dan Jennings (or Michael Hill for that matter) is the kind of cosmetic fix that the Marlins were guilty of making this offseason when they signed "proven closer" Heath Bell. It will draw praise from sportswriters and ESPN personalities, but could seriously jeopardize the team in the long run.

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Request Denied

The Baltimore Orioles have a vacant GM job, and Marlins assistant GM Dan Jennings is among their prospective candidates to fill the vacancy. Problem is, Team Lori has denied Baltimore permission to talk to Jennings.

Baltimore is talking to various general manager candidates from other organizations, but Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com reports that the Marlins denied the Orioles permission to interview vice president of player personnel and assistant general manager Dan Jennings.

And according to Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun this is actually the fourth time the Marlins have denied a team permission to interview Jennings, who's under contract through 2015.

All together now:

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This Happened

Buried in this item on Ozzie Guillen's fractious relationship with the White Sox front office was this tidbit:

According to major-league sources, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria was intent on making Guillen his next manager. Talks, sources say, progressed to the point that there was discussion of executing a trade that would send Guillen, who has a year left on his contract, to the Marlins for 20-year-old outfielder Mike Stanton, who hit 22 home runs and knocked in 59 runs in just 100 games as a rookie this season.

Not surprisingly, there's a little bit of frustration among Marlins fans floating around Twitter this morning. If this trade actually happened, I'm fairly certain I would have been irate. We all know my feelings about managers, trading a franchise outfielder for one is just plain stupid. But as Marlins fans, we should all know by now that no player, save for Hanley Ramirez and Josh Johnson, is safe from trade discussions, no matter how ludicrous. However, just because a discussion happens does not mean a trade is imminent. Dan Uggla has been thisclose to being traded for the past three seasons, and he's still around. Indeed, when I read this story, my first reaction was surprise at Loria's restraint. This seems like exactly the kind of ill-informed move a would-be Steinbrenner would make.

I quickly dismissed the report on Twitter this morning, whereupon I was met with skepticism. But really, we root for a team that disappoints us often. Let's reserve our anger for the bad trades that do happen, for the sake of our sanity if nothing else.

UPDATE: The Marlins are denying everything, as we'd expect.

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Somehow This Doesn't Worry Me

Via Cameron:

We won't be reporting on every little rumor that hits my Twitter feed this fall and winter, but I had to laugh when I realized that the Marlins' most attractive "free agents" (though they're not actually free agents) are in the front office.

Also, the Mets front office could be staffed with Beinfest, Hill, and Jesus, and they still won't win a World Series.

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