Saturday, May 25, 2013
SI: Alex Sanabia : I didn’t know spitter was against rules
(sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
We have an early leader for “least plausible excuse of 2013.”
Miami Marlins pitcher Alex Sanabia says he didn’t know it was illegal to spit on the ball, the way he did Monday against the Philadelphia Phillies.
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1. Edmundo got dem ol' Kozma blues again mamaI absolutely despise anyone who uses this meme. How does he know? Has he tracked each (or any) current naysayer back to their 2003 opinions?
MLB shared tv revenue bucks. Luxury tax bucks from teams in big markets and teams not abjectly failing to draw fans. Tv contract bucks. Really pretty much any buck that comes to the Florida Marlins franchise. They all stop with me. And they never move on to anyone else's bank account.
Well, surely there are plenty of horrible people who are in prison but not on death row....
also, hotel taxes hit many locals for various reasons, as well as their friends and family. and if the money hadn't gone toward the ballpark, it could have been used to balance the budget instead. if the hotel tax increase wasn't high enough to scare away a single tourism dollar, that also would be amazing - and a sign that there was an opportunity lost there all along.
We won't suck as bad as the Astros.
Sincerly,
Jeffery Loria
Pete Rose? Steve Garvey?
This.
Even if the hotel tax were found money that didn't hurt locals at all, that doesn't mean that there weren't better ways to spend it than on a ballpark for a team that has consistently shown poor faith with the locals. It could balance the budget, it could reduce taxes elsewhere, it could go to schools - heck, if it has to go to help subsidize local businesses there are undoubtedly solutions better for the people of the area overall than to help a billionaire make more money while creating mostly low paying seasonal work.
Not even close. Steve Garvey did what the majority of professional athletes do, he just got caught very publicly. Pete Rose is an addictive personality that refuses to fess up to mistakes he made, but he's not unadulterated evil like Loria. Pure greed is evil. Loria is the epitome of pure greed, therefore he's the epitome of pure evil. He's about as low on the evolutionary scale as one can be, without being a blood thirsty dictator, serial killer etc.
They invented corruption down in Dade County. I have a very hard time believing that this found money would go anywhere besides *somebody's* pocket. Whether that pocket is attached to Loria, the "mayor", or other political cronies is just shifting around the deck chairs a bit.
So your plan is to not acquire high-profile players and instead focus on growing your young talent... and for those of us who are skeptical of this plan, you point to when you acquired a high-profile player as a free agent and won a World Championship.
Next time, hire the Underpants Gnomes to write your letter.
Yes, we shouldn't pick on the corrupt little midget who won the race to steal the taxpayers monies. Wait, isn't that exactly what Lauria said in his letter?
So that's where the money really went, buying minor leagues for future Marlin teams to play in!
I suspect that in a competitive market like Miami hotels, the cost of a tax will be shared by both the tourists and the hotels.
I assume that by the "hotel tax" thing, he means to imply that some significant number of the tourists wouldn't even be coming if it weren't for the Marlins and their bold moves and their award winning architecture and blah blah blah. So if it didn't go to pay for the award winning architecture, the award winning architecture wouldn't have won awards, and the tourists wouldn't have come, and the tax wouldn't get paid, and so no, it's not the case that it could have been used for local schools and such. This seems pretty unlikely to me, but hey.
Steve Garvey: I only vaguely remembered this - he was viewed as a squeaky clean guy and then got caught doing something not so squeaky clean - so I just looked him up on Wikipedia. Found out that his daughters testified in court that they don't love him. Ouch. Was unsurprised to read that he's a Republican.
They'll invest in a copy of Office with spell check when they're ready to compete. Haven't you heard of the desktop software success cycle?
Then again I'm thinking this has to be a prime target for the Software Police to make a raid.
"Cleveland, I Love You," by the late Art Modell
"Charlotte: I Know What I'm Doing," by Michael Jordan
"Some of my best friends are Jewish," by...well, you know who...
The Marlins' copy editor was too expensive, so he was let go and replaced with a local 8th grader. Look, the Marlins are giving back to the community again!
1. PCL
2. SAL
3. GCL
4. DSL
5. FSL
6. NYP
7. (Bonus!) SOU
Gonfalon's #5 deserves some love. That was a belly laugh.
Jim Crane is spending even less than Loria and among other things was a war profiteer.
While confined here in this Marlins Stadium office, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
Anything else seems extraneous.
Still, a guy goes bankrupt, and is unfaithful and unloved? His party affiliation should surprise no one.
Crane is also a big Obama fundraiser and golfing buddy. However, his most grievous fault is being undercapitalized.
... so here's why this isn't my fault --
"[E]arly everyone on our team underperformed as compared to their career numbers";
"[M]any are attacking the County’s method of financing for its contribution, but the Marlins had nothing at all to do with that"; and
"Fans didn’t turn out last season as much as we’d like."
Best,
Jeff"
U Mad?
Jeff"
There's a joke that I first heard being told of the New York Titans (but probably goes back further) that went something like: To save time we're not going to announce the starters. The players can go introduce themselves to everybody attending.
Infante 1.8 WAR in 350 PA
Reyes 2.8
Hanley -- oops, forgot about him, only .5 bWAR although fangraphs liked him more
Buehrle 3.2
Johnson 3.1
Sanchez 1.4 in 19 starts
That's 12 WAR in essentially 4 full seasons plus Hanley. That was hardly a disaster and, even if they'd managed an uncharacteristically high 20 WAR, the Marlins are still under 500.
The problem was everybody else but Stanton. The offense finished with just 4.2 WAR. The three guys above plus Stanton were 10 WAR so the rest of the team was -6. That's bad in case you didn't know. And that's despite a miracle 2.3 WAR from Ruggiano in half a season.
The pitchers were not so embarrassing at 11 WAR meaning the rest of the staff was at least above replacement.
To the extent there was a problem it wasn't the high-priced stars, it was Morrison and Sanchez and thinking Bonafactio was a starter and thinking that all you need for a good pen is a stud closer. Also the low-priced gambles on Z and Lee didn't pay off in the end.
We're moving to the AL and changing our name to the Gators in 2015. Some old man and a kid said if we did that, we'd play in the World Series!
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