Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1148: I’m a Marlins Fan, AMA

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan discuss the Giancarlo Stanton trade’s impact on the Yankees, whether and why the Marlins are an embarrassment (and where they’ll go from here), the Orioles’ attitude toward international players, and the Hall of Fame admitting Alan Trammell and Jack Morris. Then they bring on listener Lazaro Rodriguez, a certified Marlins […]

Part 8 for sale, Part 8 for free, Part 8 multiplying, take it from me. Hello and welcome to episode 1148 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs, a Florida man. He is in Orlando, Florida, at the winter meetings with no power cord, so we've got to talk fast before his battery dies. Hello, Jeff.

Hello. When I sat down on the airplane in Portland, I was flying on the same plane as Dave Cameron, my friend, and also boss, friend first, then boss. And I was thinking as I sat down, like, oh, how would Dave react if I turned around and I was like, hey, I just realized I forgot to pack my computer. And then I was thinking, I was like, well, you know, actually, I did forget to pack my power cord. So then we went to, we landed, we went to Best Buy. And when we landed in Orlando to get a power adapter.

And I bought one, and it fits my computer. And it was sold as a power cord, a universal power cord. And I opened the box. We got back to where we're staying, and there is no wall plug. So I am still currently on my last legs. But anyway, what is the intended use of the universal power cord if it doesn't have a power cord? Ben, I really couldn't tell you. I have no answer to that question.

Should have talked to the geek squad, I guess. Whenever you do the podcast intro, the hello and welcome, I always want to just jump in and say hello right after you say hello. But I think that it might throw you off and I'm really afraid of making you mad at me on the air. No, it's good. You should keep me on my toes a little bit. So obviously we are talking about the Giancarlo Stanton trade. We're talking on Sunday night. And later in this episode, we are talking to a genuine real life Marlins fan, a Miami Marlins fan.

I'm going to ask him what it is like to be a Marlins fan at this point in time. Spoiler, it's not great, but he's going to tell us about that. But obviously we have to talk about this trade. We knew a trade was coming in all likelihood. We knew it was going to be to one of, say, four-ish teams. We didn't know it was going to happen quite as quickly as it ended up happening. We were talking on Friday and saying, well, maybe next week. And then not really that long after this podcast was posted, that trade happened. John Carlos Stanton to the Yankees for money, mostly, and a couple prospects on Starlin Castro, but mostly money. So we have to talk about this trade.

I guess we'll talk about it from the Yankees' perspective. We'll also talk about it from the Marlins' perspective. So I think that's maybe what most people are interested in. I mean, obviously, he's going to the Yankees perspective. We'll also talk about it from the Marlins perspective. So I think that's maybe what most people are interested in. I mean, obviously he's going to the Yankees. He makes the Yankees a lot better. Now you have Aaron Judge and Jarcos Stanton in the same lineup. It's amazing. It's going to be a really fun lineup to watch with a ton of right-handed power, etc, etc. Yankees get great player, not a new storyline particularly. and i think there's just been a lot of outrage essentially that the marlins made this move even though we've known for months that the marlins

were likely to make this move i think now that it has actually happened and we've seen the return that they got which again mostly money i think people are upset and justifiably so i love it okay so look i hate i i don't like that a team in baseball has to act like the marlins act i would ideally the marlins would be a normal baseball at least like the rays or something i don't know just like with some competitive goal but i love it because i wanted i wanted the yankees to do well in the playoffs because i thought we need the yankees to restore their identity and people were like oh what a what a lovable little baseball team yeah not anymore no now they're a juggernaut they're horrifying they're gonna beat the crap out of that like the Yankees get to play the Orioles

19 times next year who is that fair to that's it's dangerous for the fans it's dangerous for the players Kevin Gosman's gonna have to duck every other pitch he throws yes so please everyone extend your netting down the foul line if you're're going to be playing the Yankees this year, you should do it anyway, but especially if Stanton and Judge are coming to town. The green monster is not going to last six months. That thing is going to be destroyed. I like this. Look, for Yankees haters, this is what you want. You thrive on hating the Yankees. Baseball thrives on people hating the Yankees. And this is exactly what we need. We needed it.

Like the Dodgers aren't. People can hate the Dodgers. And the Dodgers do have hateable qualities. But they're still trying to play like the billionaire underdog kind of card. I don't know exactly how they pull it off. But they kind of do. It's because of the front office and the efficiency. Like Rich Hill.

Great story. Anyway. But Yankees. Like, hey, we're really good. we're up and coming we were rebuilding we overachieved oh now we basically just got like the most terrifying hitter in baseball not for free but like we didn't give up talent and now uh it's they're back this is still an age of parody where the teams who were spending less are still spending more relative to the highest spenders. So I don't think that we're entering an age of dynasties or five teams taking over the league. I'm not afraid of that at all. But I really like that the Yankees have gotten back to their identity of being the team that everyone hates the most. And so I think that's going to make 2018 a whole hell of a lot of fun.

Yes, you're right. That underdog young Yankees with a slightly lower payroll era didn't really last. And all the concerns about, oh, the Yankees, no Girardi, and Aaron Boone, inexperienced manager, and maybe they overachieved

a little in certain ways last year, although there are ways in which they underachieved too. All of that, I think, oh, they just acquired the reigning MVP. This is what, the third reigning mvp who's ever been traded obviously stanton's coming off a career year he will not necessarily duplicate that season but he's gonna be good he's he's stanton he's good their lineup is good i mean

i don't know if it's like astro's lineup that we just saw this season good that was about as good a lineup as we've ever seen but last year lineup maybe more home runs lineup certainly yeah right you have the hardest hitting hitter in baseball you have the second hardest hitting a baseball their closer throws harder than anyone and i think severino is probably going to be the hardest throwing starter so like this is just power on power on power this is great this is great yeah and i don't know if stanton's suddenly gonna hit 70 or something because he's in yankee stadium. Mike Petriello did some stat cast based analysis just looking at fly balls that Stanton hit last year in Marlins Park and superimposing them on Yankee Stadium. far that park factors are sort of meaningless for him so there's probably some truth to that but obviously he's gonna be good and their middle of the lineup is very scary now and there are other

implications about how they're gonna fit all these guys in and they've got Greg Bird healthy and how are they going to fit in Judge and also Gardner and also Stanton and Hicks and all these guys who's gonna play center are they still going to go after bryce harper as everyone assumed that they would even though they now have two good great corner outfielders locked up for quite a while anyway the actual terms of the deal what they send back starlin castro who maybe will be a marlin for a few weeks or something i don't know if he'll actually play games for the marlins we'll see but two prospects one of whom is a prospect what a top 10 in the yankees system prospect and the other who was not even ranked this was mostly about the money and what was the money

is that the yankees get like 35 million from the marlins yeah i think it was 30 or 35 right so it's something but they're paying the the vast majority of this contract obviously and is that that's only if he does not opt out or something like that yeah i don't i don't know exactly where the money kicks in but i would assume it is post opt out because you don't really need the coverage at the at the start right yeah so anyway rich get richer etc same same old story but marlins same old too. And I don't know how to apportion the blame or the outrage that people should be feeling here. How much should people be mad at Derek Jeter? How much should people be mad at Bruce Sherman? How much should people be mad at Major League Baseball and Rob Manfred and the owners of the other teams for approving a sale to another ownership group that evidently can't really afford a baseball team and just leverage themselves hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt as soon as they took over the team just so they could

afford the team. And so that's why they're in this situation. And like, there's a world where trading Stanton is not a terrible idea for the Marlins. I mean, they probably weren't going to make the playoffs with Stanton. So it's the old, you know, I can finish in didn't even try to say that it's about competing down the road so much as it's about making payroll and continuing to be able to field a team. So that's a big part of it. But there is a world in which trading Stanton is not the worst idea if it were done with an eye toward the future and if you were confident that they were going to use that money for something good because his surplus value wasn't that high. We talked about that earlier this winter, that it's not that they got a terrible, terrible deal just because they handled this poorly although i think they did it's also that he had the biggest contract ever signed and there's uncertainty about how he'll age and whether teams will be on the hook for his whole contract and all

of that so obviously they could have chosen not to take so much money back and to go for prospects instead and they didn't do that it was not a terrible contract that stanton signed in the first place but looking back i don't know if it was so clear then maybe that was my own fault or whoever's own fault but it's the kind of contract where you you realize that like market rate doesn't apply the same to every team where that contract just wasn't going to fit on the marlins if they were going to keep acting something like the marlins they're not such a high payroll team and so if you have a 325 million dollar contract over 13 seasons that looks a lot different on I don't know the Mets just to take an average team

as opposed to annually one of the lowest spending teams in in baseball and so it was almost inevitable it was going to be moved I think a lot of people could sense that Stanton was not going to be long for the Marlins and I don't know I'm not sure people knew quite how Stanton would wield the no trade clause he was given, which is something the Marlins generally did not do. Marlins got some criticism in the past for not being willing to give out no trade clauses. But you know what? There's a reason they did that.

And it kind of has worked out for them. And, you know, when I want to come to the Marlins defense, I think back on when they made their huge like salary dump trade with the blue jays and in fact if i could just look that up so i can remind myself of the details the marlins got a ton of crap because they built up they spent a ton of money in like 2012 i think it was and they moved into the new stadium and then okay here's the here's the whole trade so the marlins spent a bunch of money then they were bad so they made a salary dump trade and they gave up josh johnson mark burley and jose reyes so like three of the and i guess john buck whatever and emilio bonifacio as long as we're going to be completionists in november 19th 2012 the marlins gave all those players to the blue jays and they got back henderson alvarez anthony

disclafani unel escobar danny echeverria jake muriznik jeff mathis and justin nicolino which by the way all of those major league players they all turned out henderson alvarez now has run into some shoulder problems d sclafani has had elbow problems but you now escobar has turned into like an everyday player echeveria turned into an everyday player jake marisnick could be an everyday player he's an outstanding defensive center fielder jeff mathis is already a veteran back then but he's a regular catcher with the Diamondbacks. And Justin Nicolina, who's known for never striking anybody out as a major leaguer. But nevertheless, like that trade really worked out for the Marlins. And they got nothing but crap for it when it happened.

Because you look at the Marlins and you roll your eyes because, of course, they're cutting costs. And you would prefer a team not cut costs. But to the Marlins' credit, I think they have made the worst moves when they've been trying to get better but when they've actually like cut money i think they've done pretty well because a lot of people still have a lot of trouble separating if you take someone like john carlos stanton his value is not just how good he is his value is how good he is and his contract and the reality is that his contract is just not that good and so it does make sense for the marlins to move him but because of who they are and because stanton just won the mvp of course you look at it and you

think who did they get back this is embarrassing but there are ways for the marlins to survive this is just a question of wondering can you trust this team to actually hit the reset button as soon as it gets over this initial hump and tries to conquer all the debt that it inherited and and that we don't know yeah right i mean i think stanton probably had to go one way or another for the marlins to get back to contention i'm just not really clear on whether this is a step toward their getting back to contention or just a step toward their profiting off the team essentially or just finding a way to keep the team going and so you wonder if that was the way that this ownership group had to operate, why was this ownership group approved? And I don't know all the details of their finances and the

other contenders for the team, but you just kind of wonder. And I know that Bruce Sherman has something of a history of this kind of cutthroat business operation, maybe just trying to make a profit more so than plowing money back into the thing he owns. And that's fine. It's great when you have a Mike Gillich or someone like that who puts the team winning ahead of profit and even the franchise value. That's nice if you are lucky enough to have an owner like that. That is wonderful. But most teams are not. And I don't think you can necessarily expect that from an ownership group. But if this group was in the kind of Frank McCourt

sort of situation where they just really did not have deep enough pockets to do that unless they borrowed and borrowed and borrowed to the point where they can't afford to field a competitive team for years and are just sort of hoping, banking on the fact that TV deals and franchise values are rising all the time and even if your team is not winning you're essentially making money in the long run once you sell the

team like if that's what this is going to be then that's depressing and there's no reason why they should have been the ones to get this team i don't know that there were better options out there obviously the marlins are not really a jewel of a franchise, but every franchise is worth billions of dollars at this point. And that's the concern that you just worry that they're in it for essentially whatever profit they can make down the road when they sell this thing, when they find someone else to unload it on. Just like Loria was. Loria made an enormous amount of money despite being a terrible owner. You can do that. So I don't know whether Derek Jeter has that philosophy. I would doubt it. I would think based on his history that sure that he wants to win, but he's now in this position of taking the fall

for all the bad things the Marlins do. And I don't know how many of them are him doing them or him being ordered to do them or what, but he's kind of taking the main PR hit. And Bruce Sherman, most people have never heard of Bruce Sherman. They've heard of Derek Jeter. So Derek Jeter meets a convenient punching bag. Not that I think he's all that well suited to be a baseball operations executive either. It would be useful to have Dave Cameron on this podcast, but he's currently sick and asleep in the other room. So we're not going to, I'm not going to go wake him up and put a microphone in his face. But I was talking to

him about this a little earlier and asking him what he thinks is going on with the Marlins. And I'm just going to paraphrase his response and try to make it quicker as well. But he said, I don't know how certain he is in this theory, but I think his current operating theory is that, so what was it? Joel Sherman was talking about Jeter and Sherman group inheriting like $400 million of debt or something. And we don't have access to the Marlins financials, but- Although when Deadspin did back in the day, it didn't really back up their story. That's true. Needing money. That's true.

So who knows what's actually happening with the Marlins. But if we take them at their word or at Joel Sherman's word, if the Marlins are like just completely underwater, then Dave was thinking that, you know, if the Marlins are just a complete toxic asset, you're not going to get like a high quality group of investors who want to come in and take over ownership of the team and so from baseball's perspective there's a certain appeal in having a derrick jeter led group come in and yeah and you figure if jeter can just kind of if nothing can stick to him if he can just be like teflon derrick or whatever and make the difficult moves that have to be done and still kind of come out of it shiny on the other side then maybe you can see this through but But I don't,

that's, for now, that's just a theory. And it sure would be nice if, you know, just some billionaires who wanted a successful baseball team moved in here and taken the team over instead. But that's, that doesn't seem to be where we are. Right. And not only is Stanton gone and Dee Gordon gone, but now there are rumors about young, affordable, talented players like Marcelo Zuna and Christian Jelic also potentially going. And, you know, you hope that in their case, at least it will be more about getting prospects back, acquiring talent more so than dumping their contracts, which are not nearly in the Stanton range. So, I mean, that's the thing, I guess, is just that there was no way to make out that well in this trade probably because you know i guess they could have been less obvious about the fact that

they had to trade him that they were determined to trade him and then maybe they could have reached out to him and talked to him and gotten him to accept the trade somewhere else i don't know whether that ever would have been possible there's really no reason why he should have done that if he didn't think he had to, as we discussed previously. So he kind of had them over a barrel to a certain extent, and they put themselves over a barrel to a certain extent. And I think he had to go, but it's just like the way that they sold this to people was not, we really have to do this. We're going to get talent back. This is the first step of our grand rebuild. It was more like, well, we have to cut payroll. Day one, we have to cut payroll. And the payroll was not that high. It was high for the Marlins, sort of.

But now they're talking about just going back to the very bottom rung where they were for so many years. And that's just, you know, it's always difficult to swallow when you have a billionaire running a team who is not willing to accept some slight operating loss in the short term with an eye toward increasing franchise value and hopefully making out even or better in the long run. And that's not what's happening here. So you could see like in a different situation with a different team, different ownership group, different front office front office trading stanton even mostly as a salary dump would not be roundly criticized it's just that there are two decades of baggage and history here and maybe that's unfair you can't blame jeter and sherman for what wayne huizenga and loria did but it's just the continuation of a

pattern and there's no reason really to be optimistic about the fact that, okay, they have this money now, they can reinvest it in smart ways. They have no track record that we would say, yeah, this is leading somewhere. When the Astros sold off, when the Cubs sold off, when the Astros had one of the lowest or the lowest payroll there for a while, there was always a sense that there was a plan, there was a process, there was an intention here, there was talent at some lower level that you could look at and dream on. And there isn't that, at least for the Marlins now, and I don't know when there will be. The messaging has not been good from this ownership group from day one, because you're right, they haven't explained themselves in a baseball sense very well at all.

And I know that they're new. But I mean, look, if you're a tarot cheater, you're not new to baseball. You should be able to talk your way through this. And I understand that Marlins fans have heard the weird spending less now so we can rebuild and get better down the road. They've heard that line over and over and over. But you have to at least give it a chance. Because if you just come out and say, say yeah we're cutting payroll because we don't have money well how is that supposed to instill faith in anyone this is a business and you're not

doing anything to draw positive attention to your product so i don't know how much more is going to come out of this because i think ozuna is only only on their contract another two years i think and yelich at least has a longer contract so maybe they hang on to him and do whatever i know he posted his tweet the other day with the uh what's the name of the emoji where you're scratching the side of your face i don't know but chris yelich is socially aware he's woke to what's happening with the marlins but you know jean-carlos stanton posted something like that he said he was furious when they made their big trade and then it took five years until he was gone so who knows how long it'll take until yelich gets his sweet release but I don't know how much further this

is going to go but if the stories of the Marlins finances are true they had to trade Giancarlo Stanton and I'm just surprised he didn't end up going to the Dodgers I didn't uh I didn't really see the Yankees here and some credit I guess to Derek Jeter in the front office for turning around pretty quick because the word came out Friday afternoon that Stanton said no to the Cardinals and then some hours later he said no to the Giants or at least the reports came out and then seemed like Derek Jeter was stuck and then all of a sudden he was going to the Yankees so he did make something happen here I guess and you know doesn't make anyone feel too good but I guess it does make Giancarlo Stanton feel real good yeah so I mean the Marlins were a 77 win team this past year with Stanton with Stanton having

the year of his life and I just I don't see any way that they could have competed this year or this coming year I mean I know they weren't so far out of contention that you necessarily say burn it all down and start over. But this team just has no pitching. And sure, obviously, that is the continued after effects of the loss of Jose Fernandez in part, but that's the reality that this franchise is in, and there just is no pitching. I don't see how you could envision a contending team here, even though they do have some promising hitters and had a fairly robust lineup. It just wasn't enough. So I sort of see the wisdom of starting over, but it's just,

I mean, it's impossible to sell this really in a way that would make people happy, given everything else that has happened with the Marlins. If you're going to trade your superstar, your franchise player, one of the best and most beloved players in your franchise's not that long history, you got to get something back other than Starlin Castro and no-name prospects to make anyone excited about it. So no one was going to be excited about a salary dump. But even so, I think there were ways to describe the thinking and the plan here better than they did. And so, of course, there's a lot of frustration and there's wondering whether these guys should be the ownership group, whether we can expect any difference from them in the future.

And we don't really know. There's no reason to be optimistic given the history of the franchise. But I think probably Stanton had to go one way or another. So you just kind of have to wait and hope that this is the first step along the path toward something positive. And certainly having been burned many, many times before, there's no reason to think that will be the case. At least when the Rangers had to sell Alex Rodriguez's contract to the Yankees, they did get Alfonso Soriano. And Soriano had been a five-win

player according to both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs for two years in a row. So Soriano had been a five-win player, according to both baseball reference and Fangrass, for two years in a row. So Soriano was really good. Now, the Rangers were eating more of the Rodriguez contract than the Marlins are here. But ultimately, I just wish that it could be five years from now, or at least that we could have a window to look at the Marlins in five years. And just so we could see what they're actually doing. Because if they're still like the lowest or the second lowest payroll in baseball, you know well that's just there's still the marlins but if they're actually going to make an effort and to try to rebuild and you figure you give them five years they could have some talent the astros started with nothing and then within three or four years then they were

pretty good pieces showing up at the major league level so i would love to know what the marlins real intentions are here and if they're going to be a competitive team, even if they can get their payroll up to, like, 20th in baseball in five years, then, you know, they could be treated like another team, a pretty good small or mid-market team. But I don't know. I just don't know. And I think that maybe their strategy, because no Major League veteran is going to want to sign with the Marlins anytime soon, I have to imagine.

So, I don't know. Maybe their strategy should just be go try to get as many Cuban players as possible and just build your brand around Cubans. You know, Yasiel Puig is a free agent and maybe not too long. He could be made available by the Dodgers. And while I know Don Madden, we would probably like Yasiel Puig in the clubhouse less than anyone else in all of baseball. I mean, if you're going to try to keep people excited, or I should say make people excited in Miami, Puig seems like he'd be

a good fit. Yeah, well, they got rid of Tony Perez, right? So that's not a great start in your acquire more Cuban beloved players or former player strategy. Anyway, that's that. We have been waiting for these moves for many months. We know that nothing happened in November, historically slow November, we think, because teams were waiting to see what would happen with Otani and with Stanton. And that happened back-to-back days. Those moves are now done, and we can move on to the rest of the regularly scheduled offseason. So winter meetings obviously taking place this week. You You are there I'm sure you'll have plenty To write about and there have been A couple small signings that

Happened over the weekend the Cubs Signed Brandon Morrow the Cardinals Signed Luke Gregerson etc That kind of class of move but Now that Otani and Stanton are gone we'll Start hearing more about the Flagship free agents who seem Comparatively pretty uninterested.

Suddenly we're going from Otani to talking about Darvish and we're going from Stanton to, I don't know, JD Martinez or something. It's not as inspiring, obviously, which is maybe part of the reason why it's taking this long, but there are a lot of moves yet to be made. So one quick thing, I guess we should mention briefly the Orioles comments, Dan Duquette's comments on Sunday, I guess it was, on SiriusXM when he confirmed that the Orioles did not make a presentation to Otani, did not respond to his survey. Quote, because philosophically we don't participate on the posting part of it. Whatever that means. Like philosophically, they don't participate in the playoffs, I guess, either. So good luck with that. I don't know. The Marlins' whole strategy or lack

of one with the international market is, I mean, it's held them back for years. It will continue to hold them back. It makes zero sense. It may be something that's coming from Peter Angelos. I don't know what it is, but it's pretty embarrassing. Not that he was going to go to Baltimore. He turned down the Yankees. He turned down the Red Sox. It's pretty clear that he wasn't going to go to an East Coast team. So realistically, they probably didn't cost themselves anything here. But if you're an Orioles fan reading this, you just have to think I won't participate in paying you for anything. I would feel that way anyway. Yeah, and now you have to think with Stanton landing in New York,

it probably makes it that much more likely that the Orioles will think, well, bye, Manny Machado, let's just trade you now. So that's something that you could conceivably see happen this week because, I mean, come on, what are the Orioles going to do this season? It's just not in the cards. But I would think that the thing to watch for, you're right, that the two biggest stories of the offseason were stanton and atani and those happen on back-to-back days so that's convenient i guess from a content perspective not

great to have them on a friday afternoon and a saturday morning but in any case those have happened and jd martinez eric osmer less interesting but probably the story of the week that has not happened yet but that maybe not enough people are paying attention to, is the Rays have every reason to tear down. So, like, Chris Archer, really good. Not a whole lot of people talking about Chris Archer being on the trade block. But the Rays could just get that started. They could get going tomorrow, and that could kind of dominate the week. And I guess I should say before we finish that Jack Morris is in the Hall of Fame now.

Yes, and Alan Tremblay is too, which is nice. Yeah, this whole Veterans Committee or whatever they call it now, I mean, there are some people who just don't really make that much sense to be on it. And look, I don't really think Jack Morris had the Hall of Fame credentials. I don't know that he necessarily passes the character clause test either, if you're going to make that a big deal. Certainly he made it very difficult for women to be baseball reporters and i think that for a guy like him who is just on the ballot for 15 years like we just did that like the veterans committee's

purpose it seems like should not be just kind of finding a way around what everyone thinks about a player because maybe the players like him or there's someone on the committee who has a thing for Jack Morris and oh here we'll just kind of sneak him in we'll do an end around the writers and get him in one way or another I mean we had our opportunity to talk about Jack Morris's case for year after year after year and it was decided that he was not a Hall of Famer during that time and nothing has really changed. So, you know, I mean, I don't think he's not like the worst player in the Hall of Fame or anything, but the case was always somewhat weak, I think, and just coming on the heels of having legislated this thing for a decade and a half, it just feels

strange to just wipe that all away and say, well, he's in anyway. And Trammell, I think, was a deserving candidate. And you could say the same thing about him too, right? Because he was on the ballot forever too. So you could certainly make the case that people weighed in and did not think he was a legitimate candidate either. So if you say one, then I guess you have to say the other, even though I think Trammell was a deserving candidate. And obviously, many people have pointed out the omission of Lou Whitaker from the ballot, who is really just about as good a player as Trammell and better than Morris and was not even eligible here for whatever reason.

And that just, you know, the whole Hall of Fame thing, I know you're pretty sick of talking about it and hearing about it. So brought it on yourself, just bringing it up there. I don't care uh jack morris tied for 139th all time and pitching wins above replacement he's tied with bob caruthers are you familiar with bob caruthers probably not that doesn't matter jack morris is a half win ahead of cliff lee and javier vasquez he is already he has fewer wins above replacement than max scherzer noodles han classic noodles han is in 127th brad radke was worth more wins above replacement than jack morris of course jack morris

had a good start in the playoffs bully for him i don't really care but i do what i do under well hold on hippo von there's a guy named hippo that's great bartolo cologne by the way more career war than jack morris i could just keep reading up the list if I wanted to. I mean, why stop? Jamie Moyer was worth several more wins above replacement. Mark Langston, it's up there. Johan Santana. But anyway, what is relevant and what's probably the big separator,

there's a generational difference regarding Jack Morris because, of course, it is the older school baseball writers who want him in the Hall of Fame, and it's the younger people like us and people just a little bit older than us who don't want Jack Morris in the Hall of Fame. fame and the defense people can point to whatever they want but the defense is essentially we saw jack morris pitch and he was a hall of famer and i don't have like a real good my counter argument to that is well okay but the numbers say no they they definitively say no not a hall of famer but they watched him pitch and you know if the hall of fame

isn't just a hall of stats if it's a hall of subjectivity then i am sympathetic to the idea that they actually watched jack morris pitch and i didn't and even if i went back and i watched jack morris video it's not the same i already know what's going to happen and it's just not the same as watching it in the era in the moment so i understand that there are people who feel strongly about this in a way that I don't have any right to feel so strongly because I have absolutely zero emotional connection to Jack Morris. If anything, I'm kind of annoyed by him for reasons that have nothing to do with him. It's just I'm annoyed with the people who have supported him so much. But you know what? If they can make

that argument, I watched Cliff Lee. Cliff Lee was the best pitcher on the planet when I was watching him for a few years in a row. Cliff Lee, Hall of Famer. Why not? I watched him pitch. Yeah. Well, and of course, the other thing is that the people who watched him pitch and were voting on single season awards at the time never thought that Jack Morris was the best pitcher. He never finished higher than third place in Cy Young voting in his whole 18-year career. So it's kind of inconsistent to come along now and say he was great, he was a Hall of Famer, and yet at the time, no one really treated him that way. One thing you do hear is, well, he was the best pitcher of the 80s, that kind of thing, which is not quite true if you just look at, you know, war for the 80s.

It's Nolan Ryan, it's Burt Blylevin, who are, of course, both Hall of Famers, but then it's Jack Morris. He is third on that list, just behind Blylevin, behind two Hall of Famers. So again, it's not Jack Morris he is third on that list just behind Bly Levin behind two Hall of Famers so again it's not outrageous that he is in it lowers the standards I think somewhat but not egregiously but it's one of those cases where a Hall of Fame voting is strange because you have the five-year delay which is supposed to give you perspective on a player's career and is supposed to give you the historical context so you know and maybe let you make a less impassioned decision, more of a disinterested decision. And with some guys, that works fine and you get that remove and you can make a more informed decision about a guy's

career. And with other guys, it seems to just distort what they were. And I think we're seeing that with Omar Vizquel, for instance, now. I think the five years that Omar Vizquel has been retired, it seems almost as if now people are looking at him more as a Hall of Famer than they even were at the time. Maybe because, I don't know, he was not big and muscular and he's a contrast to the peedy kind of guys that everyone is upset about. And he made lots of contact and was just kind of this old school player. And so now it seems like people are treating Vizquel, at least some people, more like a Hall of Famer than they did during his career. When again, if you look at award voting

during his career, it was not Hall of Fame-ish. So it's strange how sometimes that process works as intended and we do get a more accurate gauge of how good a guy was and other times it's the complete opposite this is so dumb jack morris incidentally also he was uh he currently ranks tied for 13th all-time in wild pitches he was apparently a wild pitch machine there's that old yarn about jack morris pitching to the score which is you know obnoxious i think that's already been pretty well disproven but whatever i'll still go when jack morris got zero to two runs of support he had a 3.98 era when he got three to five runs of support he had a 3.54 era he allowed fewer runs when his team scored more runs that's stupid i will also say right in here in case you think

jack morris was a a clutch pitcher we've been over tops plus enough times if you don't know what it is go back and listen to old episodes these are jack morris's tops plus marks for his career in high medium and low leverage situations okay ready 100 100 100 even he was exactly the same this is dumb jack morris just a pitcher he was pretty good for a while not a hall of famer but as soon as you let a weak one in you get to loosen the standards and you think well if jack morris is in there, Omar Vizquel is in there. And if Omar Vizquel is in there, then you know what? We might be 13 years away from Adam Duvall, Hall of Fame left fielder. Yeah.

Anyway, I think there's increasing fatigue about Hall of Fame voting and discussions about Hall of Fame voting just because it is so inconsistent in so many ways that at some point you just have to say this is not worth getting exercised about anymore because the ship has sailed on kind of making this whatever the perfect objectively wonderful hall of fame would be so appreciate the museum i guess and the people you do think should be in and try not to be upset about all the other stuff because when was the last time you were mad about jim rice being in the hall of fame for instance i haven't thought about that for quite a while until just every day i wake up in the morning and go to bed at night thinking about jim rice all right let's take a quick break and we will that just said subject line Marlins fan. And it was from a listener named Laz Rodriguez.

And it said, good evening. I am a Marlins fan. With all of the trade rumors, you'll have wondered how Marlins fans feel about the situation. Since there are not that many of us, I can speak with you about any and all questions related to being a Marlins fan. Thank you for your time. And there's probably no other kind of fan who could have sent us an email like this anyone else you could have said i'm an ace fan i'm a raise fan whatever name your team name your fan base and we would have said okay why are you emailing us why would we want to talk to you

but marlin's fan suddenly our eyes just opened wide a marlin's fan is emailing us he wants to talk so we will take you up on that. We were waiting for just the right moment when you would be at your lowest point, when you would be most depressed and have the most to kind of just let out a vein, just let it all come out on this podcast. So we are happy to have you here, although we're sorry it has to be under these circumstances. Laz, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ben. It's all right. I'm already used to it. The short time that I've been a Marlins fan since 2008, I've seen a couple of these already. So it's, you know, what's new?

Right. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself and also about how you ended up in this sorry state of Marlins fandom. Well, I came from Cuba in 2004 because that's where I was born. And I went straight to Miami with my family. And I didn't really know that there was baseball in the state of Florida at all until about 2000. Yeah, yeah, right? All makes sense now.

And I remember, I think it was like one afternoon, like my grandfather was watching the Marlins on TV. And that's how I found out that there was baseball in Miami because, you know, we used to watch baseball when I was in Cuba. It was very popular over there. So I found out there was Marlins team here. And I, you know, I like the team. I automatically got hooked with Hanley Ramirez. And ever since that, I've been a fan and it's been pretty tough. mirrors and ever since that i've been a fan and it's been pretty tough i'll say how how often are you given a reason to sort of examine your loyalty because i would say the the difficult thing maybe the best thing but also the worst thing about fandom is that it kind of cements itself in but of course the thing that makes makes you such a unicorn is that no team works so hard to not have anyone like it than the Marlins so like is this an examined position for you or is it just like I'm a Marlins fan and I've never really questioned it no I've never really questioned it I think I like to think that I'm

pretty loyal with uh with you know anything that I do whether it's like a favorite restaurant I like or whatever with the team is the same way even I mean they haven't had a winning season in what feels like forever now and I just never questioned I just seem to when a playoff come around I think what keeps my sanity good is that I just choose a team that maybe has like really good uniforms or like players that used to be in the Marlins that are now on that team and then I just root for those because other than that, that's not too much. Yeah. So you're a pretty young guy. So you weren't around for the golden years of the Marlins or, you know, the individual golden years followed by much less golden years. How are those? Yeah, right. How are those World Series perceived,

would you say among Marlins fans, like for people who were watching at the time or people who came to the team later, are they tainted? Are they sort of spoiled by the fact that they were kind of one year events and then there were fire sales after? Or is there a real sense of pride about those titles? Because you will hear sometimes when people will say, oh, the Marlins are just a disgrace. And other people will say, well, they have two titles and there are a lot of franchises that don't, which is true. But does it feel like that? It does feel like that to me. It did feel like that to my grandfather,

who he was in Miami in 97 and he was there in 2003. So he witnessed them and he did go to the World Series game, one of them in 1997. So for him, talking to him, it does feel like they are big things. It just sucks what happened afterwards, right? But that is what it is. You know, for me, that is, even though I didn't even, I wasn't even in this country when they won both of the titles, that is something that I do use.

I always say that they are 100% winners when it comes to the World Series. When it comes to playoffs, they're 2-2. And that's kind of what I have over most fans, I guess. I mean, 100%. So it's something. A few years ago, I guess it's more than five, maybe it's six years ago now, the Marlins were rebranding. They were moving into the new park, and they had Pitbull come out,

and they were doing their new uniform reveal. They were signing a lot of free agents. Yeah, Mr. Worldwide. But had you, by that point, already been sort of schooled enough in the Marlins' history to see through it? Or did you put your trust in them that they were turning over a new leaf at that point? Oh, I had all... I mean, I was very leaf at that point oh i had all if i had i mean

i was very young at that time too but if i had a thousand dollars i would have put it on for them to win the world series that year 2012 i was buying it the uniform everybody hated the uniform i thought they were so cool all the colors were wonderful the orange was great jose reyes coming in i was like man this is gonna be a great team josh johnson all these folks that people don't even remember anymore i i thought it was wonderful and i i didn't think that they were gonna go ahead and you know i mean like before the season even ended just trade a bunch of people and then the offseason it was even worse so i i did not think that was gonna happen but that was kind of like my first i guess kind of like my first taste of wow like these people really do not care

this is gonna trade players away so now that you're outside of miami when you meet people if baseball comes up if you tell them you're a marlins fan what kind of reaction do you get is there incredulity is there really or why or do people just take that in stride? They I mean, they gave me hate automatically, you know, right? And I think they give you sympathy. That's the opposite of what they should give you. It's not your fault. Well, I do a little bit because I do talk them up a lot, like every single year. No kidding. I think the only year I didn't do it was probably 2013. Because that year that was pretty bad. But I think every every single year since I started watching baseball here I always say hey the Mons it's going to be this year it's going to be this year so I think I always do come out like someone who's kind of talking at his ass a little bit

but I mean what do you gotta do I mean come on you can't just give up on your team just because they're putting out a bad product out there you know but the hate is definitely different than perhaps like someone finding out that another person's like a yankees fan or something like that where they automatically question their loyalty people don't necessarily question my loyalty they just question my sanity right you know yeah that's that's the difference would you say that uh clearly when the marlins do almost anything like from the media's perspective no one will give them the benefit of the doubt because, you know, it's the Marlins and they're just going to do what the Marlins do. When you read what is pretty much ceaseless, endless criticism of the Marlins organization, are you inclined to get defensive about them or are you just kind of nodding your head being like,

yeah, of course, this is what it's been like forever? Yep, that's exactly what I did the latter. I think to myself i'm like oh my god like it's i agree with people you know whenever they say stuff like bad stuff about derrick jeter just even like online reading stuff i think to myself i'm like wow maybe they do have a point and even right now i was scrolling through some instagram trade rumor websites uh excuse me pages which I don't know how truthful they are, but they're talking also about trading Marcel Osuna and Christian Jelic. And I just see that and I just think to myself, like, when are they going to stop? I don't know. I don't understand. So it sounds like there's nothing they could do to lose you then. Your loyalty could overcome

anything because, I mean, you've certainly been provoked i don't think anyone could blame you if you just said well they don't they're trying to lose me so why should i give them my loyalty i mean whether it was the the stadium deal and taxpayers in miami or now with trading stanton and just all the building up and burning down is there anything that they could do do you think to lose you no and i don't think Is there anything that they could do, do you think, to lose you? No, and I don't think there's much that they can do to lose people at this point because I think that the 5,000 or so Miami Marlins fans that actually go to the game and care about,

I think those folks are kind of in the position where I am, where there's just nothing they can do now to lose us. And there's just not that many of us, but there's also nothing they can do now to lose it. And there's just not that many of us, but there's also nothing they can do. At this point, it's just a lot of head shakes and head scratches and not understanding things. And I think, you know, sadly for me, I'm just stuck here thinking about once the next time the Marlins are going to have a winning record. But I look at, you know, I look at things like the Cubs and whatnot. And perhaps my position is different because I'm so young. And I think to myself that, uh, very optimistic.

And I think to myself that, okay, well, the Cubs didn't win a World Series for a hundred plus years. I like to think that since I'm very young, I will at least one, one time in my life, we'll be able to watch them win a World Series. So I'm very, uh, very optimistic, very, very, very hopeful about that. So I think that's why I'm still around. Yeah, this is like the human spirit just kind of quenched, I guess. Wow, they push you and push you and you keep coming back for more. So yeah, were you here? Were you hopeful when the ownership change happened? I mean, you had only ever known

Jeffrey Luria as the owner in your time as a fan. Were you thinking, Bruce Sherman, Derek Jeter, everything's going to be different? Or were you expecting to be disappointed and to have it be more of the same? Oh, no, I was super pumped. I was like, oh, everything's going to be great now. I was like, we have this great offense. All they need is pitching. Well, they need a lot of pitching.

That's what Derek Jeter is going to go do. You know, that's what I thought. I was like, Derek Jeter, whatever, how much he controls the team, which now we know apparently it's a lot. He's going to get some pitching and we're going to get this together. And then, you know, the rumors just started coming. And it was like, oh, Derek Jeter, I'm trying to cut payroll. And I'm just like, what's going on over here?

And I did not think, I did not think, even last year when there were trade rumors, well, this past season when the trade rumors for Stanton were really high, I did not think it was going to happen. I didn't think it was going to happen this year either, but it happened. So, you know, I think it's definitely a shock for me. I don't know, perhaps other Marlins fans, a few of us, think differently, but at least he didn't wait around, right? He just did it right away,

so he just kind of peeled off the band-aid really fast. But he's definitely, maybe he'll be better than Jeffrey Loria. That guy is terrible. If you don't mind, I just have a quick story about Jeffrey Loria. Of course. In 2012, when they, you know, changed everything

about them, how like all these fancy players come in and everything, I did not go to the opening game because I couldn't get tickets and they were too expensive. But me and my brother, we were able to get tickets to the second game, second home game. It was pretty exciting to go. And I remember before like entering the stadium, we were there so early because we were going to watch dining practice and everything. I saw Jeffrey Loria outside the stadium. we were there so early because we were going to watch dining practice and everything. I saw Jeff Villoria outside the stadium. So me and my brother, we went up to him, we approached him and I shook his hand

and I did not know what to say. But what I said was something that I did not mean. And I told him, thank you for everything you've done for this team. And ever since that day, and ever since a couple seconds after that happened, I just thought to myself, why did I even say that?

I guess I didn't want to be rude to the guy. You just assumed it was sarcasm? I mean, I kind of said it sincere, but I guess the only person that thought that that was a lie was myself, because I don't know why I said that, but I did. See, that was bad, because that encouraged him to just, like, up you. Yeah, he was like, yeah. Do you still have him? Yeah.

Okay, so you have the new ownership group, and in large part because of Jeffrey Loria, Jeter and and Sherman and etc. They've inherited a lot of debt. So you know, there are reasons they have to cut payroll. So let's say for the moment that the Marlins are they're trading Stanton, and they're trading Gordon, and they're probably going to trade more just so they can kind of like officially reset. Are you inclined to give this ownership group the benefit of the doubt that after they do the dirty work here at the beginning that they are going to make a wholehearted effort to rebuild try to pull like an astros or cubs or do you think it's just going to keep being the marlins i like to think that i like to give the benefit of the doubt to them just because all of this these money issues and stadium issues that they just kind of inheriting so i want to stay positive and say that even if they trade every single part

in the roster, they can rebuild. But it's tough. It's tough to think that, you know, because even when you compare, you know, a team like the Cubs when they were losing 100 freaking games and then the Astros and the same thing, they didn't have very good players, like, at all. They did not have that. The Marlins, in this case, I do think that they do have very good players like at all they did not have that the Marlins in this case I do think that

they do have very good offensive players and they're trading those players away for prospects that you know like in the Stanton deal just they're just random dudes honestly so I think that's like the main difference but I want to stay hopeful and say that Derek Jeter and his group are going to do good things and hopefully maybe in in five years, things will be better. I don't know. Getting a real Charlie Brown with the football vibe here. But if you lose Laz, you're really in trouble because Laz is going to give you every opportunity to make good.

But so far, they've let him down. So it's just over a year, of course, that Marlins fans lose Jose Fernandez. And I'm sure that was an enormous loss and an emotional loss. And now Stanton is obviously not lost in as sad a way, but is lost in a baseball sense to Marlins fans. Is there anything on this team, anyone on this team now that can get you excited about baseball? And, you know, we just talking about there's Ozuna rumors, there's Yelich rumors. If those guys go, is there a face of this team? Is there anyone that Marlins fans can cling to? Because I'm guessing that given when you, you know, became a fan and started paying attention to this team, Fernandez and Stanton must have been, you know, the icons, the guys that you've been developing a deep bond with and now neither one is there oh yeah you know i don't know and you know my answer varies depending on what would happen at the end

of this uh these winter meetings here coming up and even the whole off season but i do i do still feel pretty good about you know players like JT Romulo I don't think he's going to get traded I don't think Justin Boer is going to get traded and just because he's a little older he doesn't have a massive contract like Stanton so there are a few players that that I do stay very uh very I would be very happy they kept so at least I can follow at least one player and definitely the situation is different than you know when Hunter Fernandez died because with him you know he's not even here anymore at least with Stanton I could watch a Yankee game and then be like okay I root for him

but it's tough because you know it seems like when they rebuild they just send everyone away it's not just like one player or two players they seem to really just start over so i wouldn't be surprised if they leave me like no one that to root for i wouldn't be surprised if yelich is gone asuna is gone ramudo is gone i mean my goodness i don't know i guess i would just root for anybody that you know that looks decently okay. So let's quickly reflect on some happier times. Do you think Carter Capps' delivery was illegal? By which definition?

The one that they implemented this year or before? At a time when he was with the Marlins. Do you think that pitchers should be able, should be allowed to pitch in the way that Carter Capps pitched when he was a Marlin? Oh, yeah, I do. I mean, what he did, it was just so funky. It's so strange that I really think that if MLB came out and said, okay, well, in a hypothetical scenario where MLB came out and said, well, everybody now has to pitch like Carter Capps,

a scenario where MLB came out and said, well, everybody now has to pitch like Carter Katz. I don't think like, I think like maybe five or maybe 10% of the pitchers could do it. So I do think it should be legal to do it. It's legal to do it just because it's so fun and it's so unique and it's

like a skill of its own. And people that complain about it, it's just jealous. That's all it is. Right there with you, Les. Is there any kind of camaraderie among Marlins fans? You said there's 5,000 of you left or whatever it is. Because I see in New York with Mets fans who have it nowhere near as bad as Marlins fans do, but Mets fans have this kind of shared bond because the team's ownership has been kind of lousy

and the team has been mismanaged in certain ways. And so there's this gallows humor that they have in common and it at least kind of eases the tough times because you can joke about it and, oh, it's the Mets again doing what the Mets do. Is there that among Marlins fans? Do you have that at least? I don't think so. And I think the difference between the two of them, one of the differences between the two of them is that the Mets have been around for so much longer. So as far as like Marlins, I have a lot of friends that are my age that I went to high school with that they do express their frustrations. Like I express my frustrations. But I don't think there's a camaraderie for that. Perhaps just because, you know, people my age didn't necessarily, perhaps they don't remember the Marlins World Series wins.

So they don't have much that they say, oh, my God, we have this thing that we saw together. And now we can share this. The best season, I think the best uh that the marlins had since i've been watching was like 2008 and that year i believe they finished second and that's about it so i don't think there's much for us marlins fans to have and part of that is just because the team itself makes it so hard to owners and just straining players away so that's just it's just different i think it's different than the mets for sure there's been alluded to of course jose fernandez was a a particular kind of loss but you know putting

tragedy aside just in in baseball terms what over the i mean more than a decade of of being a marlins fan that you've had what move if not stanton has been the most difficult for you to take or is it this weekend i think halle ramirez being traded i think that one was tougher than stanton because at that time i wasn't so much like into social media now where where i was you know like looking at twitter every single second to see what derrick jeter was thinking of stanton and if he wasn't talking to him and whatnot so i remember that time uh when they traded everybody away i was uh in mcdonald's like getting some sandwiches and they had espn on and they just put it on the screen it was like josh johnson traded hanley ramirez traded like all these

players traded and it was just so shocking to me and i just couldn't understand i hope you were having a happy meal at the time but now yeah happy yeah, happy meal. There's Hallie Ramirez gone. But now with Stanton, it feels like maybe for the last three weeks or so, perhaps since the season ended, it felt like he was going to be gone and he was going to be gone at one point and now he's gone.

And to be honest, and I don't know how other Marlins fans are going to feel, but I'm not so disappointed in the trade because I feel happy for Stanton right like you have a player that's been around since 2010 with the team and the majors and you kind of feel like you're a part of something with that player because you see the progress they make and I just feel happy for him that he got traded to a team that's going to probably win the World Series next year,

or at least be in the playoffs. And I do think that if the Marlins would have traded him to the Giants or the Cardinals, I would have been very upset about that, because those two teams are boring. So I'm glad that they traded him to the Yankees, somewhere where he can be happy, because that's all he wanted, really. So you're happy for Stanton for escaping the hell that you yourself are stuck in. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Even though they probably would have gotten, actually not probably, I'm sure they would have gotten a better prospect from the Cardinals or the Giants than they did from the Yankees. That's okay. I mean, you can't blame Stanton for saying no to those other two teams and saying yes to the Yankees. All right. Well, Laz's attitude is an inspiration to us all, I think.

No one else is allowed to complain about their teams because Laz is not really complaining, except that we made him complain a little bit, but he's not complaining so much that he is abandoning his fanhood despite having every reason in the world to do so. I feel like we should send you care packages or something to get you through this difficult time. But we appreciate your coming on and sorry to make you dredge up these feelings. No, it's okay. It's all right, Ben. It's all right. I will stay here pretty happy. I'm already planning on getting some tickets when the Yankees come to town

so I can watch Stanton. So for those three games or so that the Yankees are going to be around here, I'll be able to cheer for him like if he was in Marlins. So that's okay. Who do you think makes the playoffs first between the Marlins and the Braves? And the Braves? Yeah, sure. Oh, well, I have two answers for you

because the Braves are the team that I hate the most. There are only two answers, just for the record. Well, that is very fair. But what I meant by that is that the Braves are the team that I hate the most. So maybe the real answer would be the Braves, but my heart says the Marlins just because I always, you know,

I hate the Braves. They're just the worst. And one of the worst parts about it was that when I was stationed in Georgia a couple years ago, I would drive all the way to Turner Field to watch the games against the Marlins, and I one time called the Marlins box office, the Marlins box office, and I told them that

I was going to watch a game in Turner Field. And I was wondering, how can I pay the Marlins ticket to buy that was in Turner Field? And they told me that I couldn't do that. And I was like, oh my goodness, I don't want to give money to this team. You know, so that's how much I hate the phrase. I did something that I knew couldn't be done, but I did it anyways. I tried. All right.

Laz Rodriguez, the most loyal fan in America. Thank you, Laz. Thank you. Have a good day. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild five listeners who have already done that include

Andrew Rhodes falafel that's what it says Daniel Wilson Randy Sabia and Andrew O'Hara thanks to all of you you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild and you can rate and review and subscribe to effectively wild on iTunes thanks dylan higgins for editing assistance please keep your questions and comments coming for me and jeff via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging

system we will talk to you soon broke I saw it on a television show It helps to let those demons go But the hardest part you'll never know