16
2012
Selig Should Void The Trade
An article by 
WHAT ARE MARLINS FANS TELLING YOU, BUD?
The biggest problem I’ve had with Commissioner Bud Selig is he was an owner, but even after divesting himself of the Milwaukee Brewers, he remained an owner at heart.
He’s a former owner paid by the owners, so, where do his loyalties lie?
It will never happen without government intervention, but the best way for baseball to be run is have the commissioner paid equally by the owners and players association, with another percentage from the umpire’s union. That formula should eliminate the perception of partiality.
As commissioner, Bud Selig has the authority to exercise his “best interest in baseball,’’ clause, which permits him to act in the best interest of the sport regardless of whom it impacts.
Selig has that opportunity now that he’s reviewing the Marlins-Blue Jays trade, which all but gutted the Miami franchise. Miami, a team many projected to compete for a wild-card in 2012, had a disappointing season in its first in their new ballpark, traded Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle and John Buck to the Blue Jays for Yunel Escobar and a bushel of prospects.
They are screaming in anger in Miami and for joy in Toronto. Baseball people tell you the best trades are those where both parties feel as if they won. There is no way – outside of salary relief – that Miami owner Jeffrey Loria can believe he won this trade.
After years of politicking – even to the point of threatening to leave South Florida – the Marlins finally got their taxpayer-funded stadium built. Loria promised a competitive, even winning team, and showed those cards with last winter’s free-agent spending spree. He had the money then to commit to those deals, now all of a sudden he doesn’t?
Understandably, the fans in South Florida are angry and venomous towards Loria, and the way they’ll take it out on him is to stay away, thus starting the spiral downwards.
The Marlins will say they can’t compete because of dwindling attendance and shy away from the market. The losing will continue, as will the sparse gates.
Once again, there will be the rumbling baseball can’t survive in South Florida.
A baseball owner is more than an owner of a sports team. His team is woven into the fabric of the community and a bond develops between fan and team. It strengthens over generations and there should be a mutual fierce loyalty.
There should be, those are the operative words.
The Marlins floundered initially, but after spending won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. What the Marlins didn’t learn then, is the crush for tickets comes the year after the winning. Instead of building on their triumphs, the Marlins held firesales and lost considerable good will. Not to mention countless fans, both present and future.
They’ve done so again with this trade. So what if they lost last year. It takes time for a team to come together. If Johnson is healthy, the Marlins could have competed in 2013 sans this trade.
Selig’s responsibility here isn’t to his fellow owners, it is to the ticket-buying and television-viewing public – in that regard Major League Baseball just agreed to a $12.4 billion television contract – in Miami and the rest of the country.
The message he would send in voiding the trade is franchises will honor their commitment to put a representative team on the field and strive to win.
The late Bowie Kuhn made such a statement in the late 1970s when he voided trades of Joe Rudi and Vida Blue to the Yankees and Red Sox. It wasn’t in the best interest of baseball for a championship team like Oakland to disband so drastically because rogue owner Charlie Finley wanted to cut payroll. Maybe Kuhn had it in for Finley, as he reprimanded and overturned the cranky owner’s decision to drop Mike Andrews from the roster after committing a costly error against the Mets in the 1973 World Series.
It took backbone and decisive, immediate thinking and action, and that’s what Selig must do now.
He says he’s reviewing the trade, but I get a bad feeling because he also said he’s talked to two people who said the Marlins received several good, young players. Will he choose those two voices over the thousands of screaming ones in South Florida?
Maybe those prospects will pan out, but if it takes three or four years to develop, where will the Marlins’ franchise be then? Will anybody in South Florida care anymore?
What Loria did is disgraceful. If he can’t afford to compete, or refuse to spend to compete, then he should be compelled to sell the team.
That would be in the best interests of baseball, acting like an impartial commissioner instead of an owner.
About the Author: John Delcos
I am an active member of the BBWAA and have covered Major League Baseball in several capacities for over 20 years, including ten in New York working the Mets' and Yankees' beat. I covered the Baltimore Orioles for eight years and the Cleveland Indians before that. I currently serve as an editor and senior staff writer for Mets Merized Online. Follow me on Twitter @jdelcos.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 24 | 18 | .571 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 20 | .535 | 1.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 23 | .465 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 24 | .400 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 32 | .256 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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I’d be shocked if he did to be honest.
Here’s the thing: the trade itself isn’t a bad one. It really isn’t. Reyes being in the deal is a little odd to me, but outside of him being involved it’s not a bad trade.
Johnson was a future free agent, Buehrle’s contract was dumb, and everybody else minus Reyes was probably more of a toss in than anything.
The problem with the trade is the OFF the field perception. I don’t see him veto’ing a deal because of that. The problem with the trade is:
A) Stadium publicly funded on the basis that this team will start investing in players and winning
B) Free agents recently signed thinking they had a home are shipped off thus sending a message to future free agents “don’t both unless you get trade protection.”
C) The Marlins go from being one of the top payrolls to one of the lowest and start collecting revenue sharing funds
Interesting point in regards to “C”
Perhaps the revenue shares should be based on the last three years of spending and not just one.
Then teams would not be able to ust sell off and get some quick share cash and would have to struggle for a year or two until the average falls back to low spender levels.
If that was the rule the Marlins wouldn’t be able to collect on revenue sharing until after next season.
They would still be there since they had the 7th lowest payroll in 2011.
Voiding the trade would set all these precedents that we do not want to see. The last guy I want interpreting whether a trade is fair or not is Selig. Lets make the market decide.
Its true. the more you use a nebulous power like “In the Best Interest of Baseball” the easier it is to use it again and again. It should be a nuclear option, not a panacea.
Then, we’ll have even more back room dealing and politicking than we do now and trades will be less and less about benefiting the teams involved and more about TV ratings and such.
I’d be shocked if he did void it. I was surprised when it was reported yesterday he would take an extended look beyond the typical review when a trade where money like in this case is involved occurs. If he voided it that would be just epic on his part.
It is not so much the trade by itself that fans of Miami would want it voided but what preceded it. 2 prior fire sales and a team that said it needed a new stadium to be competitive that was built according to reports at taxpayer expense then not even a calendar year after they started to fulfill their promise to the fans of Miami that they would be competitive in the free agent market they rid themselves of all their high salaried players both good and bad and worse they no longer say they will be competitive in the free agent market going forward.
The real sin is that MLB allows Loria to be a team owner to begin with.
Selig should do whats right by Mets fans like Buster Only suggests in his recent article and force the Wilpon’s to sell the team. This is the biggest market in sports, and their is no reason for this travesty of a team. Also its not even so much the players as it is managements fault. Ugh
Also yay the mets signed another scrub..
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/11/mets-sign-brian-bixler.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook
Selig is just making noise. He’s not going to veto this trade.
You know we keep bringing up the Miami Fans who have never been and never will be Baseball folks!
Florida has always been a Football State and due to high proportion of the transplants that live there it is difficult for any team to draw due to the lack of a HOMETOWN identity there.
Even the Miami Dolphins have problems selling out thier games and it’s typical to see as many opposing team jerseys as Home team in the stands.
Because all the folks who moved there were already fans of some other team and won’t switch thier loyalties based on where thier house is currently located.
The only mistake was giving Florida a baseball franchise in the first place!
Then they gave them another who has drawn 2.5 Mil only in the first year of thier existence and once the novelty was over has never drawn more than 1.87M since and they had to make it to the WS just to get that!
Marlins drew 2.2 Mil last year thanks to the novelty of a new park.
Thats a lot for Florida but when you realize that WE drew 2.24M in a year everyone was says is down for attendance you get the picture of just how wrong it was to award them a baseball franchise down in Florida.
Selig needs to stay out. If the citizens of Miami are upset, then blame your politicians. They were the ones who authorized city funds for the construction of the stadium. Loria is a snake. That is no secret. Fans have the choice to support a team or not. They were mighty as happy when Loria was signing all those FAs last winter. Yet there attendance was still terrible.
The Oakland fire sale came during the middle of the season before free agency was to go into effect and Finley thus sold Rudi and Blue to two teams contending for the AL East title, knowing they were going to leave. Before free agency such mid-season dealings were common (with the Yankees often puchasing players from other clubs down the stretch because they had the money to do so that other clubs didn’t). But because this was to thwart off losses due to upcoming free agency – and that circumstance not having any precedent – I guess Kuhn stepped in (Finlay not getting along with Kuhn and most of his fellow owners probably came into play as well).
Today we see these type of transactions done all the time.
Regarding the Marlin-Blue Jay trade, there is little Selig can do, especially since it involves players from both teams. It would also create a very bad predicent for this would enable any commissioner to use his own judgement on who could be traded for who. For example, could have Oakland traded their ace Geo Gonzalez for prospects last winter been voided, considering Billy Beane had been sending off good players for prospects for many a winter due to upcoming arbitration eligibility?
It just opens up a can of worms, then putting pressure on the commissiner to make such move again when such a deal causes public uproar.
And even if he could, it would be hypocritical for him to say he was doing it for “the best interest in baseball:” when he allowed his friends in New York whose team was in a post-season race got rid of their best players due to the Madoff scandal.
… and to add to that, Toronto just signed Milkey Cabrera to a two year deal. Would they have done that if the prior trade was not made? There is a domino effect here in more ways than one.
Who knows….maybe Toronto unknowingly sent the Marlins a future hall of famer.
You keep telling yourself that.
Haaaaaa. That brought me joy MM.
“It took backbone and decisive, immediate thinking and action, and that’s what Selig must do now”
Problem is, Selig lacks a backbone. Immediate thinking and action with Selig? Don’t make me laugh.
I am reposting my original post from “Not so Fast…… thread from Ho Jo’s Mojo
What is the Marlins payroll down to 30 something million. I do not understand why they don’t have a minimum baseball payroll amount or a floor. Lets for illustration purposes isay the floor is 70 M. The hard cap should be 2 1/2 the minimum or 175 M. The owners who can’t afford the minimum would have to sell. In addtion the problem of leverage should be addressed. Current Assets minus Current Liab must be 1.5 to 1. All long term bonds must be funded in a bond sinking fund. Total Assets minus Total Liabilities (debt ratio) must be a maximumd .5 to total assets or lower. All multiplayer transactions that can be construed as a “fire sale” must be submitted to the Commissioners office in advance for approval. Tax payers who approve a stadium funding should be able to publically submit a lawsuit to block any kind of the salary dump or sue the owner for his personal assets. The owner can try to justify the accusation by presenting the return player/prospects he recived. If the commisioner feels not enough he can select a list of players such as in PTBNL that the team with the undue advantage has to relinguish.
Any owner who can’t meet these ratios and minimum payroll as I suggest be mandated should be forced to sell regardless what the commisioner wants to do. Its like a mandatory jail sentence out of the judges hands.
This is called leveling the playing field figuratively and literally.
Players union doesn’t want any salary structure at all. A payroll floor is one step for a salary cap in their eyes.
Right. The players don’t want a salary floor at all because it minimizes how much money they can make.
The teams like KC etc want a salary cap but teams like NYY respond with “if you tell us what to spend then you need to spend X”
It’s never gonna happen.
I hate to say it, but for most of this article ( not all) , you can replace marlins with mets, and loria with wilpon
No way Selig vetoes this deal, no chance. He’s not a commissioner, just a representative for the owners and it’s their best interest he preserves, not the game’s.
People talk all the junk they want about the Marlins and their 30 mil payroll
In 2013, the mets are committed to 54 mil
In 2014, the mets are committed to 13 mil
I have been bringing this fact up on Metsblog for 3 years when i mentioned the fact that they should start locking up Wright and Reyes.
Met fans were saying that Reyes would be an albatross
well Reyes in 2014, would bump up our payroll to 26 mil. Add Wright’s 18 mil salary and you got a whopping 54 mil salary…
We could’ve had 2 franchise type players stay in the org for the bulk of their careers together and STILL had a payroll WELL under 90 mil