Marlins Owner Jeffrey Loria Fired Manager Mike Redmond Because Useless, Shitbag Owners Can’t Fire Themselves
Image courtesy of Zimbio
Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is often portrayed as a shady businessman in the press, which is a very generous assessment for a downright con man. The former owner of the Montreal Expos, it took Loria less than three years to leverage a $12 million investment into a majority ownership stake in a team that was targeted by Major League Baseball for relocation to Washington, D.C.
With the aid of then commissioner Bud Selig, a deal was reached in which MLB paid Loria $120 million for the Expos and provided him a no-interest $38.5 million loan to purchase the Marlins. Not only that, the debt would be forgiven if funds for a new stadium were not eventually secured.
With a relatively modest payroll of $63 million in 2003, the Marlins stumbled into a World Series championship, carried by future names like Josh Becket, A.J. Burnett and Miguel Cabrera. They haven’t made an appearance in the postseason since.
They did, however, along the way to becoming a national laughingstock, did manage to get that new stadium. Marlins Park is estimated to eventually cost taxpayers in Miami-Dade County upwards of $2 billion when all is said and done. Not exactly worth it considering the team’s pathetic performance and even more pathetic fan attendance.
With a penchant for fire sales and signing high-profile free agents to back loaded contracts, Loria has occasionally over the last few years made a big show about supposedly trying to put together a competitive team. Most impressively was back in 2012, when he dumped nearly $160 million in payroll via a 12-player trade with the Blue Jays.
Loria played the public for fools again when he signed Giancarlo Stanton to a 13-year, $325 million contract last November. Stanton will average about $10 million per season for three years, before Miami manages to find someone dumb enough to dump that ridiculously bloated contract on.
The only thing Loria seems to value less than players and fans is managers. Since acquiring the team 12 years ago, eight different managers have served time under one of the worst owners in sports—well, technically seven, as Jack McKeon had the job twice.
Ozzie Guillen was the high-profile hire in 2012, the year Marlins Park opened. But after a season of controversy and disappointment, Guillen was canned just weeks following the season’s end. Mike Redmond has been managing in Miami since then, but was fired over the weekend after the team lost nine of their past 13 games.
Another interesting financial decision on Loria’s part, considering he extended Redmond’s contract through 2017 at the end of last season. That coupled with the fact that he’s still paying out Guillen’s contract, means that the Marlins will be paying a total of three managers for the 2015 season.
Paying three different managers while your team fights it out with the Philies for the basement of the NL East is a strategy is a little unorthodox, but this is what shitbag owners do. They fire coaches constantly because they need a scapegoat for their own ending failures.
