A Decade Like No Other: The Marlins and the 2010s, Part 1
The Miami Marlins are, in my opinion, baseball’s most enigmatic franchise. They have just three postseason appearances to their name, the fewest of any franchise in MLB, yet they have two Commissioner’s Trophies in their possession. In their 28 years of existence, their fans have enjoyed as much World Series glory as the Cleveland Baseball Team (120 seasons) and the Philadelphia Phillies (138 seasons).
However, in those same 28 years, the Marlins organization has become synonymous with failure. In fact, outside of those three playoff appearances (the latest of which came in a shortened season where they snuck in with a 31–29 record in an expanded field), the Marlins have managed just three winning seasons, and they’ve never even won their division. It has been feast or famine down in Florida.
Theirs truly is a history rich with intrigue. But for all of the success they enjoyed in 1997 and 2003, I contend that the 2010s are, above all else, the most fascinating time in their adolescent existence. Between 2010 and 2019, the Marlins moved to a new stadium, were sold to a Hall of Famer, rebranded twice, drafted and developed two MVPs, endured unspeakable tragedy, set records for fan disinterest, and came out of it all with one of the most unique franchise personas in organized sports.
To simply dub the past decade a rollercoaster ride would be a gross injustice, so I’d like to take the time to step back and break down the experience of each year, one by one.
I only hope I can do it justice.
2010: Hopes, Dreams, and Nightmares
2010 marked a year of promise for the Florida Marlins. Though their 87–75 finish the year prior left them on the outside looking in come October, there was nothing not to love about the team moving forward. 26-year-old shortstop Hanley Ramirez was fresh off of a second-place finish in NL MVP voting, and standout starters Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez looked poised to anchor the rotation for years to come.
Indeed, this year was rife with possibility. With Johnson agreeing to a four-year contract extension in January and the announcement of a 2012 season opener in Puerto Rico featuring the Marlins, the franchise, reaching adulthood in its upcoming 18th season, seemed to be in its best shape since its second World Series win back in 2003.
But while the Marlins dreamed of returning to glory, a player from one of their Grapefruit League rivals had bigger ambitions.
“The only interest I have in ownership is to be able to call the shots,” said Jeter. “I’ve said that time and time again.” — March 2010 (ESPN)
By this point, it was no secret that Jeter was interested in ownership. Having summited baseball’s highest mountain for the fifth time in his 15-year career, it seemed the logical next step for him as he entered the twilight of his playing career. While there was still plenty of time and money standing between Jeter and ownership, the two seemed destined to become one in the future.
If there were a franchise in baseball within his reach, it would surely be the Marlins, then the least valuable team in the league. Under the miserly ownership of Jeffery Loria, the Marlins placed a great emphasis on low payrolls and cost-controlled talent rather than competition. On Opening Day of 2010, the Marlins payroll stood at a hair more than $55.6 million according to the Associated Press, the fifth-lowest mark in all of baseball.
And for all of the talent that the Marlins had, they played like a team on a budget. Florida opened their season on April 5 with a 7–1 loss against the New York Mets and proceeded to play .500 baseball for the rest of the month, never straying more than a few games above or below even.
In fact, their play was quite becoming of their newly-minted theme song.
An Anthem for the Ages
That season, the Marlins decided that they needed a new theme song, completely disregarding the fact that Pitbull had written the team’s “Marlins Time to Represent” literally the year prior. And so they turned to Creed vocalist Scott Stapp to spice up the Marlins Experience™.
The product he returned was a ham-fisted, generic baseball rewrite of “You Will Soar.” Listen at your own risk.
The song, which debuted at the home opener on April 10, rightfully received its fair share of criticism from the fans, who probably were more confused than upset.
As Stapp recalls, the half-hearted anthem came about as a result of a chance meeting with Loria in an airport, who, in a rare moment of eager spending, grossly overpaid for the song in the form of lifetime Marlins tickets and batboy privileges for his kids.
In an interview with Spin magazine a few years later, Stapp kept things blunt.
“The way that I look at it is simple,” he said. “I have three children. When I was approached to do that song, it was with the caveat of lifetime free baseball tickets [and] the boys could be batboys … People can make judgments, but when my son is handing a bat to Derek Jeter, I’m saying, ‘Thank you, Florida Marlins, for giving me an opportunity to do that song, and I have no regrets about it.’” — November 2013 (Kenny Herzog, Spin)
A sellout owner contracting a sellout songwriter. Extremely fitting for the season(s) to come.
It’s hard to blame Stapp for phoning it in on such a painfully low-effort production, but in fairness, that’s what this organization deserved. They were content with settling for all things average. This was an on-brand anthem, one whose title the Marlins betrayed with their performance in a late-May series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Imperfect Perfection
When the Phillies rolled into town on May 28, the Marlins were a perfectly square 24–24, embracing mediocrity to the fullest. After dropping two out of three to start the homestand against Stapp’s Atlanta Braves, they were tied with the Washington Nationals for last in the NL East.
Fortunately for the players, few fans had taken interest in their painfully average play. At that point in the season, they were averaging roughly 20,000 fans per game. Just 15,276 unfortunate souls were in attendance to watch them drop the series opener against the defending NL Champions, marking their third-straight loss and their sixth-straight game with fewer than 16,000 pairs of eyes watching from the stands.
They were afforded a similar amount of anonymity when eventual Hall of Fame starter Roy Halladay got the ball the next evening.
There are moments in baseball that, with hindsight, deserved better. Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 walk-off deserved to happen in the social media age. The 2020 World Series deserved to have far more fans in attendance (though there frankly should have been none). Baseball is best served when the eyes of the world are watching both at home and in person.
The same was no different for Halladay who, on a breezy Saturday night, in front of a lukewarm crowd of just 25,000 fans, dazzled his way into the record books.
The perfect game was a defining moment in Halladay’s season that netted him his second Cy Young award, and his immaculate performance overshadowed seven innings of one-run ball from Josh Johnson, who was cruelly tagged with his second loss of the season.
Naturally, Halladay’s achievement made national headlines, as did the still-subpar attendance. The Marlins, ever vigilant to make a few bucks, seized the opportunity afforded them. Two days removed from being on the butt end of history, team president David Samson announced that the Marlins would be selling the unsold tickets to the game, which ranged in price from $12 to $300.
Samson, acting unsuspicious, defended the decision to sell tickets to a game that had already happened.
“We are not misleading anybody … It’s not as if there’s any consumer fraud going on,” said Samson. “We are a team with a low revenue … trying to raise revenue, I would not have expected this to get any attention.” — May 2010 (AP)
If only quotes could sweat nervously.
This entire mess was so uniquely cheap. On the surface, it looks like a goodwill gesture, a team giving fans a piece of baseball history. But it’s also important to consider that those tickets went unsold because a large number of fans thought this team wasn’t worth watching. The Marlins didn’t spend money on the team, so fans didn’t spend money watching them. It wasn’t until a historic feat was achieved that fans were interested, and of course they could have a ticket … for a price. Only Loria’s Marlins could have possibly pulled this off.
Looking back, it should have been obvious that the Marlins were more profitable than they let on, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
In fact, things were looking up for Florida post-perfect game. They won four out of their next five and, on June 8, they promoted their top prospect, Giancarlo Stanton, from Triple-A Jacksonville.
A Pair of Debutants
Stanton entered the year as the №3 prospect in all of baseball, just behind Stephen Strasburg and Jayson Heyward. The Marlins had drafted him out of high school back in 2007 primarily for his raw power, and he quickly proved to be quite a fine pick. From 2008 to 2010, Stanton slugged 88 home runs in 307 games between Single-A and Triple-A.
When he got the call, the 20-year-old was sporting a 1.171 OPS in Jacksonville. There was no doubt that he was deserving.
And he proved to be a formidable foe at the MLB level, going 3-for-5 in his debut with a pair of runs scored.
The power that defined his game didn’t come immediately as some had hoped, but when it did, it was well worth the wait. 10 days after his debut, with the bases load, the count full, and the Marlins down a run early, Stanton finally delivered.
A game-defining, tape-measure grand slam is a pretty neat accomplishment for your first career home run, I would say.
Stanton’s rookie campaign would have its ups and downs, but the mammoth power that he possessed helped him remain a presence in Florida’s lineup for the rest of the season, and years to come. He finished the year with 22 home runs, 2.8 rWAR, and a 118 OPS+ across 100 games played.
He ended up sharing the rookie spotlight with fellow franchise youngster Logan Morrison. A 22nd round pick in 2005, Morrison didn’t quite have the pedigree of Stanton, but he still entered 2010 as the №25 prospect in baseball.
And when he debuted nearly two months later, he played every bit as well as his highly-regarded counterpart, hitting to the tune of a 123 OPS+ during his 62-game season.
But it wasn’t his on-field accomplishments that defined his rookie season. It was one trip to New York that ultimately stole the show.
Morrison’s father, Tom, was a believer in tough love. As a member of the Coast Guard, he took a military man’s approach to raising his son: Teacher first, father second. Though at times his dad’s actions might have come off as harsh, Logan swore by that method and cited it as a reason for the strong bond the two shared.
It’s that bond that made the evening of August 25th so special for both of them.
Tom had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, meaning travel from his residence in Louisiana was difficult, and that he couldn’t be there for his son’s debut. It simply wasn’t safe for him to fly to any of Logan’s games.
Which is why he took the train instead.
For 30 straight hours, Tom wound his way up to New York by rail where, with pride swelling in his heart, he watched Logan collect six hits in the Marlins’ series against the Mets.
For the rest of the season, Tom watched on for the first and last time as Logan announced his arrival to the world. Though there were no awards or postseason baseball awaiting the Morrisons that year, their story served as a reminder that baseball, above all other things, is a game of love.
If you want to read the full story of Logan and Tom Morrison by Amy K. Nelson, I highly suggest you check it out here. I simply cannot do it justice, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least give you the option to read it.
Promotional Problems
It’s true that throughout the latter half of the season, the rookies stole most of the headlines for the Marlins, but that didn’t keep them off the hook when it came to public relations nightmares.
In an attempt to seemingly one-up themselves with the ticket resale promotion, the Marlins, in their infinite wisdom, decided to hand out 15,000 miniature vuvuzelas to fans before their game against the Tampa Bay Rays on June 19.
The FIFA World Cup was in full swing at the time in South Africa. The deafening sounds of vuvuzelas had become synonymous with sports and, of course, large crowds. The promotion operated under the guise of support for an international sport like soccer, but a few seconds of critical thinking makes it fairly obvious that this was an attempt to see if some extra sound could make up for the otherwise lacking crowds that had dogged the Marlins all year long.
And to their credit, it did! Come game time, noise filled Sun Life Stadium.
Like … a lot of noise.
The sound of vuvuzelas was deafening, constant, and unending.
In the bottom of the ninth, with the game knotted 5–5, Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez made some adjustments to his lineup card. The plan was to bat Brian Barden ninth and slide Wes Helms into the three-spot with the pitcher batting cleanup. Homeplate umpire Lance Barksdale, be it through his own fault or the raucous noise of the mini vuvuzelas, had it the other way around.
And so Barden stepped up to the plate, drew a pivotal leadoff walk, and was immediately declared out for batting out of order. Gonzalez protested, but the damage was done, and he was swiftly ejected. The Marlins lost 9–8 in 11 innings.
After the game, the consensus among everyone who was on the field was that vuvuzela night was a disaster. Marlins outfielder Cody Ross called the experience “awful.”
Rays starter James Shields called it “weird.”
Umpire Tom Hallion described it as “uncomfortable.”
And Rays manager Joe Maddon succinctly summed up everybody’s feelings by simply saying “… The horns should be banned from Major League Baseball.” Clearly, this was a flop for all involved.
Except for Samson, who one-uped himself from the ticket extravaganza a few weeks prior by declaring the promotion to be a resounding success.
“It was absolutely outstanding,” Samson said the following day, completely oblivious to the fact that the promotion had essentially cost his team a win.
Three days after the vuvuzela catastrophe, with the team 34–36 and six games out of the playoff race, the Marlins fired Gonzalez and replaced him with Edwin Rodriguez, who managed a marginally better 46–46 record the rest of the way.
Fredi Gonzalez, Chris Coghlan, and Pie
There was speculation that Loria showed Gonzalez the door due to his frequent sparring with star shortstop Hanley Ramirez. Earlier in the season, Gonzalez had pulled Ramirez from a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks for repeated lack of hustle. Ramirez responded by taking digs at Gonzalez’s lack of MLB playing experience. An insurrection from the team’s highest-paid player and subsequent benching likely didn’t sit well with the penny-pinching owner.
Gonzalez, however, was quick to dismiss their feud as the driving force behind his firing.
Regardless of the reasons why, the decision took the clubhouse and the league by surprise. Rival manager Bobby Cox questioned the move and suggested that Jeffery Loria didn’t know what he was doing.
Sophomore outfielder Chris Coghlan seemed particularly irked by Gonzalez’s removal and came to his defense.
“He was a good man, a good manager,” said Coghlan. “He believed in me. He stood for integrity. He was somebody who had your back.” — June 2010 (ESPN)
The bond the two of them had was clearly strong, because Coghlan played some of his best baseball under Gonzalez. The outfield star won NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2009 with him at the helm, and he was sporting a modest .735 OPS following Gonzalez’s last game as manager. Those days would ultimately be the most successful of his career, at least from an individual standpoint.
Still, Coghlan tried to make the best out of a bad situation. Even as his performance at the plate in the following weeks fluctuated between mediocre and downright terrible, he managed to celebrate the good times with his teams.
Take July 25 as an example. The Braves and Marlins are in the bottom half of the 11th inning of a Sunday matinee game when Wes Helms steps to the plate. Bases load. Nobody out. The Marlins, 48–49 with a waning outside shot at the playoffs, could desperately use a spark if they wanted to make a run to October.
Helms dribbles the ball through the third-base side! Ramirez scores from third! The Marlins have toppled the NL East leaders! The crowd is jumping for joy! Life for the Marlins!
In the aftermath, Coghlan delivers the ceremonial pie to the face of Helms! Things are finally turning up for the Ma-
Coghlan trips as he delivers the pie.
Testing reveals a torn meniscus.
Two weeks later, he undergoes season-ending knee surgery.
The Marlins, models of consistency, are 56–56.
Fun with Finances
The worst kept secret in baseball is that most owners spend far less than they could (and should) on their teams, but few in recent history have embodied that sentiment more than Jeffery Loria, and 2010 was the pudding and the proof.
Even after nearly doubling payroll from 2009, the Marlins still ranked in the bottom-five of the league. Loria and Co. claimed that they were barely breaking even every year and that they were fielding the best team they could.
And for as much as Loria was a cheapskate, that line of reasoning was at least somewhat plausible. The Marlins routinely finished at the bottom of the league in ticket sales, and the Florida market was one of the smallest in the baseball. There was a very real possibility that money was scarce.
But with a little bit of skepticism and a whole lot of digging from Deadspin (long live), it turned out that ownership was, in fact, lying through their teeth. Financial statements obtained by the website in 2010 revealed that the Marlins brought in $49 million in profit in the previous two years, contrary to their claims of payroll being reflective of revenue.
Samson, once again showing his deft abilities as a public relations liaison, explained that the money was being put towards the monstrous, $600 million ballpark being built in Miami, which taxpayers were footing the large majority of the bill for anyway.
And then, as if the insinuation wasn’t enough, Samson just came out and said it: That having a shiny new stadium was more important than playing competitive baseball.
“We could have had [Miguel] Cabrera and no ballpark.” —Samson, August 2010 (ESPN)
You know, that Miguel Cabrera. 11-time All-Star Miguel Cabrera. Seven-time Silver Slugger Miguel Cabrera. Two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera. 2012 Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera. 2003 World Series Champion with the Florida Marlins Miguel Cabrera. FUTURE HALL OF FAMER MIGUEL CABRERA.
What kind of fan would want any part of that?
Making Friends in the NL East
After the financial fiasco, the Florida Marlins continued to put on a true masterclass in how to tank a franchise’s public image over the final month of the 2010 season.
Barely two weeks removed from having been exposed as an architecture firm first, baseball team second, fate presented the Marlins with an opportunity at minor redemption. Braves manager Bobby Cox was retiring at the end of the year, and his farewell tour was in full swing. As he made his final stops at various cities around the country, each team presented the living legend with a parting gift as a thank you for his contributions to baseball’s history.
You can probably tell where this is going.
In the first week of September, the Braves popped into town for a quick three-game set, their last series in Miami for the year. The Marlins won two out of three and sent Cox’s Braves on their way without so much as a simple thanks.
No gift. No tribute. No fanfare. Just baseball as usual.
Samson, for once, kept his mouth shut. In all likelihood, this was Loria’s revenge for Cox’s disparagement earlier in the season of the Gonzalez firing.
It should be noted that the Braves weren’t even the first team to receive some Marlins scorn that month. Just a few days before the nonexistent farewell, the Marlins had gotten into a scrum with Nyjer Morgan and the Nationals that left five Marlins players suspended for a total of 15 games.
A model franchise, eh?
It’s truly unfortunate that this season turned out this way. Entering 2010, this was a team full of promise, a team that was likely just one or two small fixes away from being a legitimate playoff contender.
But instead of reaching their potential, the wheels came hurtling off the wagon, and the wagon crashed into the side of a hill before spontaneously combusting into a funeral pyre of mediocrity and publicity nightmares. The Marlins never strayed more than five games above .500 or six games below it.
They finished the year 80–82, 17 games out of first place, 11 games out of a playoff spot.
1-for-4 with an Infield Single
The 2010 half of the 2010–11 offseason was, to put things bluntly, a middle finger thrown directly into the face of Marlins fans.
Barely three weeks after the conclusion of the World Series, Florida shipped franchise icon Dan Uggla, who had hit 154 home runs, accumulated 15.7 rWAR, and earned two All-Star nods in his five years with the Marlins, to the rival Braves.
The reasoning: Uggla and the Marlins couldn’t agree on a contract extension.
The return: Omar Infante and Mike Dunn.
That didn’t sit well with the fans. Nor did the signing of John Buck three days later. The catcher would turn out to be a model of subpar baseball, a soon-to-be defining characteristic of the Florida franchise.
The lone bright spot came when radio play-by-play announcer Dave Van Horne was elected into the broadcaster’s wing in Cooperstown. On the job since 2001, it was a fitting honor.
It’s a shame that having witnessed the improbable success of the 2003 championship team, he was cursed to watch the 2010 season and so many others like it unfold. This was the best the Marlins would have it for a long time.
Sources
Hey, fun stuff! Here’s where I found all of the information and quotes in this article:
All stats and attendance info via Baseball-Reference
Jeter’s Aspirations: https://www.espn.com/blog/sportscenter/post/_/id/40068/derek-jeter-wants-finally-to-buy-a-sports-franchise
The Anthem: https://socialmiami.com/marlins-will-soar/, https://deadspin.com/marlins-will-soar-is-the-only-anthem-the-miami-marlin-1824145701 , https://www.spin.com/2013/11/scott-stapp-proof-of-life-interview/
Halladay Tickets: https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=5236340 , https://www.delcotimes.com/news/marlins-selling-tickets-to-halladay-s-perfect-game/article_baf3218e-6747-50ee-892d-d6006536ccd0.html
The Debutants: http://www.espn.com/espn/eticket/story?page=110915/loganmorrison
Vuvuzela Night: https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=5308205, https://www.thenationalnews.com/sport/marlins-blow-a-game-1.520429
Fredi Gonzalez Firing: https://www.sbnation.com/2010/5/18/2315568/hanley-ramirez-rips-manager-refuses-to-apologize-after-benching-for, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/410240-florida-marlins-fire-fredi-gonzalez-and-members-of-staff, https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=5318111
Chris Coghlan: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/sports/baseball/florida-marlins-chris-coghlan-might-need-knee-surgery-was-hurt-post-game-celebration/a6HbvkZi6LvUgFR7qjiPON/, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-aug-11-la-sp-baseball-notes-20100812-story.html
Exposed Financials: https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=5491101, https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fl-xpm-2010-08-23-fl-florida-marlins-financial-document20100823-story.html, https://deadspin.com/mlb-confidential-the-financial-documents-baseball-does-5615096
NL East Extravaganza: https://www.foxsports.com/stories/mlb/no-tribute-for-cox-from-marlins, https://www.palmbeachpost.com/article/20100903/SPORTS/812027716
The Offseason: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/article/20101209/SPORTS/812031596, https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=5814146, https://www.inquisitr.com/90597/florida-marlins-trade-uggla-to-the-atlanta-braves/, https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/fl-xpm-2010-11-19-fl-marlins-1119-20101119-story.html
