Hey, Geff!
Our first VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS subscriber mailbag
I asked for your questions on our Substack Chat last week, and VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS subscribers delivered. Today it’s time for some answers in the first of our periodic Hey, Geff! mailbags.
(Some questions have been modified for brevity and clarity.)
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Now, on to our first Hey, Geff!
HEY, GEFF! Do you think the Marlins can succeed in South Florida? And is there a path to that happening that isn’t magically opting for the Padres’ approach?
—Sean
GEFF: We’re not exactly easing into this. You’ve asked the ultimate question, Sean.
My honest answer is I’m not sure. I had such high hopes in 2012, when I truly believed in my heart the combination of a spectacular new ballpark and a winning team would transform the franchise overnight. And I had reason to believe that because, in my travels across the league, I had seen first-hand what new ballparks had meant to so many cities across the country. Despite the local history, and despite the many naysayers, I sincerely believed Miami would follow suit.
But the team didn’t win, and the new-car smell wore off the ballpark in a hurry.
More than a decade later, here we are.
I marvel at the fact the Marlins drew 3 million fans to the old football stadium for a bad team in the inaugural season. Where did all those people go?
Fans in South Florida have been burned so many times by multiple owners over 30 years. I think it’s become too easy for too many to write the team off.
Even in the World Series seasons of 1997 and 2003, fans didn’t jump on the bandwagon until late in the year. And remember, while Wayne Huizenga forced Dave Dombrowski to immediately dismantle the 1997 championship club, Jeffrey Loria brought back most of the 2003 champs in 2004, and he then supplemented the roster with Carlos Delgado and Al Leiter in 2005. It was only after the 2005 season—when the club didn’t win and fans didn’t buy tickets—that he tore that club completely apart at a time when there was no hope for a new ballpark.
I think at this point, there are 2 paths to potential success for the Marlins, and neither is a sure thing. They both begin with the team being really good.
The first scenario is the current core explodes. A rotation led by Sandy Alcantara, Jesus Luzardo, Edward Cabrera and Eury Perez becomes a dominant force. Jazz Chisholm stays healthy and turns into a perennial All-Star, while some other young position players break out, and the organization then makes a substantial commitment in free agency to add the remaining required pieces of what could be a title-contending team.
My fear is there are a lot of “ifs” in that scenario, particularly on the offensive side. In my 31 years in the game, one thing I’ve seen is it’s pretty rare to hit on a high percentage of your “ifs.”
If you’re banking on “ifs,” it’s not looking good.
If that doesn’t happen in a hurry, probably meaning within the next year, I think we’re at a point where it may take, as you suggested, an owner who is willing to do something similar to what Peter Seidler is doing with the Padres and what Steve Cohen is doing with the Mets. That’s the second scenario, and I don’t see that happening under Bruce Sherman.
You’d have to go out and invest huge amounts of money in free agency to bring in proven stars who fans want to see. Not guys at the end of their careers. Not guys who no one else wants who fall to the Marlins. Players who are established and in the primes of their careers.
Convincing players like that to sign with the Marlins when other teams are pursuing them is highly unlikely. As desirable a location as Miami could (and should) be for players, it will not become that type of destination until the team begins to win, attendance improves and the organization’s reputation among players across the league improves.
When the Marlins have signed free agents in recent years, they’ve either grossly overpaid relative to what others were offering, or they’ve signed players who had limited options. Think John Buck, Wei-Yin Chen and Jarrod Saltalamacchia going back to the previous ownership and, more recently, Avisail Garcia (an overpay to get him to sign early in the offseason before the lockout, even though there weren’t many reports of other teams being in pursuit) and Jorge Soler (no other options after Spring Training had already begun).
If an owner goes all-in, he or she is investing in superstar-level talent to put the club in position to sell some tickets. You’re essentially buying hope. Then, if things work according to plan, you start winning games and hopefully sell many more tickets. It builds from year to year, and eventually you’ve got a good thing going. That’s where the Padres are.
Remember, Baseball is incredibly cyclical. The Blue Jays drew 4 million fans 3 straight years from 1991-93, winning consecutive World Series. Then they endured a long downslide. There were some good seasons here and there, but they’re finally coming back out on the other end.
There was a time in the 1990s the Orioles and the (then) Indians sold out every single home game season after season. Then they couldn’t give tickets away. After many lean years, Cleveland has enjoyed a renaissance under future Hall of Fame manager Terry Francona, and the O’s are coming out of an extended rebuild.
Braves games are now nightly parties at Truist Park. There was a time the mood was very different at old Turner Field. The Phillies had a years-long sell-out streak while winning 5 straight NL East titles from 2007-11. Then they went more than a decade before returning to the playoffs last season. Attendance cratered. But now baseball is back in Philadelphia.
There are countless examples of teams that have been down then up, up then down.
There are very few franchises like the Cardinals, Dodgers and Yankees, who maintain high-level support annually. Of course those teams are just about always in the post-season mix.
And there are also very few examples of teams like the Marlins that have basically always been down. Miami has never even had 2 very successful years in a row, and attendance has been well below ML average except for the earliest years of the club’s history and the occasional outlier season.
People here have waited a long time. I talk with a lot of fans who are beaten down by the number of times their hopes have been dashed. I’ve said this repeatedly, including on the air: If the Marlins were to ever win, I’d be happier for that small core group of fans who have stood with the team through thick and thin over 3 decades than I would be for any owner, or GM or manager or player.
My hopes were really high when Sherman and Derek Jeter came in 6 years ago, just as they were in 2012. But it’s starting to feel like another missed opportunity for the franchise as we head into year 6 of “the build” with little reason to believe 2023 will be any different than 2022, 20021, 2020, 2019 and 2018.
A lot of fans have a lot of emotion tied up in this organization. I wish I could definitively tell you MLB is going to work in this market for them and the rest of the community. At this point though, I’m as discouraged as I’ve ever been.
HEY, GEFF! Do you think the Marlins might have been able to hang onto some of the Big Fish that have slipped through Kim Ng's fingers the past couple of seasons? I'm thinking of Starling Marte, Adam Duvall and J.T. Realmuto from earlier.
—Jim G.
GEFF: In a word, yes…but…
I understand trading J.T. Realmuto when they did, and this was—as you said—pre-Kim Ng. They were all-in on a rebuild. Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna had been dealt a year earlier. They kept Realmuto for a year. I know the organization realized how unique a talent he is at a position that is particularly hard to fill. They reportedly spent part of 2018 trying to extend J.T., but he understood the long road ahead in Miami, and they never got to the point where they made an offer that he could justify accepting. How many years and dollars would it take to get a player to sign, understanding he’s locking himself in to a team that’s not going to win any time soon? So they traded him in a deal that could have been a big win for the Marlins if Sixto Sanchez had become a star, if Jorge Alfaro had become a solid every-day ML catcher and if Realmuto would have left the Phillies in free agency a year later.
We know how things played out. After an electric ML debut in 2020, Sixto has not thrown a competitive pitch in 2-plus seasons due to shoulder issues. Despite some terrific tools, Alfaro proved he is not an every-day ML catcher. He spent last year with the Padres and opened 2023 in Triple-A with the Red Sox.
And when the Phillies locked up Realmuto for 5 years and $115.5 million in January of 2021, clearly Realmuto and the Phillies both came out winners. Realmuto has cemented his status as the best all-around catcher in the game, and he helped the star-studded Phil to the National League pennant a season ago.
The Adam Duvall case was a little more complicated. Duvall signed with the Marlins prior to the 2021 season. He was a bargain at $2 million in 2021, and his deal called for a mutual 2022 option worth $7 million, or a $3 million buyout if the Marlins were to decline to bring him back. So it was basically a one-year, $5 million guarantee for 2021, and the Marlins would have to decide if they wanted to pay an extra $4 million to keep him in 2022 (he was already guaranteed $3 million in the buyout).
Duvall was hugely productive for a Marlins team that (have I mentioned?) has been desperate for power for years. He hit 22 homers and drove in 68 runs in 91 games, ranking among NL leaders in both categories throughout the year while playing Gold Glove-caliber defense at all 3 outfield positions.
In July, with the Marlins out of the race, a series of very questionable decisions was made. The first was deciding the chance to save a little less than $5 million in 2021 and 2022 salary was worth more than Duvall’s production over the next season and a half. The second was that it would be prudent to trade him to a division rival (the Braves). And the final miscalculation was that fringe major league catcher Alex Jackson was a suitable return.
The Braves would later trade highly regarded catching prospect Shea Langeliers to the Athletics. If I’m running the catching-hungry Marlins, and the Braves are eager to acquire a player like Duvall for their pennant push—both talented and very economical—I would have held out for Langeliers. If Atlanta says no, OK. That’s their prerogative. Would Langeliers for Duvall have been an overpay by Atlanta? Maybe. But they were trying to win a World Series, and they really wanted the player. In the immortal words of George Costanza, the Marlins had hand. If the Braves say no, Miami keeps Duvall or maybe trades him somewhere else. The mere threat of a trade to a team the Braves saw as a challenger might have spurred the Braves to part with Langeliers.
Jackson, for whom the Marlins settled, was a former first-round pick of the Mariners, who had been up and down between Atlanta and Triple-A Gwinnett. He had some power and struck out a lot. In the spirit of giving people the benefit of the doubt, my first thought at the time was the Marlins clearly see something in Jackson and, with serious doubts about Alfaro’s future existing at this point, maybe the thought was Jackson could be the team’s catcher of the future. Add in the cost savings (because, with the Marlins, you almost always have to account for the cost savings) and the trade almost made sense in that context.
Soon after the trade though, Kim Ng talked about wanting to see a lot of Jackson down the stretch to determine if—and this is where it all falls apart—he might be able to be Miami’s back-up catcher in 2022.
So you just traded a valuable asset who was under reasonably priced control for another season-plus to a division rival in exchange for a player who might be your back-up catcher next year?
Well, Jackson hit .157 in 42 games as a Marlin. It was decided he would not be Miami’s back-up catcher of the future, and he was dealt to the Brewers the following April for minor league utility man Hayden Cantrelle. Cantrelle played 28 Double-A games for the Marlins in 2022 before being dealt to the Giants for utility man Luke Williams. Williams was basically Miami’s 26th man for most of 2022 before leaving the organization.
The Marlins essentially gave Adam Duvall away.
As for Duvall? Well, he exploded in Atlanta in 2021, finishing the year with 38 home runs and a league-leading 113 RBI as the Braves went on to win the World Series. For good measure Duvall hit a home run against the Dodgers in the NLCS and added 2 against the Astros in the World Series.
Last season, he was limited to 86 games with the due to a sprained left wrist, and he left Atlanta to sign with the Red Sox this winter.
As they search desperately for power, for defense and even specifically for someone to play center field (Duvall’s current position in Boston), giving Adam Duvall away to a division rival is one I think the Marlins would like to have back.
But Starling Marte is the ultimate “what could’ve been” to me.
It can be argued that not extending Marte in July of 2021, when he wanted to remain a Marlin, is the single most egregious mistake the Marlins have made on the baseball side in recent years.
Marte is a winning player. He can win a game with his bat, his glove, his arm and his legs. He is a lineup changer out of the 2-hole. He possesses great baseball instincts, what some might refer to as a high baseball IQ. He’s a guy who doesn’t say a lot. He puts his head down and works. He was a model citizen during his time in Miami. He went out and played hard every night. What a role model for younger players.
Marte made a huge impact for the Marlins when he was acquired down the stretch of the 2020 Covid season. I think it’s fair to assert the Marlins would not have made the playoffs without him. The simple act of acquiring a player of Marte’s ilk while battling for a playoff spot sent an important message from the front office to the ballclub. “We’re going for it.”
Marte’s 8th-inning game-winning home run against the Blue Jays in his Marlins debut is one of the defining moments of that 2020 season. So was the grand slam he slugged to beat the Phillies days later.
Marte was going to be a free agent at the end of 2021, and he was playing brilliantly for the Marlins that year. What has been reported is he wanted to sign an extension. He owned a home in Miami, and was very comfortable here. In discussions in the weeks ahead of the July 31 trading deadline, the Marlins reportedly offered him 3 years and $30 million, but he wanted 4 years and $48 million. The Marlins, again according to reports, extended to 3 years and $36 million. When he wouldn’t agree to that, they traded Marte to the Athletics for Jesus Luzardo.
I’m a big Luzardo fan. I think this is going to be a big year for Luzardo, and I believe he has a chance to be a staple in the Marlins rotation for years to come.
But Marte is a difference maker offensively for a team desperate for offense. He was a solid center fielder for a team that is still looking to solve the center field riddle.
When the winter rolled around and he hit free agency following a productive stint in Oakland, what has been reported is that the Marlins then offered him the 4 years and $48 million that he would have accepted months earlier. But once a player hits free agency, you’re competing against 29 other clubs, and someone is bound to out-bid the Marlins. The Mets did just that, stepping up with 4 years and a whopping $78 million.
In his first season as a Met in 2022, Starling turned in a typical Marte season. He was selected to the NL All-Star team, and he helped carry the Mets to the Playoffs.
What a missed opportunity. Every time the Marlins play the Mets to this day, I see Marte and wonder what might have been.
Would you rather have Marte and Duvall (for both their offense and defense) or Jorge Soler and Avisail Garcia? That’s what it comes down to. There would have been no need to sign Soler and Garcia had Marte and Duvall been on the roster.
And if the Marlins had signed Marte for $48 million in July of 2021, whatever they might have given Duvall to keep him beyond 2022 would have still left the total financial outlay for those 2 players significantly lower than the $89 million they’ve committed to Soler and Garcia.
For what it’s worth, coming off an injury-shortened season last year, Duvall signed with Boston for one year and $7 million. So Marte and Duvall could conceivably have been controlled for a total of 5 years and $55 million, while Soler and Garcia signed for a combined 7 years and $89 million.
Ugh.
HEY, GEFF! I believe that the World Baseball Classic showed us that if the Marlins build a fun and winning team people will surely come to the stadium. People always complain that Miami doesn't have fans. On the contrary, I think Miami has many fans, especially with the large Latin community. But Miami is a winning city, and if a team isn't winning people won't spend their money to watch a losing team. Do you believe more fans will go to games if Miami can put up a +.500 season?
—Angel R.
GEFF: I do think more fans will come out to support a winning team, if the Marlins can eventually put a consistent winner on the field, Angel. But here’s my concern, and I expressed this on Twitter the day the first 2023 WBC games were going to be played in Miami.
The point of that Twitter thread was the majority of the people who packed loanDepot park for the WBC and created the greatest baseball atmosphere we’ve ever seen in South Florida are not the same people who come to Marlins games. These were Baseball fans. These were Dominican fans, Venezuelan fans, Puerto Rican fans, Cuban fans.
They’re not Marlins fans.
What I said on Twitter that day was the Marlins front office needs to find a way to bring them back, to convert them.
Those fans turned out in most cases to see star players wearing the uniform of their homeland. It was personal. That’s why there was so much energy, both on the field and throughout the ballpark.
There simply are not that many people in this community who feel that way about the Marlins. And it’s the organization’s fault for not giving them a team replete with legitimate stars they can love and for not finding a way to keep the stars that have passed through town over the years. When they’ve had those players…well, you know what happened with Kevin Brown and Josh Beckett and Miguel Cabrera and Josh Johnson and Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich and J.T. Realmuto and so many others.
So while I agree the WBC demonstrated to a global audience what an amazing place loanDepot park can be to watch great stars play high-level baseball, I’m not sure how that helps the Marlins until ownership puts great stars on the field to play high-level baseball.
HEY, GEFF! What was it like working with Dave Van Horne?
—Jakotak
GEFF: Dave was the best, and, while he hasn’t spoken about this much, I’ll say the manner in which the Marlins handled the end of his Hall of Fame career was shameful. It remains a huge black eye for the organization within the industry.
Dave was 82 in his final season, and his passion for the game and his work ethic was the same in his final year as it was when I first met him in 1997. And I’m sure it was the same as it was when he made his ML debut in Montreal in 1969.
Dave is first-class all the way. Traveling with Dave meant never knowing what Baseball luminary might come by the booth to catch up before a ballgame, legendary players, front office executives and other great broadcasters.
But what I always respected the most about Dave was not those relationships but the ones he shared with people who the average fan wouldn’t know. I’m talking about people like Walter Banks, the long-time ballpark usher in Atlanta who Dave would seek out on every visit. Elevator operators, clubhouse attendants, people who work in the press dining room. Television crew members with whom Dave had worked in various cities decades ago when he was doing both radio and TV in Montreal.
The reverence they all had for him was matched and often exceeded by the respect he had for each of them. In every case, he was as happy to see and reconnect with them as they were to see and reconnect with him.
That was truly special.
My favorite years with the Marlins were the years Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton were doing television because a night off on the road always meant dinner with Rich, Tommy and Dave. We solved all the world’s problems and had a lot of fun along the way.
So to sum it up, working with Dave was the single greatest honor of my broadcasting career. I’m proud to have called him a partner and am even prouder to call him a friend.
And, if you can’t tell, I’m grateful you asked the question.
HEY, GEFF! Do you see Jose Iglesias gaining a day-to-day spot on the team in the not-too-distant future?
—RAGG
GEFF: This question came in before Opening Day, but it feels quite timely now. With Jazz Chisholm struggling defensively in center field, and Joey Wendle off to a slow start at the plate (and now on the IL with an oblique issue), some have suggested it’s time for Jazz to be returned to shortstop, the position he played as he climbed through the minor leagues.
With that in mind, your Iglesias suggestion is intriguing and should be considered.
The 33-year-old signed a minor league deal March 9, only 3 weeks before Opening Day. In the final week of the spring, General Manager Kim Ng talked about Iglesias benefitting from having a bit more time to get into shape and get his timing down.
He had the right to opt out of his minor league contract if he didn’t make the club at the end of the spring, but while he decided to remain with the organization, he was not assigned to a minor league roster to begin the season, presumably staying in Jupiter to continue his work.
Iglesias has spent 11 seasons in the majors with 6 teams. He batted .292 in 118 games with the Rockies in 2022. A career .279 hitter, the right-handed batter has hit .291 all-time against lefties and, if nothing else, could be considered as a platoon partner for a healthy Wendle.
I like your thought, but the Marlins opted to go with newcomer Garrett Hampson, who was already on the 40-man roster and who had opened the year at Triple-A Jacksonville.
The 28-year-old had big league time with the Rockies over the last 5 seasons. In 419 games, he’s hit just .235 with a .296 OBP. In 2022, he was a .211 hitter with a .287 OBP. He’s stolen some bases and offers some Jon Berti-like defensive versatility, but he doesn’t have Iglesias bat or experience.
We’ll see if Iglesias gets the call once he rounds into form. His track record would certainly seem to make him a strong option.
HEY, GEFF! Would love to hear about your time in the booth the past few seasons with a rotating color man (and woman). It had it's moments, but I always thought it never allowed a true "rhythm" like you see with so many classic pairs throughout the league. Was that a money issue or just the team trying to throw things against the wall to see what stuck?
—James W.
GEFF: Great question, James. I’ll take my answer all the way back to the beginning.
Jason Latimer is the guy Derek Jeter hired to oversee Communications and Broadcasting following the sale of the team. Jeter’s first choice for the position didn’t want to leave his long-time job with a very prominent franchise to work for the Marlins, and when Jeter asked him if he could recommend someone, this other established executive recommended Latimer, who had been a mid-level PR man with the Yankees and Rays—never having run a department—and was eager to get back into baseball after being out of the Game for several years.
In my first meeting with Latimer, he told me, “I know nothing about broadcasting.”
Those were his exact words.
The guy entrusted with overseeing broadcasting told me (and in separate meetings Dave Van Horne and Kyle Sielaff), “I know nothing about broadcasting.”
That wasn’t an ideal first impression, but 5 years later I can say with certainty it was one instance when he spoke the truth.
As time went on, this person who admitted he knew nothing about broadcasting decided he was ready to try to make his mark on the broadcasts. There were some radical changes to the broadcast suggested that I fought against. For example, he had this notion of moving away from traditional play-by-play and turning the radio broadcast into a talk show with guests, with the game basically going on in the background. His thinking was this would take attention away from a struggling team that was piling up losses night after night.
He never told me this, but I’ve heard from others he absurdly wanted a bed of music to constantly play under the play-by-play broadcast. If it was anything like the music played at loanDepot park, it would have been so loud listeners wouldn’t be able to hear the game.
Come to think of it, maybe that was why he wanted to do it during another 90-loss season.
Latimer decided he didn’t like broadcasts with 2 play-by-play broadcasters. He preferred a play-by-play broadcaster and an analyst. That’s not at all a novel concept. You see it on TV all the time even though most ML radio broadcasts are done by a pair of play-by-play broadcasters.
So splitting Dave and me up in 2021, so he could justify paying us both less because we’d work fewer games, gave him the chance to do this and conveniently save money. Financial savings are at the heart of so much of this, including my ultimate departure.
Working with an analyst was fine with me. If I wasn’t going to work with Dave, I would have preferred to work with a former player analyst than another play-by-play broadcaster. I appreciate the perspective former players bring to the game.
Now, what I said from day one was the rotation should not have been as large as it was.
I worked with 6 different partners in the first 16 games of the 2022 season. At one point, I worked with 4 different partners in a 4-game span. That’s not what listeners want to hear. As you pointed out, there is a lot to be said for continuity.
By having multiple analysts, they could justify paying people a per-game rate rather than a larger lump sum to one person working a full schedule. They also saved money by paying different analysts different amounts. That didn’t sit well with those who learned they weren’t making as much as someone else for doing the same job.
While it was far from ideal, I committed myself to making the best of the situation. And I am enormously proud of the work we did the last couple of years.
This may not have been obvious to all, but I altered my style depending on who I was working with on a given night to try to bring out the best in each of the analysts, putting each in a position to maximize his or her individual strengths. I got along well with all of them and enjoyed working with them all.
So it was different. And at times it was challenging. But I think we all made the best of the situation. And, again, I am enormously proud of the work we did and the professionalism we maintained under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Thanks to all for the thought-provoking questions. I look forward to doing this again soon!
Awesome mailbag. And wow about some of those ideas about ways to change the broadcast.
Enjoyable read. My take on the WBC is the game was second fiddle to the event. Fans wanted to come up and display their proudness of their nationality, similar to when the Yankees come to town. 😇