Marlins Way

The Miami Marlins have finally struck on a free agency signing. The Marlins late on Thursday night agreed to a 3-year contract with former San Diego Padres closer Heath Bell. The deal is worth $27 million and has an option for the fourth year. Today we will have a lot of link dumps on “Marlins Way” involving Heath Bell.

• On FishStripes,  Michael’s initial analysis on the move was that it was good in baseball terms, bad in money terms. Michael also took a look back at the past free agents and showed why history is not in Bell’s favor.
• SCWS shows you what you should expect from Heath Bell as a Marlin. As a blogger, he will be providing a lot more for me to write about.
• On FanGraphs, Steve Slowinskisks wonders if a Mike Stanton extension is now more difficult to perform with the recent signing of closer Heath Bell.
• David Hill of Marlins Diehards is on board with Michael Jong and I, the Marlins are better off going with an in-house option at closer.
• Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports takes an interesting look at whether the signing Heath Bell will be like when the New York Mets signedPedro Martinez and help the Marlins in bringing in other free agents. I really hope so!
• Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel takes a look at the initial mixed emotions regarding the Bell signing.
• Some love to Joe Soriano of Call to the Pen examines the Marlins signing of Bell. Joe wonders if the Marlins were ever really serious on the Jose Reyes and Albert Pujols front or if they were just smoke screens. We at MarlinManiac certainly hope not, but there is still a bit of doubt with this current ownership and their checkered past.
• Christopher Carelli, also from Call to the Pen says that the Miami Marlins Continue Closer Insanity By Signing Heath Bell. I could not agree more with him. Great read.
• The big news following the Heath Bell signing is that the Marlins are now putting an ‘all-out press’ on Reyes. The Marlins hope to sign him before the Winter Meetings begin on Monday in Dallas. The Marlins have aknowledged they know that Reyes will go back to the New York Mets before he agrees to any deal, to give them a chance to make a counter offer.