Dec 5, 2011; Dallas, TX, USA; Miami Marlins president of baseball operstions Larry Beinfest (left) announces the signing of closer Heath Bell (not pictured) during the MLB winter meetings at Hilton Anatole. Bell was signed for 3 years and $27 million. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-US PRESSWIRE

“Et tu, Brute” said Julius Caesar to the man that decided that he knew what was best for Rome, and Ozzie Guillen has taken a shiv to the ribs in the form of a plane ticket and a public firing.

Larry Beinfest has successfully deflected blame from himself, and has successfully whispered in Jeffrey Loria’s ear, so we’re on the hunt for a new sucker manager to helm the Fish for 2013. The palace guard has closed ranks, and the Praetorians have eliminated the threat.

Whoop-de-do.

I think it’s a bad decision by the front office, because it’s simply lays the blame for the season on Guillen, and doesn’t account for guys like John Buck, Heath Bell, Eduardo Perez, or Hizzoner Larry.

When you have players (Hanley) thinking that they have a direct line to Loria, and don’t have to hustle, play hard, hit, or otherwise make extraordinary effort to improve their failing numbers, it absolutely undermines the authority of the manager, and cripples his ability to effectively manage the team.

My confidence level for 2013 has hit rock bottom.  The dim glimmer of hope that remains is that Loria figures out that he needs to fix all problems at once, and finds his Mike Shanahan, and figures out how to let the right guys run the roster.

Hint: It’s not Larry Beinfest, and it’s not David Samson, and it’s not Jeffrey Loria.

Please, oh, please…don’t let this go past 2013.  Figure it out now, so the new stadium, and the new brand leads to a pennant for the Fish. Please don’t let you fear of losing a job or your thin skin keep us in the cellar for any longer than necessary.

June 15, 2012; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Miami Marlins right fielder

Call it what you will: a wall-to-wall counseling session, a ride in the truck, a trip to the woodshed, or a come to Jesus meeting. The outcome has to be the same, regardless of the old saw used to describe it. Without substantial improvement in offense, the July Marlins will look wistfully at the memory of .500 ball.

Maybe I’m jumping ahead. For those readers that are somewhat disconnected from scores and statistics, the Marlins took an embarrassing afterschool whuppin’ from the Rays tonight. Nine walks given up, and the dubious honor of a season-record hit tally of one. We lost to long balls and hard grounders that kicked up foul line chalk for 3-RBI doubles. Basically, a big, fat, hairy skunk of a game that I suspect will stink for a long time in the memories of everyone who notices this team this year. I’m not going to rehash the pain tonight.

When you drop nine of the last ten and end on such a jangling, raw, discordant note, it’s time to make a move of some kind in the hopes of shaking whatever bad juju is hanging around the clubhouse. Over half of the team is batting below the Mendoza line, but that only scratches the surface. Collectively, as a team, the Marlins’ trachea seems to get completely obstructed as soon as a pair of spikes crosses second base. With two outs and more than one runner on, bat paralysis ensues. Maybe ritualized poultry decapitation would help.

We have very good, if not great, pitching. Our defense is on par with past seasons, and we’re playing reasonable defensive ball. Our baserunning is at or near the top of the Major Leagues. Batting, however, is a different story. We’re currently setting a record for the worst batting average and on-base percentage in 20 years of franchise history, and our slugging record is the third worst in club history.

We are not in or close to first place in the division right now because we simply can’t execute consistently on offense. So, what to do? Right now, the Nationals are a hangnail away from putting catcher’s gear on the 500th fan through the turnstiles on game day, so the odds that we’ll give up a defensively competent catcher are near zero, even if he looks like he couldn’t hit a backyard whiffle ball right now. Seasonal attrition is taking its toll on the league, and there simply isn’t a deep pool of consistent singles and doubles hitters. We do have Christian Yelich in the wings, though…Is it time to Harperize the Marlins?

When you see as many seriously talented guys as we have hitting so poorly and so inconsistently for so long, questions and doubts start to creep around in the dustier corners of your mind. When you drop nine of ten games after a record-breaking month and then lose 11-0 with one freakin’ hit in nine innings of ball, you start taking a long, hard look at your GM and your hitting coach.

Larry Beinfest and Eduardo Perez own a share of the blame right now. Beinfest hired a team that is (with two exceptions: Giancarlo Stanton and Hanley Ramirez) a collection of bloop and chop singles hitters, and Perez hasn’t taught them how to hit for line drive singles and doubles. I’ve seen precious little plate discipline this year (John Buck is another notable exception), and too many batters swinging at first pitches and whiffing at low and away fastballs on  3-1 counts. It might seem easy to wag your finger in Ozzie Guillen’s direction, but it sure seems like he is the steadying influence that is keeping hysteria at bay. Like many slumps, there are many causes, and it’s difficult to say with any certainty that any one weakness is the true source of the misery.

Baseball being the game of failure that it is, and slumps and streaks being what they are, it’s time for our guys to figure out how to stretch the streaks and shorten the slumps. Going 1-9 to date in June means that something has to change, lest we are mistaken for the crazy guy that keeps beating his head on a wall, expecting a different result each time. Shortening slumps is a skill that elite players and clubs have. Unfortunately, we’re still developing that skill.

And still, as always, tomorrow is another day. Go Fish!

The Morrison demotion was quite a shocker. There are many factors that could have gone into the demotion, and the Marlins may have been considering all sorts of different angles. Let’s take a look at the possible different angles that the team could have taken to justify the decision.

Performance

Morrison asked for the reasoning behind the team’s decision, and he feels he did not get much of a response.

“They didn’t give me anything,” Morrison said. “I asked for an explanation and the one I got was, ‘What are you hitting, .240?’”

“I never thought we’d see Logan hitting in the .240s, ever,” [Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest] said. “Obviously, he’s a much better hitter than he’s shown. I’m not going to pin that on it as a specific, but he needs to work on all aspects of being a Major Leaguer, and then he’ll come back here.”

These are the initial reasons that came out when the story was first released. Clearly this cannot be the sole reason why Morrison was demoted, and indeed Larry Beinfest himself essentially said that there is more to it than that. However, Morrison claims that the explanation he received was that he was batting .240.

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Let me go ahead and say this flat out before the discussion continues:

The Marlins will not trade Hanley Ramirez this season or in this offseason.

To do so would require an act of desperation or stupidity from this staff, and that is something president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest simply would not allow. The front office has done its share of stupid things before, in particular the horrific Emilio Bonifacio – Josh Willingham swap that is now entirely dependent on Jake Smolinski panning out at all, but never could I imagine them doing something as stupid as trading Ramirez at this point. There are many obvious reasons as to why a deal at this point would be so ridiculous that even the cost-conscious Marlins would refuse to do such a thing.

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What is your confidence level in the Marlins front office, led by Larry Beinfest and Michael Hill, as compared to what it was at before the 2006 season?

The reason why I frame the question as such is that this set of seasons has been the most intriguing, I feel, in Marlins history. Never have the Marlins been so interesting on a year-to-year basis as they have been since the fire sale of 2006. Once the team gathered the nucleus of the 2006 era together, they had mostly separated themselves from the 2003 World Series team, with only Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis remaining and sure to be on their way out soon as well. Since then, the team has had its ups and downs in terms of personnel moves, and such moves have to have had some effect on the confidence you as Marlins have in the front office’s typically unquestioned wisdom. I would love to hear what you all think.

First, let’s go through a ledger of some of the moves the team has made since the start of the 2006 season:

- Acquired Cody Ross for what amounts to nothing from the Cincinnati Reds

- Signed Wes Helms for the 2006 season, then let him go before 2007

- Signed Aaron Boone to play the honorary “Wes Helms corner infield/pinch-hitter” role

- Traded Cabrera and Willis for multiple players including Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller, and Burke Badenhop

- Signed Jorge Cantu off the scrap heap

- Traded Mike Jacobs for Leo Nunez

- Traded Gaby Hernandez for Arthur Rhodes (rental)

- Traded Josh Willingham and Scott Olsen for Emilio Bonifacio and Jake Smolinski

- Traded Aaron Thompson for Nick Johnson (rental)

- Did not offer arbitration to Kiko Calero and Johnson after 2009

- Allowed San Francisco Giants to take Ross on waivers

- Traded Dan Uggla for Omar Infante and Mike Dunn

- Signed John Buck to three-year, $18M deal

- Signed Javier Vazquez to one-year, $7M deal

I’m sure there were others, but those seemed like the pertinent ones to mention. What do you think of these and other moves that the Marlins front office has made? Judge these and any other player personnel moves (or non-moves) in any way. Feel free to comment on the comments section here and vote in the poll below. Tell me what you think, and let’s discuss it together!