Miami Marlins and their Public Relations Firm

Nov 19, 2014; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins owner Jeffery Loria listens during a press conference at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro associated the Miami Marlins’ franchise turnaround to the November of 2012 fire sale trade with the Toronto Blue Jays. While the trade does look good now, there are plenty of holes in Frisaro’s argument that the front office deserves praise for that trade now.

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In my estimation, the begin of the turnaround for this Marlins franchise came on January 30, 2013. On that day, we learned that owner Jeffery Loria and the Marlins had switched Public Relation Firms to fix their destructed reputation.

The Miami Marlins, less than a year removed from opening a new stadium to much fanfare, are once again the least adored sports franchise in South Florida. After a debacle of a 2012 season followed by a fire sale of its best players, the Marlins need all the help they can get if they ever want to win back the team’s fan base. Local public relations firm The Jeffrey Group will get the chance to help. The Miami Herald reported Tuesday that the team has hired the firm, replacing RBB. RBB’s founding partner Bruce Rubin is a longtime friend of Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, according to the Herald.

Things had gotten so bad for Marlins ownership after the fire sale trade that the Marlins fan base had written a petition to President Barack Obama to force Loria to sell the Marlins.

Thanks to The Jeffery Group, the Marlins have done a complete 360 in terms on perception of the franchise. They became the big talk of the off-season, convincing Giancarlo Stanton to sign with the team long-term and being one of the teams at the center of attention at the Winter Meetings back in the beginning of December in San Diego.

So how did The Jeffery Group pull off this miraculous feat of turning around the Marlins image, which man around the league did not see as possible at the time? Propaganda is a strong word to use for a baseball franchise, but that is the word we’ll go with for the Marlins in this situation.

Here is how The Jeffery Group helped respin the Marlins image.

Next: Rewriting the history on 2012

Oct 7, 2014; St. Louis, MO, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Hanley Ramirez (13) is congratulated by second baseman Dee Gordon (9) after scoring a run against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 6th inning during game four of the 2014 NLDS baseball playoff game at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Step one: Rewrite the history of the 2012 season, to begin the reshaping of the image.

The Miami Marlins were 45-53 on July 26th, 2012, the day the team shipped out Hanley Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers. At the time of the trade, the Marlins were 9 games back of the Pittsburgh Pirates for a wild card spot in the National League.

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While the team was certainly not headed in the right direction at the time, they were a better team than the one that ended the season with 69 wins. If the front office kept the core together, there is a good chance the Marlins end up winning between 75 and 80 games that season. Not playoff caliber, but certainly not a 69 win team.

The Marlins argument after the 2013 season for 2012 was that “we won nearly the same amount of games as we did with a higher payroll in 2012.” They tend to leave out the part that they sold pieces off that made the team a 69 win team, instead of the mediocre team they actually were.

No, mediocrity was not going to be the best answer for the Marlins going forward and I maintain the Marlins made the smart baseball decision by ridding of the contracts that could have hampered their ability to contend. But the argument that the 2013 team was almost as good as the 2012 team is a farce. The talent on those two teams are not even comparable.

Next: Larry Beinfest, the scapegoat

Feb 12, 2013; Jupiter, FL, USA; Miami Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest (center) is seen in a golf cart during spring training at Roger Dean Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Step 2: Find the Scapegoat

The now highly praised trade, which we’ll get into later, was the doing of one Larry Beinfest. The same guy the Marlins fired after their 100-loss 2013 season. He was the man in charge of that trade, as well as the Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez trades made during the 2012 season.

On September 27th, 2013, the Marlins parted ways with Beinfest, who had been with the team since Loria bought the team in 2002. His 11-year tenure featured one World Series Championship, though most of the roster for that Championship was already in place when he took over the overseeing of the club, and a bunch of failed first round draft picks.

FanSided

When firing Beinfest, the Marlins could have shown they were tired of the same front office making the same mistakes 0over and over, except they didn’t. The team fired Beinfest and then changed the structure of the front office, promoting the guys that had worked directly underneath Beinfest. This was as if to say that Beinfest was the sole person responsible for the Marlins shortcomings, not the owner, not the president, nor the assistant GM’s.

Beinfest became the instant scapegoat for the Marlins franchise when the times got rough, but gets no credit today when discussing the core of the Miami Marlins. Though Beinfest had plenty of empty first round picks, he was in charge of the ballclub when Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Jose Fernandez were drafted. He was also in charge when Marcell Ozuna signed over from the Dominican Republic and was a little known prospect at 17-years old.

Catcher of the future J.T. Realmuto and Tom Koehler, the feel good story after being picked in the 22nd round, were both drafted in the Larry Beinfest ERA. Henderson Alvarez, Adeiny Hechavarria, and one of this team’s current top prospects, Justin Nicolino, were all brought in by Beinfest in that aforementioned Jays trade. Steve Cishek was another hidden gem uncovered by Beinfest.

So to count: the best starting outfield in baseball, 3/5’s of the team’s projected rotation, their closer, and several of the team’s top prospects were brought into the organization by Beinfest. And if we want to use the method Frisaro used in his post to talk about how the Jays trade benefited the Marlins in other trades, we’d spend another 500-750 words on the players the current front office traded this off-season that Beinfest brought in, to acquire the upgrades they added.

So while the Marlins paint the picture that the current front office has done a great job of assembling a potential contender, we forget that the main core of that team was brushed together by the team’s scapegoat, one Larry Beinfest.

Next: The infamous trade

Sep 28, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Miami Marlins starting pitcher Henderson Alvarez (37) throws during the second inning inning against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

Step 3: Take the Net Negative and Turn it into a Positive

Finally, we get to talk about the infamous fire sale trade itself. While the Marlins have sold the perspective that this trade was a major win for the Marlins, it’s not entirely true.

First all of all, the Marlins acquired a guy in Alvarez that posted a 4.85 ERA and a 5.18 FIP. He struck out just 78 hitters in 178 innings of work. While his game seemed like a better fit in Miami, there’s no way the Marlins saw the pitcher they got in 2014 at the time. Saying so would be an utter lie. The same holds true for Anthony DeSclafani, who the Marlins regarded as nothing more than a throw in at the time of the deal.

Also, the team got two backend top 100 prospects in Justin Nicolino and Jake Marisnick. Had they been willing to kick some money in for the contracts they shipped out, they’d likely been able to get a better prospect package. Can you imagine Noah Syndergaard, the top pitching prospect the Mets received for R.A. Dickey, waiting in the minors to pitch for the big league team? We wouldn’t be having any discussions about potentially needing a fifth starter.

On top of that, Michael Jong of Fishstripes took a look at the net WAR totals that were apart of the 2012 Jays-Marlins trade. Guess what, the Marlins don’t come out on top.

WAR Totals However, just for the record, if you wanted to check out how those players did, we can always tally Wins Above Replacement totals for the last two years. BLUE JAYS, 2013 FWAR RWAR AVG WAR SALARY ($MIL) Jose Reyes 6.5 5.4 6.0 23.0 Josh Johnson 0.5 -1.6 -0.6 11.3 Mark Buehrle 6.2 5.7 6.0 26.0 Emilio Bonifacio -0.4 0.1 -0.1 2.0 Total 12.8 9.6 11.3 62.3 The Jays essentially paid market value for those wins, but most of their losses came from Josh Johnson’s bad 2013. Without Johnson’s struggles, the Jays actually come out just fine, with two players playing at least up to their contract values. MARLINS, 2013 FWAR RWAR AVG WAR SALARY ($MIL) Henderson Alvarez 4.1 6.5 5.3 1.0 Adeiny Hechavarria -1.3 -1.1 -1.2 4.9 Jeff Mathis -0.4 0.0 -0.2 3 Derek Dietrich 0.3 -0.3 0.0 0.8 Jake Marisnick -0.2 0.1 0.0 0.1 Anthony DeSclafani 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 Former player salaries — — — 8.5 Total 2.6 5.3 4.0 18.5

In the last two years, the only net positive WAR player for the Marlins in that trade has been Henderson Alvarez. Other than that, the Marlins haven’t gotten great production from the other players. But to be fair, it’s harder to judge prospects in this way.

Those numbers also further drive home the point that the Marlins have gotten more out of their core players than any player associated with the Jays trade. The majority of the core was once again put together by Beinfest, as was this trade.

Next: Conclusion?