How Jeffrey Loria almost ruined the Miami Marlins

Jeffrey Loria is a heavily disliked figure in sports history. He ruined the Montreal Expos first. The fact that The Miami Marlins have trouble with attendance and remaining popular with the fanbase is entirely due to him. At least unlike Montreal, Miami still has a team and there are brighter time ahead. Let’s dive into what made Loria such a bad owner and what he did to hurt the team.

Jeffrey Loria is responsible for most of the problems that the Miami Marlins have today.

Jeffrey Loria started his career as a sports team owner with the Montreal Expos. He officially took over the team in 1999 and did basically nothing to improve the terrible farm system or to sign star players in free agency. Loria demanded that Montreal build the team a new stadium and cost the franchise English speaking broadcasting with his financial demands.

As the city began to try and work out a solution with him, he then bought the then Florida Marlins and took most everything from the team with him. It wasn’t long before MLB took over the Montreal Expos and moved them to Washington, renaming them the Washington Nationals and getting them new owners.

Jeffrey Loria took over the Miami Marlins (the franchise was known as the Florida Marlins at the time) and ended up seriously hurting the team right away. He did nothing to improve on the 2003 World Championship and let team leader Iván Rodríguez leave as a free agent. He later claimed that the team wasn’t making money and threatened to move the team unless a new stadium was built. During construction of the current stadium, it was revealed that Loria was lying, when the team’s financials were leaked…the team was actually making money. Loria continued by firing manager Joe Girardi after he won Manager of the Year and then popular announcer Tommy Hutton.

The main thing that Jeffrey Loria did is he refused to spend money on improving the team, trading away future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera and refusing to sign free agents other than for show prior to the 2012 season. Loria’s moves negatively affected the fanbase, with many losing trust in the team. Luckily Loria finally sold the team in 2017. There was a dynasty in that early 2000’s that never materialized and the blame goes to the worst owner in MLB history: Jeffrey Loria.