Derek Jeter stepped down as CEO of the Miami Marlins on Monday. He stated that the team’s vision for the future is different than from what he signed up for 4 years ago.
The final tipping point appeared to be ownership nixing his request to add $10-$15 million to the team’s payroll after the labor lockout ends after previously having approved it.
During Jeter’s 4-year tenure as CEO of the Marlins they only won 40% of their games. Not counting the Covid shortened 2020 season, the most games that Miami won in a season was a paltry 67 games. But it’s tough to blame Jeter for this lack of success.
Although the Marlins have won 2 World Series titles in their 29-year history, the other 27 years have usually resulted in them fielding a noncompetitive team. Other than losing a lot of games, the other common factors over the years have been having one of MLBs lowest team payrolls, trading star players before having to pay them the big money and not signing significant free agents from other teams.
All of these trends continued under Jeter’s stewardship and more importantly, under the leadership of primary owner Bruce Sherman. Over the last 4 years they have traded away Giancarlo Stanton, Marcel Ozuna, Christian Yelich and J.T. Realmuto. They even traded away the few star players they did acquire during that time by trading away Starling Marte and Adam Duvall. That’s the making of a pretty good All-Star team folks!
Historically, Marlins owners have not had the deep pockets of many other MLB owners and to make matters worse, they are usually near the bottom of the league in attendance. In fact they have drawn the fewest fans of any MLB team for the last 3 seasons, not including the 2020 season where fans weren’t allowed due to Covid.
This lack of indifference from the local fanbase also results in less money for local TV and radio rights, a key financial component for all MLB teams.
As a result, the Marlins player payroll is significantly less than other teams. The Los Angles Dodgers had the highest payroll in 2021 at $266 million. The Yankees spent $206 million. As for the Marlins, they ranked 27th out of 30 teams with a team payroll of only $58 million.
To further illustrate the financial weakness of the Marlins versus the rest of MLB, Forbes values the Yankees franchise at $5.2 billion whereas the Marlins value is the last in baseball at $990 million.
The Marlins cross-state rival, the Tampa Bay Rays, financial situation and attendance is remarkably similar to that of the Marlins. Although the Rays have yet to win a World Series title, they have been more competitive of late than the Marlins as they have done a better job of drafting and developing players.
Based on the extremely poor attendance for both franchises, it may be time for MLB to move both franchises to another city that would be more receptive. Las Vegas, Charlotte, Portland and Montreal could all be options.
What kind of shape has Jeter left the Marlins franchise in for the near future? Well it depends on your perspective. Their starting rotation has a bevy of talented studs that could make it one of the top starting staffs in the league in 2022 & beyond.
Get familiar with the names Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez, Trevor Rogers, Sixto Sanchez, Edward Cabrera, Elieser Hernandez and Max Meyer. These guys are all extremely talented and they will need to maximize that talent as the Marlins offense will once again be lacking. Expect a lot of low scoring games when the Marlins are involved.
I don’t know what the Marlins next CEO will be able to do differently than Jeter as many decisions will continue to be financially driven as opposed to baseball driven.
Would Marlins attendance increase significantly if they were to become a consistently competitive team? No one knows the answer to that question.
Will the Marlins relocate? It isn’t likely as the City of Miami issued 40-year bonds to finance 80% of the stadium construction and the Marlins have a long-term lease.
If you’re a Marlins fan you can take solace in watching what should be one of the best starting rotations in baseball and hope the team can find a few bats to help them out.
