Wednesday, November 14, 2012

JEFFREY LORIA IS THE SCUM OF THE EARTH: A ROUNDUP


It's been pretty hard keeping up with what's being said about the Marlins these days, so I thought I'd be kind enough to gather it all in one place for you. Think of it as CliffsNotes. CliffsNotes that make you want to punch a baby. Enjoy. Please don't punch any babies. But, if you do punch a baby, I'd totally understand.




Loria was out in front of all the cameras when the ballpark was about to open, taking a lot of pictures with his monument, dragging a shaking and sad Muhammad Ali into his look-at-me on Opening Day. But he goes into deep hiding now, away from all the questions. You can find him in that empty place where other humans might keep a conscience.  -Dan Le Batard

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/14/3097779/miami-marlins-and-fans-a-history.html#storylink=cpy



So why does he do it, this grand experiment? Why does Jeffrey Loria toy with the people of Florida so? One could venture that he’s collecting important data, mapping patterns of human behavior that will be used in the future to contribute towards the greater good of all mankind. One could surmise that Jeffrey Loria is being selfless in this endeavor, willfully casting himself as the villain, valiantly taking the brunt of his methods scrutiny and criticism in order to keep his experiment pure and uncorrupted. One could hypothesize that Jeffrey Loria is a martyr for truth, and mathematics, and science. That, or he’s just a total dick.  -Kyle Davis



In return, the Marlins are getting a handful of prospects and the confirmation that team owner Jeffrey Loria is a giant penis-headed dipshit.  -Chris Joseph



The last remaining argument against Loria is that he broke his covenant with fans, that he's no longer even pretending to value winning over profit. There are many Marlins fans who feel betrayed by the team's tear-down, just as there were Expos fans who were crushed by that team's demise. Those are legitimate concerns. They're also not Loria's concerns. The money will still roll in, and Major League Baseball won't do anything to threaten his seat at the table. If and when he does decide to sell the team, another colossal payout will be his reward.  -Jonah Keri



The Marlins netted average revenue sharing proceeds of $46 million per year in 2008 and 2009, along with $31 million in MLB Central Fund revenue and $8 million in MLB properties royalties, for a total of $85 million in MLB (or non-Marlins) revenue. Stadium and television revenue (both numbers which are surely higher now, though by what degree is hard to estimate*) came in at roughly $40 million. Operating expenses excluding player salaries averaged $75 million in those years, with debt expense of $5.5 million. That gives the Marlins $45.5 million to work with: keep player payroll below that level, and the difference (less taxes) is all profit. Even with crappy attendance, a Marlins team with payroll in the $30 million range is highly profitable (we're disregarding noncash expenses like depreciation and amortization for simplicity).  -David Hill



We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria because it is no small feat these days to emerge as the most deplorable person in sports. The competition is extraordinarily tough. Just to win Tuesday’s battle of reprobates, Loria had to nose out the former football star Jerramy Stevens, his rapsheet long enough to reach Jupiter, who was arrested on charges of assaulting his fiancĂ©e, the soccer player Hope Solo, a day before their planned wedding day. And both needed to edge ahead of the N.H.L., which is insulting each and every one of its fans with its “Save Us From Ourselves!” player lockout stretching into Month 2  -Lynn Zinser




Fortunately, management discerned immediately that the disastrous 2012 season was Guillen's fault, which cleared baseball operations of its responsibility and set them on the path to tidy up, $10 or $20 million at a time. Mike Redmond will manage what's left. He was in A-ball last season, and apparently will do much of the same work next season.  -Tim Brown



I’d say that commissioner Bud Selig should invoke his “best interest of baseball” powers to nullify the blockbuster. But frankly, the best interests of baseball would be better served if the deal led to Loria’s demise.  -Ken Rosenthal



At the moment, that might not seem like the greatest thing. But nobody lives forever. Someday the Marlins will be owned by someone who actually gives a tinker's damn about winning. And when that day arrives, the local fans might actually remember the man who built the ballpark with at least a tinge of affection.  -Rob Neyer



It was one thing when Loria and his little henchman David Samson swaggered into that New York tavern at 12:01 a.m. last November on the first day clubs could negotiate with free agents and made a big show for Jose Reyes.

It is quite another thing when one year later Loria and Co. are shipping Reyes -- and everyone else they signed last winter -- across international borders in some sort of twisted joke that even the World Trade Organization surely will condemn in coming days.  -Scott Miller



In the end, you wonder why Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria didn't just follow his players out of the country on Tuesday. He has no future here. Baseball has no future with him here.  -Dave Hyde



As news of the trade spread, Choate said, he followed along on his computer as more and more names kept being added to the deal. Choate said a friend compared it to a fantasy football trade that would be nixed by the league manager.  -Tyler Kepner



They may continue to play baseball games in Miami, but baseball is merely the MacGuffin which drives the plot for the shysters in this ownership group and they will lie to anyone about anything in order to further it.  In so doing, they are well on their way to destroying yet another market which should, by all rights, be fantastic for baseball.  -Craig Calcaterra



Loria amassed his fortune as an art dealer. Now he looks like a scam artist. Certainly the bait-and-switch has rarely been pulled off so artfully.  -Matthew Pouliot



The Marlins can claim the money comes from tourism-tax dollars. Truth is, Miami-Dade County moved general-use monies from property taxes to free up the tourist cash. This is the dirtiest secret of Selig's two decades as commissioner: The "golden era" of which he so often brags came off the taxpayer's teat.  -Jeff Passan



Three years ago, the Marlins reached an agreement with the players' union to increase spending in the wake of complaints team payroll had been so small as to violate baseball's revenue sharing provisions. But the trade with Toronto leaves the Marlins with an estimated opening day payroll of $34 million, which would be their lowest since 2008. Oakland had the lowest payroll in the majors last year at $59.5 million.  -Steven Wine



“I had kind of a bitter end to what was going on but I couldn’t have felt better about going home. I told them that,” he said. “I’ve always been a stand-up guy for everybody I played for. Every city I’ve tried to be that type of person for an organization. I kind of took that to heart everywhere I went to. That’s why I would go back to everywhere I went to except I would never go back to [the Marlins].  -Mike Cameron



And now, instead of having a bad baseball team, Miami residents have a comically bad baseball team and a debt-ridden stadium they never wanted. It’s a lesson in the corporate welfare that has taken over sports, leaving cities, states, and their residents with a bill that they were promised would pay itself. South Florida’s Major League Baseball experiment, experts are saying, is over. What that means isn’t entirely clear — the Marlins aren’t going anywhere now that they have their stadium. But no matter what happens with that experiment, no matter what happens with Miami’s baseball team, Marlins Park and its $2.4-billion tab will be there, a constant reminder that stadium deals gone wrong aren’t the exception, they’re the rule.  -Travis Waldron

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/14/3095948/the-joke-is-on-us-jeffrey-loria.html#storylink=cpy











And of course, there's this. There. That should about cover you.

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