You can take the name “Florida” out of the Marlins. You can replace the color scheme. You can give them a new stadium. You can spend a lot of money on a team in the offseason.
You can do all of these things as part of a major effort to rebrand the Marlins Franchise. Not only were the Marlins supposed to be competitive this year, but they were supposed to be turning over a new leaf in their massive sell off strategy. They even traded FOR Carlos Lee a few weeks to show that they are serious this year. Buster Olney has similar sentiments.
Except things just didn’t work out and they ended up trading Anibal Sanchez, Omar Infante, Hanley Ramirez and Randy Choate over the last couple of days.
Look, I get that its a good baseball move to trade these guys, its just bizarre that after this campaign that the Marlins would be different this year, they’re the same. Now they are saddled with three large contracts and a diminishing amount of support pieces.
Finally, the other major news story over night is the Phillies and Hamels have reached a 6-year, 144 million dollar extension. Where the money comes from, who knows but the Phillies keep one of their best pitchers and further lock themselves into a future that looks similar and older to what they have now.
