If you didn’t see enough of it last night as the news initially broke, you’re going to see plenty of columns, editorials and fiery rants today about how Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is a scumbag because he is willingly killing his second baseball franchise because he’s horrible at what he does. And many of them will be great - I like this effort by Yahoo!'s Jeff Passan and this more subtle rundown by Deadspin - because as much as writers, analysts and experts love to argue about every little meaningless thing in sports, hatred for Loria runs deep within the majority. Jeffrey Loria destroyed the Montreal Expos and now he is destroying the Miami Marlins. That’s pretty much all you need to know.
So why? Why did the Marlins trade Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, John Buck, Emilio Bonifacio and Mark Buehrle to the Toronto Blue Jays for Yunel Escobar and several prospects that don’t even include Toronto’s best? Was it a brilliant move to clear money? Was it an admittance of mistakes in even signing Reyes and Buehrle in the first place? Was it just the same old fire sale that we’ve come to expect from the Marlins? Or is it more likely the story of a man under investigation by the SEC for allegedly fleecing the city of Miami in the construction of a new baseball stadium that he couldn’t even fill with a stable of stars because he already created a product so tainted within the community that people refuse to buy in until his stink is washed away?
Who knows? But while Toronto fans celebrate their new windfall of more than $150 million in guaranteed contracts from guys who dug their own graves by signing with a franchise famous for not allowing no-trade clauses, there are Marlins fans and baseball fans in general who can see just how terrible this is. For Miami, for baseball, for fairness. Jeffrey Loria sucks, my friends. And people on Twitter really want you to know that.
(Banner GIF via)
For best results and enjoyment, listen to this while you read these Tweets:
For starters, here are some Marlins player responses:
And someone immediately had some fun with Loria's Wikipedia profile. It has since been corrected but I was able to screen grab it in time. Click for larger images.
(Via)
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I like the nuance of “go back to selling art, queer.” Especially when used as a hashtag
Guys, they’re just clearing salary room to make a run at Josh Hamilton, Kyle Lohse, Rafael Soriano, and Zack Greinke!
…or their non-union, Mexican equivalents.
Logbloggio Vlagdinorf (OR SOMETHING TO THAT EFFECT)
When reached for comment, Carlos Zambrano simply stated “We stinks”
Lobster Mobster,
I think this is the origin story of Logglobo Vlandignorf and a relevant read after the trade story. It loses a little since the pictures of Loria are no longer linked but it is still hilarious and I can actually see him saying similar things in interviews over the next few days.
fLORIdA: /gets up from under table
Look bitch, I want you to take a direct look into the center of my ass
fLORIdA: Watch closely, I’m going to pull a full-grown Venezuelan out of my ass. /reaches into own ass
fLORIdA: Boom, Renyel Pinto, right there, right out of my ass. What’s that? You want a Kyle Farnsworth? How about a Kyle Farnsworth who is even WORSE at pitching
fLORIdA: /pulls lanky white redneck out of ass
Burke Badenhop.
fLORIdA: Eulogio De La Cruz, Rick VandenHurk… watch this, I’m going to just type a bunch of letters… Logglobo Vlandignorf. BOOM, THERE’S OUR CLOSER.
fLORIdA: you look at those clumps of a lower-level of turd melting in the Miami sun and tell me Scott F***ing Proctor isn’t a blockbuster signing
fLORIdA: We might as well have signed Sandy Fri**en Koufax, you dumb bitch
[www.aolnews.com]
This has the makings of a new “The Dugout.” Make it happen Brandon!
Real talk: There’s probably a 60% chance that Miami is going to win this trade.
I definitely don’t disagree with that.
Reyes is injury prone with his legs (his best attribute) and about to play at least half his games on turf. Johnson has ace potential, but he’s still young and anything can happen. Buehrle is a crafty older guy who is more of a #3 (at best) this stage of his career.
The problem isn’t with whether or not the Marlins happen to win this trade down the line (I actually agree with you), it’s that the Marlins have little credibility with their fans at this point. At least when the A’s trade their guys away, they have a track record of reloading and getting great value in return. Also, Billy Beane or the owner don’t announce they’re gonna start spending money on free agents; they openly acknowledge they’re cheap. Yeah, the Marlins have gotten some good returns in trades, but for every Beckett/Lowell haul (Hanley and Sanchez), there’s a Miguel Cabrera/Dontrelle Willis trade that saw little to no return.
I feel really bad for like the 3 Marlins fans I know.
The only way the Jays can win this trade is if they make the playoffs. In all likeliness, their best shot to making the playoffs is this year. They only have one year as Johnson will be a Yankees or Red Sox member in a year. Buehrle is expected to be the ace. If he pitched the way he did last year, the Jays won’t make the playoffs. He’s also getting pretty old, which won’t help the Jays’ chances in the future. Escobar is going to be better than Reyes next year and beyond (assuming he can keep his politics out of his game). And those prospects the Jays gave up are pretty good.
I will say this. If the Jays don’t make the playoffs in the next 3 years and this experiment fails, their franchise will be in some serious trouble.
ummmmm u’re wrong. Buehrle isn’t expected to be the Ace at all(tho is is solid). Why would anyone expect an aging none power pitcher to be their Ace when they have Brandon Morrow? Alex Anthopolis isn’t a complte idiot u know. He’s gonna talk to josh johnson about an extension once this goes through. If not he will trade him before the season ends. Even without Josh Johnson in the rotation, Brandon Morrow is the Incumbent Ace. If you knew anything about the Jays, u would know that even with Ricky Romero sucking as bad as he did, he was STILL the #1. If no pitching was added, he was still going to be #1. Now that Josh johnson is in play, they will take the pressure off him and slot him in a more comfortable 3, might put him at 2 if they want to go Righty, lefty, righty. Morrow, Johnson, Romero, Buerhle. How can u say Escobar is going to be better than Reyes? Reyes had a down year and still killed Escobar in every statistical area. Escobar had the 2nd worst avg. among AL 2nd baseman. Jose Reyes is recently removed from being an NL batting champion and Yunel Escobar has had 1, count 1 successful offensive season………….Dude honestly, if u said that in the long run hechavarria would be better than jose reyes (i would disagree) i would find it a valid statement, but YUNEL “you’re a faggot Escobar” U r crazy my friend, b/c that guy is shit……
I thought that stocking the team with Hispanics was supposed to be a successful fan-pander (or, “fander”)?
The Timberwolves are now staring at their team photo and re-crunching their financial projections.
Even as a Blue Jay fan I feel like I need a shower after this deal.
But, Hey, they still have that fancy looking thing that goes ’round when someone hits a homerun.
Marlins fans hate Loria, why? BECAUSE LORIA IS A BASTARD-MAN!
You may have missed this in slide #3 with the screengrabs, but the second screenshot has changed the team name to the “Miami Maricons,” which translates from Espanol into “Miami Faggots.” And you may remember, Maricon was a term new Miami Marlin Yunel Escobar used on his eye black while on the Blue Jays. Synergy!
Oops, meant slide #4