By Seth Herrold
The Florida Marlins are at it again. Scratch that. The Miami Marlins are at it again. The team with the newest name in baseball is going back to the old blueprint that has worked for them in the past, twice.
On Wednesday, Miami landed one of the top arms on the free-agent market in Mark Buehrle. This move came on the heels of the signings of Jose Reyes and Heath Bell, two other big names on the market.
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
Miami signed Reyes to a $106 million six-year contract, Buehrle to a $58 million four-year contract and Bell to a $27 million three-year contract. Obviously, the Marlins have money to spend, but at the same time the Buehrle deal may have pushed Miami over the edge as the team withdrew their offer to Albert Pujols after the signing. Pujols ended up signing with the Los Angeles Angels today for 10 years and $250 million.
For those of you thinking this sounds like the NBA’s Miami Heat two summers ago when they threw out the big bucks to draw stars to town, it is very similar. But it wasn’t the Heat that wrote this book. No, the Marlins have been down this road before. Twice actually. In 1997 and 2003 Miami, then the Florida Marlins, were among the top spenders in the free-agency market. Unlike the Heat, however, their stars delivered and the Marlins won the World Series in each season. In 1997 it was guys like Gary Sheffield and Bobby Bonilla and in 2003 it was Ivan Rodriguez and Josh Beckett.
Following both World Series, the Marlins lost the majority of their championship teams. I will be surprised if any of the three big names Miami landed this off-season see their contract with the Marlins through to the end. Miami, in my mind, is a World Series contender over the next two years, or maybe three, but that may be a stretch. Miami wasn’t interested in paying out big contracts for several years in a row, just a couple to get that title. Then they went about trading off the players that were costing the most.
The strategy isn’t ideal, because it doesn’t get you long-term success, something the Royals are looking for by riding it out with young talented players. While it isn’t ideal, however, it has obviously worked, twice. If it works again, it will be three World Series titles in 16 seasons; that is one championship almost every five years. If the Marlins do win the World Series in 2012, they will be the only team other than the New York Yankees to win three or more World Series titles since 1997. So while the strategy Miami uses to win World Series titles doesn’t set the team up for year after year contending, it’s hard to argue with the results. Of course Miami still has to win the World Series this season to be on a title level with the Yankees. St. Louis or Boston could go to three titles since 1997 with one this year as well.
As a fan of a team that hasn’t won a World Series since a couple of months after my first birthday, it’s easy to be envious of Miami and the titles they have won and even more envious of their owner, who makes Royals’ owner Dave Glass look like a neighborhood bum with his spending. I will admit, Glass has gotten better lately, though. While I prefer a strategy like the Royals that, hopefully, sets a team up for a multi-year run at World Series championships, I certainly won’t knock a system that might just pay off three times in a row.