The going-nowhere-fast Miami Marlins officially pulled the plug on their 2012 season yesterday in dealing P Anibel Sanchez and 2B Omar Infante to Detroit in exchange for P Jacob Turner and a pair of prospects. While a particularly dimwitted evening host on Mad Dog Radio assured his dozens of listeners last night there was no cause for alarm in South Beach — that with their glittering new ballpark, it was just a matter of time before the locals finally embraced the Marlins — the far more knowledgeable Buster Olney didn’t hesitate to call the dumping of Sanchez and Infante the start of a clearance sale (“the Marlins are willing to deal Hanley Ramirez and Josh Johnson and anybody else not nailed to the floor…now can you understand why Pujols wanted a no-trade clause when the Marlins pursued him in free agency last winter?”). Mindful that his own tenure might hang in the balance, manager Ozzie Guillen begged the handful of persons who still attend Marlins games to LEAVE JEFFREY LORIA ALONE! From the Palm Beach Post’s Joe Capozzi :
“We’ve been talking about this for the last three weeks. The front office was very optimistic — very optimistic bout this ballclub and we don’t show them any side to be more optimistic. The trade? I don’t know how to say it in English, but I’ve never felt this bad about a trade in my career as a manager, but I think I did because I wanted those guys to play for me as long as they could. It was embarrassing for me that we had to make a move, that kind of move because we played very bad.”
“Miami, I know they’re used to blaming the front office. I was here before and they’ve done some stuff here that a lot of people thought they shouldn’t do that, when they went and broke up the team. I think if there’s anybody out there that wants to blame somebody, blame the people wearing this uniform, don’t blame the people who wear ties and sport coats. Nope. They do a great job.
“They did everything they could to keep this team together. They spent a lot of money, a lot of time, we add a player. If there’s anybody that has to be blamed, I take the blame and anybody besides me, the players have to take the blame.