Extremely Mota-vated
How irked are Florida Marlins fans at the ongoing fire sale? Probably not very, because in the two seasons since their World Series win, the Marlins hardly captured the imagination of the region. In 2004, their seasonal attendence was 1.7M with an average attendance of 21,539 a game to rank only 14th in the NL, ahead of only the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Montreal Expos. (By the way, terrible job, Pittsburgh. You can’t support your team with the delightful park they get to play in? Are the Penguins and Steelers really so much more compelling?) With the move of the Expos to Washington DC, another club catapulted over the the Florida franchise in 2005. This rendered the fish 15th in the league with 1.8M total attendance with an average of 22,872 a game despite not making the playoffs. Since the fans voted with their wallets, baseball in the Sunshine State is witnessing another exodus of talent from their tax-free climes.
At least Jeffrey Loria had Larry Beinfest wait a couple of seasons before selling off the team’s assets. A beneficiary of the payroll slashing are the Red Sox, who officially acquired Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, and Guillermo Mota on November 25th. In return, Boston bids adieu to Hanley Ramirez and three right-handed pitchers, Anibal Sanchez, Jesus Delgado (who turned out the be the player to be named later), and Harvey Garcia (who was thrown in to balance out the addition of Mota). Consensus amongst Florida Marlin blogs such as FishStripes and Maverick Ball is that they are happy to see Mota go. That’s how it goes with middle relievers, though. Red Sox fans were happy to see Todd Jones walk at the conclusion of 2003, and now see how he was rebounded for the Marlins this past season. The Red Sox threatened to walk from the deal if Mota was not included, and by happenstance or not, the Yankees had been inquiring about the pitcher. Like Mark Bellhorn and Alan Embree, they can have him when we’re done with him.
The trade was a group effort. Like so many things in Boston, a hodgepodge of personalities joined ot pursue a common goal. As the Big Dig is a major public works projects by committee and for a time the 2003 Red Sox had a bullpen by committee, this trade was executed by GM by committee. So what if too many chefs spoil the soup? Maybe it takes a lot of chefs like Bill Lajoie, Craig Shipley, Jed Hoyer, Ben Cherington, Peter Woodfork, and Jeremy Kapstein to make a great trade, which I think this is.
