One of the Biggest Blunders of the New Century

With the 24^th lowest payroll in Major League Baseball in 2011, it’s no secret that the Florida Marlins don’t have a whole lot of money to work with.  The Marlins have struggled so mightily with attendance this season that they were forced to close their upper deck for the remainder of this seasons’ home games effective July 13^th.  The vicious cycle of young  and budding superstars being shipped to the Red Sox, Yankees and Phillies of the world explains why the Marlins opted to trade Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Wills a little over three and one half years ago during the 2007 MLB Winter Meetings.

This trade will go down as one of the worst of first decade of the new century as I have mentioned before on my 1:00PM Monday-Friday on Lasell College Radio (who’s to say I can’t insert some shameless self promotion?).  On December 5th 2007 the Marlins traded Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis in exchange for Cameron Maybin, pitcher Andrew Miller, catcher Mike Rabelo and minor league pitchers Eulogio De La Cruz, Dallas Trahern and Burke Badenhop.  Free agency was looming for both Willis and Cabrera and the Marlins simply do not have purse to hand these players the contracts they would command on the open market.

Of these six prospects received by the Marlins, three are in the major leagues, (Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller, and Burke Badenhop) with just one still on the Marlins in Badenhop.  The other three players are going to rot away in the minors as “organizational depth” and live out the rest of their baseball careers taking long bus trips on away games.  The other two players still in the majors were traded just this past offseason; it’s evident the Marlins swung and missed on this trade and the 2010 offseason Maybin and Miller trades proved they were just trying to recoup their losses as best they could.  The Marlins flipped Miller to the Red Sox in exchange for left-handed reliever Dustin Richardson.  Less than 24 hours later on the same day the Marlins then shipped Cameron Maybin to the Padres for two right-handed relievers in Ryan Webb and Edward Mujica.

Short version: the Marlins gave away Miguel Cabrera in exchange for three decent middle relievers.  Badenhop has been a reasonable contributor to the team since 2008 and Webb/Mujica have fit in nicely in 2011, but would any GM in his right mind deal one of the top hitters in all of baseball in exchange for relief help?  I speculate the near simultaneous trades of Miller and Maybin on November 13^th last offseason may have come out of both angst and frustration, a clear display Marlins GM Larry Beinfest still has a sour taste in his mouth from this blunder.  I’m not exactly sure how it would be structured, but Major League Baseball may need to work towards a universal salary cap if rip off trades of this magnitude continue to become more and more commonplace at the expense of small-market teams.