Marlins Annual Fire Sale Begins

"We deserve to lose more than Josh Beckett. We deserve to lose this baseball team. We are, bar none, the worst major-league city in North America. We are the only area anywhere on this continent that could draw 800,000 fans below league average for a 2004 defending champion that was playoff-relevant until the season's last month."

That's Miami Herald columnist Den Lebatard's opinion of his hometown Florida Marlins and their fans. It seems like baseball tradition that the Marlins spend the regular season buidling up young stars in order to move them in the off-season. They act like a minor league squad whose playing in the big leagues only to promote their talent for the rest of the league to grab hold of the players they can no longer afford.

Here's a story from July, 2002 about that year's fire sale.

Here's a story from 2001 talking about pitchers the Marlins had accumulated then from previous fire sales.

And how can we forget the 1997 Marlins roster that won the World Series only to be dismantled.

More talent has flown through Florida in the past 10 years than any other city. If only their fans would realize it.

Dan