Larry Beinfest was fired by the Miami Marlins on Friday after working for the team for 13 years. Crazy owner Jeffrey Loria, who supposedly began meddling with the team and making all baseball decisions, made the decision to ax his president of baseball operations.
“I have relieved Larry Beinfest of his duties so he may pursue other opportunities,” Loria said in a statement.
“Larry has worked with me for 13 years, making huge contributions to our efforts and serving as a partner to me in the process.”
At this point I’d typically gripe about how unfair and unjust this is because Beinfest is a great baseball executive while Loria is a horrible owner, but I suppose this is probably good for Beinfest. Not only will he not have to deal with Loria anymore, but maybe he’ll end up with the Los Angeles Angels.
It’s been reported for the past few months that either Angels manager Mike Scioscia or GM Jerry DiPoto will be gone after the season. Because owner Arte Moreno is so partial to Scioscia (the guy is signed through the year like 2060), I figured DiPoto will get canned. That would leave a vacancy at GM, and Beinfest, who is from Los Angeles, would be perfect to fill the role.
Beinfest put together a World Series winner in 2003 and, in my opinion, generally assembled a team that greatly outproduced its expectations based on limited financial resources.
Though the Miguel Cabrera trade yielded several busts, Beinfest got Anibal Sanchez and Hanley Ramirez back from the Boston Red Sox in the Josh Beckett deal; magically picked up Dan Uggla in the Rule 5 draft; and got Dontrelle Willis in a trade. Beinfest generally built a strong rotation, drafting guys like Josh Johnson or acquiring pitchers like Ricky Nolasco in trades.
The Marlins have been terrible for three seasons in a row. Last year’s experiment moving into the new park was a bust, so they blew up the team. Loria doesn’t put any money into his roster, so he shouldn’t expect great results, especially when the other teams in the NL East are spending and bringing in good players.
Thank you to Loria for firing Beinfest. Now we just need Moreno to bring him aboard.
