Dee Gordon was traded from the Marlins to the Mariners in the first move made under the cost-cutting regime of the Marlins’ new owners. He was followed out the door by Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna.
The Sun-Sentinal caught up with Gordon recently as he worked out, preparing to move to the outfield given that Robinson Cano is the Mariners second baseman. Gordon was asked about the Marlins new direction. He did not mince words:
“I didn’t ask for this . . . It’s terrible, it’s almost — I’m not even going to say almost. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing. I don’t want to bash anyone, but what’s happened is not good . . . No disrespect to anybody, but those are your best three players. You let them go, not because they underperformed. But because of something you can’t take care of.”
“You” being new ownership and “making payroll” being the thing they can’t take care of.
Gordon might be expected to react negatively in any situation in which he is traded from a team he seemed to like. But this is not just a personal reaction. He seems, like many other people, to be confused how you can find over a billion dollars to buy a baseball team only to immediately pursue a course of austerity:
“At first it was like, ha ha ha, they bought the team and they’re going to trade us,” Gordon said. “We were like, there’s no way you can buy a team for $1 billion and have to trade everybody.”
Guess he was wrong about that. Guess he, like most people, did not understand that the Sherman/Jeter ownership bid was all about financing it with debt, paying off the debt with team revenue and, eventually one assumes, flipping the team for a profit.
