Cote: Jazz trade continues Miami Marlins’ losing cycle of talent-for-prospects cost cutting | Opinion

The Miami Marlins continue their perpetual rebuilding toward a future that never seems to get here with a franchise strategy of not spending -- the floundering Fish as sports’ sad epitome of the axiom, “You get what you pay for.”

MLB’s trade season culminating with Tuesday’s 6 p.m. deal deadline is when the Marlins, always sellers, are most fully exposed as a team not so much interested in winning as in trading away players with big-league salaries in exchange for prospects who might (or might not) someday be good but in the meantime come cheap.

Rinse, repeat, keep losing, and continue not half-filling your home ballpark.

It’s called loanDepot Park, by the way, after a mortgage lender. Perhaps the company could loan Bruce Sherman enough money to spend on players to be competitive. Because the Marlins owner is either unable or simply unwilling to do that, and the results are a team currently 39-67 (third-worst in baseball), and averaging 13,215 in attendance.

That crowd average ranks 29th of 30, ahead of only the team actively maneuvering to leave Oakland.

Marlins fans who show up every game and spend to watch this product deserve a medal. The surprise is that the ones who do show obviously care about their team yet are so docile. They should be holding up signs exhorting Sherman to spend or sell. There is a mass protest of Sherman going on, of course. It is seen and heard in the tens of thousands of fans not going to games.

The Marlins strategy is to be smarter than other teams. The blind spot in that is that others teams are just as smart and spend.

Miami’s overall player payroll of $99.2 million ranks 27th in MLB and the active 26-man payroll of $40 million rank 29th. Both figures are last in the NL East. The rival Mets, Phillies and Braves ranked first, fourth and fifth in overall payrolls, spending a combined $797. 3 million, with winning results to show for it.

Barring aberrant luck like a wild-card playoff spot last year because of a 33-13 record in one-run games, Miami cannot consistently compete spending so little. Yet the doomed cycle continues.

Latest example was the weekend trade of popular Jazz Chisholm to the big-spending Yankees in exchange for three prospects in catcher Agustin Ramirez and infielders Jared Serna and Abrahan Ramirez.

This deal does not seem terrible, I must say. Chisholm was heavy on flash and hype but never really lived up. Trading away starting pitcher Zac Gallen to Arizona to get him in 2019 proved a bad deal for Miami. And Augustin Ramirez was tearing up Triple A for the Yanks and seems big league-ready at 22 and at a position of great need.

Of course catcher is a position of great need because the team traded away J.T. Realmuto to cut costs. Just like they did Giancarlo Stanton, and Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna, and, earlier this season, two-time batting champion Luis Arraez.

Trading Arraez signaled the latest money-driven fire sale that continues with Chisholm, whose trade is frustrating mostly because he was a bargain, making but $2.6 million. They they dealt him for question marks.

Miami also traded reliever A.J. Puk to Arizona for a couple of prospects, and is desperate to get rid of first baseman Josh Bell, a down-trending one-year rental who is on waivers but could still be dealt if not claimed. It is rumored outfielder Bryan De La Cruz, Miami’s best hitter, also could be dealt.

Most certainly, sure as tomorrow’s sunrise, the Fish also will imminently trade highly coveted reliever Tanner Scott, likely also for prospects. Scott has the value to possibly bring a starting pitcher or a big bat in return, but prospects come cheaper.

Teams who want Scott include the big-spending Dodgers and Yankees and also the Orioles, who somehow got really good despite barely outspending Miami. It is teams like the O’s and the Rays that Marlins management always holds up as examples; i.e., as excuses for not spending.

The trouble is, Miami’s front-line competition is the Phillies, Braves and Mets, who do all spend, a lot. And despite the exceptions, the correlation between spending and winning is not up for serious debate.

But the Marlins -- smarter than everybody else, apparently -- continue not spending by trading away talent for the dice roll of prospects more apt to miss than hit.

Rinse, repeat.

Of course if a prospect does hit big, and gets good, he gets pricey. So what happens then? The next trade deadline.

Rinse, repeat.