Florida Marlins and long term contracts

According to David Samson the prevailing reason the Marlins only have one player under a long term contract is this:

Marlins president David Samson said the team's baseball officials ultimately decided not to recommend giving anyone a multiyear contract besides Hanley Ramirez, who signed a six-year, $70 million extension last May. ''If players are jealous of Hanley, they should play better,'' Samson said, speaking in general.

So it is the baseball operations people who made the call and not the tight fisted front office.  In a way I can believe this, if the baseball folks asked for another player to be signed long term, it would probably have meant darn near every arbitration eligible player would've been jettison.  The baseball guys know the landscape and asking to lock in money for a player for a number of years, doesn't mean an increase in payroll down the road.  It means, more players have to be sent packing and they were probably doing their best to hold on to some of last year's team.  But trying to lay the blame on the baseball side of the operations is pretty darn lame.

And, oh, making the statement: ''If players are jealous of Hanley, they should play better,''.  The players aren't jealous of Hanley, more than likely they are happy for him and then to suggest that Ramirez is the only good player on the team is about as low as you can go.  The reason there are not more players under contract is because of money. plain and simple.  It has nothing to do with how good they are.

What a jerk!  But somethings never change.