Miami Marlins news: Marlins, Jeffrey Loria fire Larry Beinfest

The Miami Marlins have been considering replacing Larry Beinfest and his team of front office executives and player personnel folks for some time, now that tensions between owner Jeffrey Loria and Beinfest have grown exponentially in the last few years. Now the team has made it official, as word has come out that Loria has fired Beinfest this afternoon,

#Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has fired Larry Beinfest

— clarkspencer (@clarkspencer) September 27, 2013

The rumors have been swirling for weeks now that Beinfest's job was in serious jeopardy, but the thought was that it would at least happen at the end of the year. Of course, with only three games left, there was not a whole lot of time left to the end of the season, so the timing is not particularly egregious.

Beinfest has been with the team in a leading front office role since Loria purchased the franchise in 2002. He was promoted to general manager in late 2002 and in 2007, he was promoted to a newly created role of president of baseball operations, allowing Michael Hill to take on the general manager role. In essence, Beinfest has been the lead man in player personnel since the start of the team's run under Loria, meaning that he presided over the 2003 World Series championship team along with two separate fire sale offseasons.

News of the feud between Loria and Beinfest initially came last season, when the franchise was considering large-scale changes in the face of the failure of 2012. Beinfest's job was eventually spared, but rumors of a firing and subsequent takeover by assistant general manager Dan Jennings were loud then and only grew louder through a difficult 2013 season. The buzz became widespread when news came out that Loria was making his own personnel decisions, including blocking the promotion of Derek Dietrich and signing Greg Dobbs without Beinfest's input.

Now the franchise will move to a different front office direction. It is likely that Michael Hill and the rest of the contingency supporting Beinfest will also be let go. Jennings will ascend to the head of the front office and will be allowed to recruit a staff in the coming offseason.

Stay tuned for more coverage of this breaking news on Fish Stripes!