Another Florida Marlins fire sale?

There are rumors that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria plans to unload much of the team's talent so as to reduce payroll by forty percent. Almost all of the teams regulars with the exception of Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera are supposed to be on the block.

Part of the motivation for this is Loria not getting a new stadium. If Loria is using that as an excuse he is a crybaby whining excuse of a MLB owner. Even if he isn't, I don't see this frugality in anyway benefiting him or this franchise. Sure Delgado is expendable, most of what else is being talked about in trade talks isn't. You can't turn out a quality MLB team without some expense and the Marlins already have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. When you get too frugal, you get the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. A team that struggles not to lose 100 games a year and doesn't draw any fans. You need to invest in a product to make it a sucess, and Loria appears headed in the opposite direction sadly.

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As the Marlins and Rangers continued talking Saturday about Florida sending Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell to Texas, multiple baseball sources said more of their Marlins teammates could soon leave the team, too.

"They may take it all the way down, like we saw in '98," an American League source said, referring to the dismantling of the Marlins' 1997 championship team.

Marlins President David Samson would not comment Saturday. But sources said Florida's front office has been telling teams that, except for pitcher Dontrelle Willis and third baseman Miguel Cabrera, everyone is available because of orders to cut payroll from the club-record $65 million spent on last season's team.

One source said Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, who is frustrated over stalled talks for a new stadium, is prepared to go with a 2006 payroll as low as $40 million, which could be the lowest in the major leagues.

By trimming payroll, the Marlins could give themselves enough flexibility to offer long-term contracts to their two youngest stars — Willis, the runner-up in the NL Cy Young voting, and Cabrera, who led the team in hitting (.323), home runs (33) and RBI (116).

The Marlins have not made any trades yet, but they have been actively shopping their players for the past two weeks, starting with first baseman Carlos Delgado (owed $48 million over the next three years), who has received attention from the Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets and New York Yankees.

Florida and the Mets have had extensive talks over the past two weeks about Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo.

The Chicago Cubs and White Sox are interested in center fielder Juan Pierre. The Colorado Rockies like catcher Paul Lo Duca.

The Marlins have talked to six teams about Beckett, including the Boston Red Sox, but they are demanding that Lowell (owed $18 million over the next two years) be included in any deal.

Florida is closest to a trade with Texas. Under a proposal that was first discussed two weeks ago by Marlins General Manager Larry Beinfest and Rangers GM Jon Daniels at the general managers' meetings in California, Beckett would go with Lowell to the Rangers for two-time All-Star third baseman Hank Blalock.