Derek Jeter steps up to face Marlins fans, finds hits will be tough to come by

Tom Gatto

Derek Jeter steps up to face Marlins fans, finds hits will be tough to come by image

Derek Jeter heard the cries and screams of angry Marlins fans during a town hall meeting Tuesday night. He also heard Marlins Man's shtick (because, of course).

Everyone who watches games knows who you are, Marlins Man, aka Laurence Leavy.

Let's just say, Leavy/MM will have no trouble snagging home-plate tickets at Marlins Park on the secondary market next season. If he somehow he does have a problem, well, Cap'n Jeets has him covered.

Enough about Marlins Man. The non-grandstanding fans who showed up for the meeting need to be heard, too.

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Those folks wanted to talk baseball with the new guy in charge of baseball ops, and they want to know why the home team will likely be playing a lot of bad ball in 2018.

In fact, money is a problem in Miami. Jeter and majority owner Bruce Sherman own a franchise that has been losing a ton of cash, so the 56th fire sale in franchise history (slight exaggeration) is underway.

Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna are already gone in trades. Teams reportedly are circling around Christian Yelich and J.T. Realmuto, neither of whom is available, supposedly. Ace Dan Straily would be a nice No. 3 starter for a team with playoff aspirations. Brad Ziegler and Junichi Tazawa would help a lot of bullpens, and they're making market-value salaries.

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Jeter was already down a strike with fans after showing a lack of class as he dumped high-profile front office personnel like Jack McKeon, Andre Dawson and Jeff Conine. The count went to 0-2 after he discussed the Stanton trade on a conference call, and then attended a Dolphins game, rather than talking in person at the meetings in Orlando.

Now he's trying to keep the at-bat alive, so to speak, by hearing out the paying public, which is bitter over a player sell-off designed to get the 2018 payroll to $90 million or lower. He took some good swings in some of the conversations, even when Marlins Man was haranguing him.

Jeter also tried to bring some Yankee swagger to his new club.

But the way he and Sherman are preparing for Year 1, it's pretty much Option No. 1. And No. 2, which isn't retired but is reviled, for the moment, in Miami.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.