The Miami Marlins unveiled a brand new stadium and uniform last month (BSO at the Miami Marlins Unveiling Party) and talked a lot about landing Albert Pujols or Jose Reyes.
Florida Marlins fans had heard all the “we will spend money” claims from ownership before and would believe it when they saw it.
Time to believe.
What a lot of people thought would be a well below market offer to be able to claim they were “in the running” turns out to have been enough to lure Jose Reyes from the division rival New York Mets.
According to ESPN.com
Sources told ESPNDeportesLosAngeles.com earlier Sunday that the Marlins offered Reyes a deal worth a minimum of $111 million.
According to the sources, Miami would pay Reyes $106 million for six years, with an option for a seventh year for $22 million. If they decide not to use the option, they would pay Reyes $5 million.
Oddly, it doesn’t look like the Marlins overspent.
The signing means the team now has two of the best young shortstops in the game. It was expected that Reyes would stay at shortstop and Hanley Ramirez would move to either Center Field or Third Base. Rumors already have him agreeing to move to third base.
It was also reported by ESPNDeportesLosAngeles.com that this has not eliminated them from pursuing the top jewel of the free agent class, Albert Pujols. They plan to aggressively pursue him in the upcoming days and that if he were to leave St. Louis, Miami would be his preferred destination.
Earlier in the week, the team signed closer Heath Bell to a three year deal.