As expected the Major League Baseball owners approved both the sale of the Florida Marlins and the sale and purchase of the Montreal Expos. John Henry, now part-owner of the Red Sox, sold the Marlins to Expos' owner Jeffery Loria. Loria then sold the Expos to a Delaware limited partnership known as Baseball Expos LP, which is owned by the 29 non-Expo teams. I don't have anything to add to the comments I made last week regarding the financing of these transactions other than to say that the purchase of the Expos will be financed through MLB's central fund, so lets move on to the in-season ramification of these sales.

Before the sales were even completed, personnel decisions were set to happen as soon as everything became official. Jeffery Loria is very interested in bringing his Expos' workforce to Florida, in large part replacing what is left of the Marlins' old staff. Among those making the trip south are GM Larry Beinfest and manager Jeff Torborg, both of whom were hired by the Expos last season. Some articles are saying the pair resigned/quit Montreal before being hired by Florida, but I recall reading sometime this off-season that there were provisions in their contracts for such a move.

I am somewhat concerned about how Torborg will use Florida's young pitchers. There have been significant changes in what we know about safe usage patterns since Torborg last had an extended position as a manager in the late 80's and early 90's (and worked his pitchers quite heavily during those times). During his few months last season, there were several signs that he is not up to date with safe procedures, as he left Javier Vazquez out for over 120 pitches in 3 starts, and over 100 in all but 3 starts. Overall, he did better with Tony Armas, Jr., but he did leave Armas out for 126 pitches on August 19th. Florida doesn't really have a veteran innings' eater, so they are without any safeguards against overuse. Someone in the front office needs to provide him with a pitching coach who understands the new rules and who will be able to protect the young pitchers in their rotation. The Marlins' have a lot of young talent, but one thoughtless manager can run through handfuls of pitchers.

As for the lineup, Torborg is the manager who allowed Mark Smith to accumulate 194 at-bats last season after Smith had only appeared in less than a half-dozen games when the managerial switch occurred. Look for Kevin Millar's profile to skyrocket.

Beinfest didn't have much of a chance to show off any talents or weaknesses in Montreal. Not only did he have just a couple of months in the position, one might question whether knowing of a move to Florida for the ownership and a good deal of the staff perhaps kept the team from pursuing moves related to the long-term future of Montreal. We should be better able to evaluate his talents after he runs the Marlins' organization for a full year.

Former Executive Vice President of the Expos David Samson will be the new President of the Marlins. We were very unfamiliar with him before we attended a Yeshiva Law School seminar on "Baseball and the Law" last spring where he was on the panel of experts speaking to the group. After that encounter, it seemed as if his national profile rose considerably as we saw him run several Montreal press conferences and several national columnists began quoting him regularly.

The Commissioner's office has also already made their decisions on who will be filling the key positions for Montreal. Frank Robinson, who has been Vice President for On-Field-Operations, will be taking over as the manager of the team. New York Mets' Senior Assistant GM Omar Minaya will be the club's General Manager. Former Anaheim Angels President Tony Tavares will be the team president.

While the Commissioner's office is quick to point out that these assignments reinforce their mandate for teams to hire more minorities, Frank Robinson no longer represents progress in minority hiring. Robinson has managed before in the late 70's, for most of the 80's and a few years in the 90's. He is a Hall-of-Famer, currently ranked fourth on the all-time home run list, and has certainly become one of the boys during his time in the Commissioner's office. Robinson is old for a manager and won't be looking for a position after the Expos are sold or contracted, so if Selig really wanted to make a statement with this choice, he erred yet again. Hiring one of the many young managerial candidates looking for an opportunity to prove themselves would have been a much better example to set, especially someone repeatedly passed over after interviews like Chris Chambliss. As for what we can expect from Robinson on the field, hopefully someone has filled him in on on-base percentages sometime in the last ten years, but I don't have a lot of hope. A lot of the team's success will likely rest on the people hired to fill the hitting and pitching coach positions.

Minaya is a good choice. He's been at the top of the list of GM candidates for a while, so he definitely deserves a shot. My one concern here is that the Expos in their current state aren't a very good training job for a new GM. His objectives are going to be skewed by the situation and so it's going to be very difficult for him to demonstrate his skills, particularly because his strong point is scouting and Montreal seems to be more in need of someone skilled in roster management. I worry that he will have trouble finding another opportunity after this one expires.

Tim thinks that the Tavares choice is a disaster based on Tavares' actions in Anaheim. While I don't like the hire, I'm not sure there's much for him to mess up in this organization. If they're looking for someone to enforce a budget and not make waves in any way, he might be a good fit. Unfortunately for Montreal, no team run by Taveres is likely to see a lot of forward movement.