Marlins Rumors

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It was the afternoon of November 17, and the baseball industry had flocked to the New York Marriott Marquis – with all the lights shining from nearby Times Square – for the expansion draft.

The draft was televised by ESPN and took nearly seven hours to complete – as the teams were given four and a half minutes to make each selection. There was a 30-minute break between rounds.

“It was an unbelievable experience,” said Gary Hughes, Florida’s first scouting director. “Anybody who was anybody – from the media to the front office – was there. We flew up for it in (owner) Wayne Huizenga’s plane. The next morning, we were out of there. We had an early morning wakeup, which I don’t think was a wakeup; I don’t think we went to bed. It was wonderful; some of our guys and some of their guys together.”

The draft-day experience was “overwhelming” in the words of Hughes’ Colorado counterpart, Pat Daugherty. “No. 1, I’d never been to New York City,” said Daugherty. “Just the whole preparation of getting all of our stuff moved there. Seeing the draft room – how everything was set up. Getting to spend some time with Don Baylor, who was just hired as manager. It was very, very exciting.”

The game plans had seemingly been set. The Rockies were looking to acquire as much pitching as possible and were going to take a long look at the players they selected. The Marlins were open to drafting players to flip to other organizations.

“Leading up to the start of the draft, there were a lot of phone calls back-and-forth with general managers who wanted to make trades or make suggestions about who we should draft. Lots of phone calls,” Gebhard said. “And as David and I both talked about later, clubs that couldn’t make trades for certain players wanted to use us as a middle man to try to help them get the players they wanted. David did a little more of that than I did. It was an interesting time trying to piece it all together.

“Having been a pitcher myself and a pitching coach, I certainly knew how hard it was going to be to pitch in Denver – a mile above sea level. So we really tried to focus on drafting as many pitchers as we could – with the hopes that we’d get 11 or 12 out of that group.”

Dombrowski said that by the time the Marlins’ contingent landed in New York, most of their work was basically done.

“We had run some mock expansion drafts, where you could take a player … then withdraw and protect three or four more players,” he said. “We were in a situation where we knew we had to get the best available prospects, but we also had to get some big league players.”

As for how the trade aspect would work, “You couldn’t technically talk to somebody about names that were available on the list of another club,” Dombrowski said. “While we couldn’t mention a player’s name, it would be easy for somebody to say, for example, ‘If a left-handed pitcher from this organization was available, would you have interest in that guy?’ So it was easy to put that type of information out there. And teams would approach us … ‘Hey, we have a need for this. Is anybody on the list somebody we would have interest in?’”

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With the two teams situated in their respective draft rooms at the Marriott Marquis, the first pieces of the puzzle for both organizations were about to be obtained.

Dombrowski remembers sitting in the Marlins’ war room with their draft boards – hidden from the outside world. “We had somebody on stage working directly with the commissioner’s office; we would let that person know who our next choice was. He would tell the commissioner’s office, and they would announce the selection.”

And the person notifying the commissioner’s office was Jim Hendry — the future Cubs general manager and former Creighton University baseball coach.

“I remember Hendry being down on the floor and bringing the names up to (N.L. president) Bill White,” Hughes said. “We were off in a different room, and Hendry was getting all the TV time. (Marlins scout) Orrin Freeman was kidding, but he said that all the people back in Omaha had to be thinking that Hendry was making all the choices himself.”

Having won the coin flip, Colorado went first, selecting David Nied from the Atlanta Braves. Nied had gone 3-0 as a September call-up, but the right-hander was tough for the Braves to protect; he was behind Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery on the team’s starting pitcher depth chart. Atlanta also had Pete Smith and Kent Mercker in the wings – and was just weeks away from adding Greg Maddux to its pitching arsenal.

“I’ll tell you, the other clubs did a great job in protecting their pitching staffs for the expansion draft, and we were fortunate enough to get David Nied as our No. 1 draft,” Gebhard said. “David (Dombrowski) told me later on that if we hadn’t taken him with our first pick, he would have.”

Nied, who threw the first pitch in Rockies history on Opening Day 1993, was sabotaged by injuries. He was limited to 16 starts in ’93, going 5-9 with a 5.17 ERA – while missing half the season with elbow inflammation. The following year, he was 9-7 with a 4.80 ERA in 22 starts during the strike-shortened campaign. He then missed the first three months of the 1995 season with a strained right elbow. Nied threw just 9 2/3 more big league innings – and was out of the game for good by the end of 1996.

“We thought we had one in David Nied,” said Baylor, the first manager in Rockies history. “I had gone on what Bob Gebhard had talked about pitching. We needed to find pitching. In Denver, the ball carries like crazy. I didn’t care if you grew the grass up to the grandstand; you needed to find pitchers who could keep the ball in the park.”

The Marlins – with their first-ever selection – then drafted outfielder Nigel Wilson from the Toronto Blue Jays. Wilson, a 23-year-old left-handed batter, was left unprotected by a Blue Jays club that won the 1992 World Series.

Coming off a strong Double-A campaign in which he batted .274 with 26 homers, Wilson was expected to become an early Marlins mainstay. But it didn’t happen.

Wilson had a so-so 1993 Triple-A campaign with Florida’s Edmonton affiliate before going 0-for-16 as a September recall. He spent a second year in Edmonton before being claimed off waivers by Cincinnati after the labor stoppage ended in April 1995. He saw brief additional big league action for the Reds (1995) and Cleveland (1996) before heading to Japan – where he finally displayed the predicted power (three 30-plus homer campaigns).

“I remember being in the room and we started looking at each draft selection … what are you going to be able to get … what you might want to go ahead and do … if you pick this one guy up, you can go ahead and trade him to another club to get somebody else,” recalled Rene Lachemann, Florida’s first manager. “I wasn’t involved in doing the final things, but there were talks on that. Dave was constantly talking to other general managers. So those things were going on.

“The thing that amazed me out of all it: The two No. 1 draft choices didn’t last very long. That was just amazing.”

The ebb-and-flow of the draft continued. Colorado selected third baseman Charlie Hayes from the Yankees. Florida selected right-handed pitcher Jose Martinez from the Mets. At No. 5, the Rockies selected Holmes – the first step necessary in officially acquiring Bichette from the Brewers. Then at No. 9, the Rockies picked Texas’ Kevin Reimer – and the handshake over coffee was all but done; the official announcement would come later that night.

In between those selections, Florida chose Trevor Hoffman, a right-hander pitching in the Cincinnati Reds’ minor league system. Hoffman spent the first three months of the 1993 season with the Marlins before being sent to San Diego in a deal that brought Gary Sheffield to South Florida.

“I give tremendous credit to Scott Reid because he scouted the Cincinnati organization,” Dombrowski said. “I remember one guy that they had who was available in the first round that everybody talked about was Chris Hammond – who ended up having a nice big league career; we traded for him the next spring. Hammond had already showed that he could pitch at the major league level, but Scott Reid said the guy we needed to take there was Trevor Hoffman. So in an expansion draft, you ended up drafting a Hall of Famer. Now I realize we traded him quickly, but we got Gary Sheffield in return. So it just tells you about the type of work that was done by our scouts.”

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“Play for the other organizations out there. You never know who’s going to be watching you.”

With the No. 11 overall selection in the first round, the Rockies plucked 5-foot-9 second baseman Eric Young from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Young had been a 43rd-round pick out of Rutgers in 1989 – as a 22-year-old late-round senior sign. He went to Rutgers on a football scholarship, and played both football and baseball there for four years. With that background, the fact that he managed to get to the majors in his fourth year is a story of its own. And then, just like that, he was taken in the expansion draft.

“We were coming off a 99-loss season, and I knew there were going to be changes – because the Dodgers were not used to losing 99 games,” Young said. Los Angeles had other young players it chose to protect in first baseman Eric Karros, shortstop Jose Offerman and catcher Carlos Hernandez. “I didn’t want to hear my name called, so I didn’t watch the draft on TV. If I got a phone call, then I knew something was going down. And then it happened.

“I have to tell you … the man that I had the best conversation with was (Los Angeles GM) Fred Claire – when he made the phone call to tell me that I had been picked in the expansion draft. I remember one thing he said to me, ‘Just always remember you’re not leaving on bad terms, and you never know about the possibility to come back. You’ll always have a chance to return to L.A.’ So basically when he said that, he was telling me, ‘Look, my hands were tied.’ He couldn’t protect me, but he knew my history and he knew how hard I worked to get there. The conversation was very positive. Right there, that gave me the inspiration to go and make a name for myself.

“I thought about this as, ‘This is a chance for me.’ We all realized that once we got there together, we were castaways, throwaways, or whatever you wanted to call us. But we had a lot to prove.

“The expansion draft was the best move of my career – not only as a player, but as a person. I grew up fast.”

After the Young selection, the Marlins followed by picking left-hander Greg Hibbard off the White Sox’s roster. Hibbard’s stay in Florida was extremely short-lived; in fact, he never left the Windy City. He was traded after the draft to the Cubs for infielders Alex Arias – who went on to spend five years with the Marlins – and Gary Scott.

Colorado followed by drafting second baseman Jody Reed from Boston; he was subsequently traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for reliever Rudy Seanez.

With the 18th selection, Florida chose catcher Eric Helfand from Oakland. As soon as the expansion draft was completed, Helfand was traded back to the Athletics – along with pitcher Scott Baker (selected from St. Louis in the third round) – for shortstop Walt Weiss. The 1988 A.L. Rookie of the Year was on Oakland’s original protection list.

“I had a rough ending to my time in Oakland,” Weiss said. “I had a career-threatening injury in 1991, and then I didn’t play again until the middle of ’92. I had dealt with a lot of injury problems, and to be honest with you, I was kind of looking for a fresh start.

“I knew the managers in both places. I had played with Don Baylor in Oakland, and Rene Lachemann was on our coaching staff in Oakland. So I was looking forward to moving on that expansion draft day. Obviously, I wasn’t in the draft, but I got traded in what was a pre-arranged deal.

“Believe it or not, even though I went from one of the better teams in the game to an expansion team, it was kind of what I needed at the time. I felt like I needed to re-establish myself.”

While Weiss eventually went from Florida to Colorado – and later was a Rockies manager – Joe Girardi went from Colorado to a future Marlins managerial position. Girardi was selected by the Rockies from the Chicago Cubs.

Growing up in Peoria, Ill., a town around 165 miles southwest of Chicago, Girardi always envisioned himself playing at Wrigley Field for the Cubs. The vision became reality in 1989 when he was the club’s Opening Day catcher.

After spending the 1990 season as the Cubs’ starting backstop, he was limited to just 21 games in 1991 with a lower back injury. He came back in 1992 to split catching duties with Rick Wilkins – who had a lot of left-handed power. Girardi wasn’t looking over his shoulder at the possibility of being selected in the expansion draft, but he realized he might not be protected.

“I always dreamed that I would play for the Cubs, and I don’t think there was a dream of me really playing anywhere else,” said Girardi, who is now in his 10th year at the helm of the New York Yankees. “The thought is, when you sign with a team, you’re going to be there forever. But I quickly learned that’s not necessarily the business, and what you imagine as a kid is not always true as an adult.”

Girardi sat in front of the TV that day, watching ESPN and waiting to hear if his name was called. And with the 19th overall selection, the Rockies chose Girardi to be their first starting catcher. He found that out via phone call just seconds before everyone else.

“Honestly, I thought I was going to end up in Miami,” he said. “I should have thought about it. I lived on Aspen Drive (in the northern suburbs of Chicago). It was like the writing was on the wall where I was going. So that was kind of interesting.

“It turned out to be a great experience for me. I had a wonderful time in Colorado.”

Florida then followed with the expected/unexpected selection of California Angels closer Bryan Harvey at No. 20.

It was a known that the Marlins had interest in him. The big question was: would the expansion team take a chance on a highly compensated reliever with a checkered medical history?

“Once we had the (protected) lists, we knew at that point that Bryan Harvey was going to be available,” Dombrowski said. “It gave us a chance to start digging up medical information on him and start making some phone calls to people we knew and respected that might give us the type of background that we needed to make sure that if we took him, that he would be healthy.”

“I remember the questions, ‘Why did you take Bryan Harvey?’ He was coming off an injury,” Lachemann said. “The Angels didn’t protect him; they probably figured, ‘Why would anybody take a closer?’ We took a closer thinking that anytime we’d have a really good chance to win a game, we didn’t want to blow it. We knew we might only have a chance to win 60 games – so we better have somebody at the end who could save them. He ended up saving 45 games that year.”

With their next selection (No. 22 overall), Florida selected the player who would later be known as “Mr. Marlin.”

Jeff Conine was Kansas City’s 58th-round pick out of UCLA in 1987 – where he was a pitcher. He managed to get a cup of coffee as a position player in his third pro year, then got another cup two years later. Being selected in the expansion draft completely caught him off guard.

“Frankly, at the time, it was a little disheartening,” Conine recalled. “I was drafted by the Royals and made it all the way through their system, and I kind of had planned on making a career in Kansas City. The night before the draft, a friend called me and said, ‘I heard you were unprotected for the draft tomorrow.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’ So I went to my agent’s office to watch the draft, and sure enough, Florida took me.

“I was having a real good year in Triple-A for the Royals when I got called up at the end of ’92, and I thought I was in their plans. It really didn’t occur to me that I might not even be there a couple months later.

“After it sunk in, I immediately thought … now, I’m going to get a chance to play and probably start. And it’s going to be my job to lose, basically. It was exciting to be part of a brand new franchise from the ground floor in a new market with new fans. That disappointment really turned to excitement pretty quickly.

“Looking back, I don’t know what would have happened if I stayed with the Royals. They had Wally Joyner over at first base for a couple more years. I don’t know if I would have made the starting lineup in the outfield; it’s hard to say. Given this opportunity, I worked hard and took advantage of it – and made myself stay in that lineup. As they say, ‘It’s hard to get to the big leagues, but it’s tougher to stay.’ And I worked hard to stay there.”

As the day went on, players who later became household names continued to get selected. Colorado picked future longtime Rockies pitchers Armando Reynoso (from Atlanta), Steve Reed (from San Francisco), Curtis Leskanic (from Minnesota) and a little-known third baseman from Atlanta. “We kind of just stumbled onto Vinny Castilla,” Baylor said.

Meanwhile, Florida’s selections included outfielder Carl Everett (from the Yankees), starters Jack Armstrong (from Cleveland) and David Weathers (from Toronto), and reliever Cris Carpenter (from St. Louis).

Florida also selected reliever Tom Edens midway through the second round (from Minnesota), then sent him to Houston for pitchers Hector Carrasco and Brian Griffiths. After opening the third round with the selection of starter Danny Jackson (from Pittsburgh), the Marlins then peddled the southpaw to Philadelphia for pitchers Joel Adamson and Matt Whisenant.

On the day/night of the expansion draft, Dombrowski traded away five of his selections. By the end of 1993, an additional six members of his expansion draft class had been traded away.

Click here to read Part 1; click here to read Part 3.

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Chuck Wasserstrom spent 25 years in the Chicago Cubs’ front office – 16 in Media Relations and nine in Baseball Operations. Now a freelance writer, his behind-the-scenes stories of his time in a big league front office can be found on www.chuckblogerstrom.com.