Gordon and the Marlins avoided arbitration today agreeing to a 5 year, 50 million contact.
Gordon led the majors last season with 205 hits and 58 stolen bases, and he batted .333. He injured his thumb at midseason and missed 17 games, but still became the first player to lead the NL in average and stolen bases since Jackie Robinson in 1949.
Gordon made the All-Star team for the second time, was chosen the Marlins’ MVP and led all NL second basemen in fielding percentage.
The Marlins are on a bit of a spending spree as of late, between extending Gordon, signing Wei-Yin Chen, and adding reliever Edwin Jackson and first-baseman Chris Johnson.
Fan Interference 
I wouldn’t call adding a pair of washed up scrapheap projects at the major league minimum like Johnson and Jackson a “spending spree.” Frankly, I don’t see the point of signing Jackson at all, even for organizational ballast, if you’re going to sign Chen to a backloaded deal and you have a stable of competent younger arms lined up behind him. The guy is a punching bag.
That, and extending Gordon at a pretty reasonable price given his talents and the year he had prolly spared the Feesh a massacre in arbitration (and the wrath of the Iron Giant) if they hadn’t.
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I don’t think it’s a commentary on quality, rather quantity over a short time period.
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Except that a term like “spending spree” has connotations. The Dodgers go on a spending spree. The Tigers go on a spending spree. The Angels go on a spending spree.
The Feesh have one of the lowest payrolls in the game. They make investments – usually hedged by things like backloading and opt-outs – that wouldn’t be much of a blip on most teams’ radars. And again, signing scrapheap candidates at the minimum is more like sleight-of-handing the Players’ Association observations of their spending habits. “Spending spree” makes it sound like they’re splurging when, in fact, they’re being parsimonious to a fault.
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baseballamerica ranks the Marlins farm system at the 21st spot. With all the high picks they’ve had, how did they manage to do so poorly?
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