Marlins achieving a rare feat Fire sale in a new ballpark

South Florida taxpayers are on the hook for millions for Marlins Park. And at the moment it's looking like a lot of Florida real estate has looked in the past few years: A poor investment.

Sure, more fans are coming to see the Marlins this year, but according to Forbes, their pace to draw 2.2 million fans this season would still make them the worst-drawing club at a new ballpark in the last 30 years.

Now Floridians historically are fickle fans, but they're not exactly getting a great product these days, either. And now they're getting a worse one for the final two months of their inaugural season at their new ballpark.

With the trade of Hanley Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers early Wednesday, the Marlins will save money in not paying their former All-Star infielder, a former batting champion. They already dealt Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante to the Detroit Tigers earlier in the week. The only starting infielder left on the active roster from opening day is Jose Reyes.

Craig Calceterra of HardballTalk didn't mince words: He called the moves an "insult" to Marlins fans.

"Someone, somewhere, explain to me why anyone in Miami should give a flying fish about the Marlins?" he wrote. "What possible reason should any baseball fan in south Florida have for giving a dime to a team run by Jeff Loria?"

On the positive side, the Marlins made decent trades according to most evaluators, getting solid (although unproven) minor-league talent in return. And they'll have a little more wiggle room in the bottom line in the future. That's if Loria's team spends wisely, which has been an obvious issue.

"These are tough trades, but when you underachieve at the level this team has underachieved and has not won at the level we expected it to -- we have talked about restructuring, and this is part of it," Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said.

But South Floridians are fickle, and they haven't shown they'll stick with a team through lean years. The owner is fickle, too. It's a fishy predicament, and it's beginning to smell.