By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The Miami Marlins have a short history of existence and long track record of winning championships and pissing off their fan base.

When former owner and Floridian supervillain Jeffrey Loria sold the team last year, baseball fans from across the globe wondered what kind of change this would bring to a team with 25 years of winning every single postseason series they’ve ever played in, along with never winning a single division title and constantly trading away their most popular players.

This is the team that wholesaled sold off their big guns after both World Series wins and the team that fired Joe Girardi the season he won Manager of the Year.

They have constantly developed superstars and then shipped them elsewhere. In 2012 the team built a new stadium and hired Ozzie Guillen to manage the team, which included freshly signed free agent superstars Jose Reyes, Mark Beuhrle, and Heath Bell.

Guillen was fired after one season and not one of those three players saw a second season in a Marlins uniform.

So, the team being sold was cause for celebration for the handful of Floridians who live and breathe Marlins.

After all, the team was chocked full of talent and maybe a new guiding hand would be able to supplement the likes of Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna with players that would help Miami take a huge step forward.

Another wrinkle was that the group buying the team included Yankees legend Derek Jeter among its members. This was a true baseball guy, someone who knows how the game is played and what’s more, knows how to win. All in all, things were hopeful for the Miami faithful.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jeter and the ownership group moved quickly to do the same thing to the Marlins that the previous two owners did – strip it down for parts. Over the course of one week, just seven days, Miami traded away three of their most valuable assets.

Dee Gordon was the first to go, packing his bags for Seattle. Marcell Ozuna was part three, being traded to St. Louis exactly one week later.

Ozuna was just an extra kick in the ribs, as three days prior, reigning MVP Giancarlo Stanton was traded away. It should be noted that he was traded to the Yankees, because there is no justice in the world.

In the span of just seven days all the promise that the concept of new ownership had brought to the team sank into the familiar sense of utter betrayal that must by now feel like a warm hug to Marlins fans.

Rebuilding isn’t inherently an awful thing and it may not even be the wrong thing to do for Jeter but what a wrong foot to start out on for this new regime.

For a franchise that has repeatedly been torn down to be rebuilt and then torn down again, trading away some of the most talented players the team has ever seen as a first move will not instill trust between owners and fans. Stanton is probably the second greatest Marlin in their team’s short history behind Miguel Cabrera (who was traded), ahead of the likes of Gary Sheffield (who was traded), Josh Beckett (who was traded), and literally any other Marlins player was any good at all (who was traded).

He was incredibly popular and now he’s gone, along with Ozuna and Gordon and Christian Yelich isn’t going to be too far behind.

No one liked Jeffrey Loria. He didn’t have a good relationship with his players and they were usually happy to leave south Florida but Derek Jeter is a likeable guy.

Yet Christian Yelich’s agent claimed that the relationship between Yelich and the team was damaged beyond repair.

The Curse of the Bambino prevented the Red Sox from winning a World Series for 86 years.

The Curse of the Black Sox prevent the White Sox from winning a World Series for 88 years.

The Curse of the Billy Goat prevented the Cubs from even participating in a World Series for 71 years, extending their championship drought to 108 years.

The Marlins have won two World Series in the past 25 years but are they cursed to forever be a front office mess?