Jeter & Mattingly To Have More In Common Than Yankees

It’s official, Derek Jeter is closer to being an owner of an MLB team than a player.  Just under three years since he retired from the game in which he has left a lasting impact, The Captain has set his eyes on the Miami Marlins and becoming their new owner.  According to the New York Times, “A group including Jeter and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and presidential candidate, has reached a tentative agreement to buy the Miami Marlins, according to two people briefed on the situation who requested anonymity because the deal is not official.”  The agreement, according to The Miami Herald, includes a purchase price of $1.3 billion and the eager owner of superstar Derek Jeter, who has never been shy about his intention on buying a baseball franchise.

This means that not only with Jeter be an owner of the flailing major league team in Florida but a new boss for another iconic Yankee, Don Mattingly.  They will share in common not only working for the same team as a player, but now as leaders of the Miami Marlins.

“He’s always talked about it,” Mattingly told The Sun-Sentinel this month, referring to Jeter’s ownership aspirations. “I asked him if he wanted to coach and he’s like, ‘Never.’ I’m sure he’ll be good. Jeets pretty much seems to be good at everything he tries to do.”

According to the Times, “The Marlins have been owned since 2002 by Jeffrey Loria, a New York art dealer with a fondness for former Yankees. Loria succeeded in getting a new ballpark built for the franchise in 2012, but the Marlins have been plagued by low attendance and distrust of the ownership by the team’s fans.”  These two problem areas are something that Jeter-Bush group will have to tackle in order to reboot the Miami team in the eyes of its current and eventual/hopeful fans.  Jeter’s humble beginnings pair very nicely with a brand-rebuild of the Marlins and our Captain is just the guy to make that happen.

According to the New York Post, “Bush and Jeter, who in his childhood dreamed of being the Yankees’ shortstop, must round up more financing to make the deal a go, multiple sources said.” In addition, the Post reported that “typically, MLB wants a setup in which about 60 percent of the purchase price is paid immediately and no more than 40 percent is financed, but it is possible that for a team with financial troubles such as the Marlins, MLB could demand even more be paid initially.”

Anyway you slice it, the purchase of the Marlins would be Jeter’s second professional dream come true since retiring at the end of 2014, after a incredible 20-year career as a Yankee.  His first was starting The Player’s Tribune, a hub for athletes’ slice of life stories.  Now he could be the next owner of the Miami Marlins, who in theory don’t compete against the Yankees except for some inter league games and of course, if both attained a ticket into the World Series.

Stay tuned as the sale talks continue, but if all goes well for Jeter, as it usually does for our #2, then he could be at the helm of the Marlins’ ship on course for the next adventure of his MLB career.