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Talk baseball all season long with SI.com's Jacob Luft in Baseball Chatter, a journal for hot topic debates, Sabermetric ramblings and reader-driven discussions.
9/20/2006 08:12:00 AM

Q&A: David Samson

Marlins president David Samson trains for the Ironman.
Marlins president David Samson trains for the Ironman.
By now, Florida Marlins president David Samson is used to people thinking he's crazy. When he guided his team through a "market correction" last winter that reduced the payroll from about $70 million to $15 million and shed the team of brand-name talents such as Carlos Delgado and Josh Beckett, critics were quick to say he was a few cards short of a full deck. But that was nothing compared to the reaction Samson got when he told people he was competing in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii this October.

Most people (OK, me) would never consider running so much as a marathon, which is only one of the three grueling stages of an Ironman. The event begins with a 2.4-mile swim in the ocean, followed by a 112-mile bike race. The marathon -- a 26.2-mile run -- is the capper. It takes the average person about 14 hours to finish, though finish they do – last year, more than 96 percent of the 1,744 race starters made it to the end. Much like the Marlins have made history this season with its stellar crop of rookies, Samson is attempting to become the first team president from any of the four major sports to be an Ironman.

I chatted with Samson -- a 38-year-old Milwaukee native and Harvey's Wallbangers fan from back in the day -- earlier this week as he visited Manhattan to promote his Ironman pursuit and watch his upstart Marlins take on the Mets in a four-game series at Shea Stadium.

JL: When and how did you decide to take on the challenge of the Ironman?

David Samson: The idea popped up for the first time in 1995 or '96 when I watched one of the Hawaii Ironman shows on NBC and I said to myself, "One day I want to do that." It was always a dream but it seemed unattainable, and in the interim I ran three New York City marathons which to me was hard enough, so the concept of doing 112 miles biking before a marathon was incomprehensible and then the concept of swimming 2.4 miles before even getting on the bike was like speaking a foreign language to me.

That was until two or three years ago when I met a man named Brad Miller. We were at the beach -- his daughter and my daughter were very good friends -- and I noticed he had shaved his legs. I said to him, "What are you, a model? You have shaved legs." And he said, "I'm an Ironman." I said, "I want to be an Ironman. What do I do?" And he said, "First, you shave your legs." I figured that's all I had to do, that once you shave your legs you can do it. And then I had to buy a bike and then I got on it and I couldn't even ride for a half an hour, so I told him, "Well, in addition to shaving I actually need to train," and we've been training together ever since. I've done two half-Ironmans and I got in my head that I'm going to try to do Hawaii."

JL: What is your training regimen?

Samson: It's every day. My coach's name is Luis Vargas, who works with Mark Allen, a very famous triathlete. He's got me doing things every day. I swim twice a week. I run twice a week. I bike twice a week -- I actually take conference calls from my bike. I have one day a week where I do biking and running and then one free day where I do whatever I feel like doing. Today was a free day and I felt like sleeping. For the first time in five weeks I took a day off.

JL: Do the Marlins players know what you're doing? What reaction do you get from other executives around baseball?

Samson: They do, yes. And they think, like everybody else, I'm absolutely crazy. So when I'm on the road with the team they'll see me in the gym and on a stationary bike for four hours. I think it's important for the athletes to see that people in the front office understand the discipline and hard work it takes to stay in shape. Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy ran a marathon a few years ago and raised money for charity and I donated because I was so happy that he was doing it. I spoke to him recently and he just thought that it was pretty insane but it was exciting that he was raising money for charity too. But there's never been a team president in the history of the four major sports to ever do Hawaii.

JL: You’re raising money for a couple of charities in the process, including the Challenged Athletes Foundation, which helps athletes overcome physical disabilities. Can you talk about what gravitated you toward that charity?

Samson: The story of the Challenged Athletes Foundation is that I was working out, training for a small triathlon and I quit in the middle of the workout because I was tired and grumpy and I couldn't do it. I went home and opened and read a triathlete magazine, and there was an ad for this foundation and it showed Sarah Reinertson, who was doing an Ironman with one leg. I immediately realized that if she can do it and she has the discipline to do it, then so do I. I went online and I bought the bracelet and I've been wearing it every day since, and I'm trying to become the biggest fundraiser for that foundation. I'm trying to raise $100,000 for them, and I'll get there. I wear the bracelet every day and when I'm in the middle of the workout and tired I just look at it and I keep going.

JL: You have a regular segment on the Dan Le Batard radio show in Miami where you do movie reviews. Recently there was a column in one of the local papers criticizing you for a perceived lack of taste in some of the jokes you told on the air. What happened there?

Samson: I've been doing the show for two years and I guess one person didn't think it was funny, but it's all tongue in cheek. We just have a lot of fun with it. We review movies, from Oscar winners to Jackass. I did a full show of Jackass where we thought of other funny stunts we could do. The show is highly rated. I'm very recognized for making people laugh and reviewing funny movies because I do watch a movie every day of the year. Last night at the hotel I watched Rumor Has It. It sucked but I watched it anyway. Tonight I'm going to watch The Breakup. It takes place in Chicago and one of our pitchers, Sergio Mitre, is in the movie pitching for the Cubs.

JL: He came over with Ricky Nolasco in the Juan Pierre trade. How tough was that trade for you, seeing a popular player like Pierre leave?

Samson: I personally don't get very emotional either way about players because I understand that some players come and go, my job is to be emotional about the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back.

JL: From a marketing standpoint, how tough a sell was it to promote this team after unloading so many star players? You called it a "market correction" but everybody else called it a fire sale.

Samson: People reacted that way because they didn't recognize the names of the players. Our front office really deserves the benefit of the doubt. We gave them a payroll because our owner correctly said, "I'm not going to lose money anymore." He had lost money for four straight years in Florida. He then put his baseball people to work and he said, "Field the best team you can." Just because you haven't heard of the players doesn't mean they're bad. This year has shown our fan base that just because you don't know them today doesn't mean you won't love them tomorrow and, frankly, there are teams who get players their fans have heard of and they don't produce. And guess what? They're no better off." I learned from [former Orioles GM] Jim Beattie, who has a good line: "If you run your team according to what the media tell you to do, you will soon be among them."

JL: Toward that end, can you talk about the job your front office did in trading for talented young players?

Samson: To me, Larry Beinfest -- and he doesn't like praise -- is the best general manager in baseball because he really uses his scouts he uses his great relationship with [owner] Jeffrey Loria. He listens to his baseball people and he's decisive and he's willing to stand up to his decisions. If one move doesn't work out, he will come to Jeffrey, he will come to me and say, "This was the reasoning, this is why we did it, it didn't work. Let's move on to the next one." Even if we do not win another game it has been a tremendously successful season.

JL: Can you talk about Beinfest's trading style in putting this team together. It seems the Marlins are very decisive in their deals. You don't let talks linger and you don't negotiate through the media the way some of the big-market teams seem to do?

Samson: Our philosophy is pretty simple. With the trades we did this offseason, we would call teams and say, "OK, here's the trade. These players for these players. In or out? Out? Fine. Next team."

JL: Compared to other teams, how much of your money and resources is put into scouting?

Samson: I would say that we're average. The difference with us, in my opinion, is that we're willing to listen to our scouts and make decisions based on what they say. So if we have people who we trust who have seen players ... that's good. And we'll crosscheck, meaning the GM will look at the players, too. They have such a good working relationship. Our scouting department has been together since 2000. We brought them all with us from Montreal [in 2002]. Our whole baseball organization came with us.

JL: On the scouts vs. stats spectrum, the Marlins are seen as a scout-driven ballclub. How much truth is there to that perception and where do the Marlins stand on the philosophies put forth in Michael Lewis' best-seller Moneyball?

Samson: My answer to that is we use Moneyball and we are pro-Moneyball and we are anti-Moneyball. We believe in all of it. You have to look at everything. You have to look at stats. You have to look at the individual player. I'm not sure that, if you got the truth out of any GM or president or owner, that any of them would tell you they're only one way, because that's not realistic to me. You've got to be more diverse in your thinking or you're guaranteed to fail.

JL: Do the Marlins employ a Sabermetric guru or "designated numbers cruncher" as has become popular among front offices in recent years?

Samson: No. We have none of these type of people because I want people who can do everything."

JL: In a way, don't the Marlins practice their own form of Moneyball, in finding undervalued players, by trading for very young prospects in other organizations?

Samson: Or the other way, taking a player off a bad year, signing him knowing that player will bounce back, as opposed to signing a player off a good year which was the aberration. We always try to have players who outperform their contracts, because if you do that you're going to win.

JL: You also like to keep players on short-term contracts.

Samson: Yes. We have, for instance, Miguel Cabrera. People say, "Oh, he's not signed [to a long-term deal]." But he is signed to a three-year deal right now. We just don't know how much he's going to get paid [in arbitration]. He'll get paid according to his performance. When he does well, he gets paid, which is really the way the world should be."

JL: Now that you have shown you can compete with such a low payroll, will you continue along this business model? Put another way, what is the Marlins' payroll going to be in 2007?

Samson: I haven't really heard from the owner what is in his mind. I'm working more on the revenue assumptions because I hope what's in his mind is he doesn't want to lose money again. So the payroll will depend on what we project our revenues to be, which frankly is how it should be.

JL: Do you expect other teams to follow this model of saving money by using more young players? There are many clubs who wouldn't even have called up players such as right-hander Anibal Sanchez, much less had him in the starting rotation?

Samson: I don't know how other teams operate. I can't imagine why other teams wouldn't play them. You have to see whether they are good at some point. Talent generally wins over age. If you're good, you're good no matter how old you are. And you never know in a baseball career, you could see the best of someone at 22 and that could be it.

JL: How much does this year's team remind you of the 2003 world champion Marlins?

Samson: I think the resilience of the team is very similar, which is a characteristic that a team has to have to be successful at any level because it's such a long season. You have 162 games in 181 days and you're going to have tough wins and tough losses, so you have to be ready to be bounce back.

JL: Flash back to Game 6 of the NLCS against the Cubs in 2003. Mark Prior was up 3-0 in the eighth inning and throwing bullets. What were you thinking at that point?

Samson: I was on the phone with my wife, in between the seventh and eighth inning and I was in the clubhouse and I was telling her, "Listen, this has been a great season. I've had the best time. We were in the LCS. We've done it. Don't be upset." And she said, "David, go sit in your seat. This game's not over." I'll never forget our clubhouse after Game 6. It was just silent. People were like, I can't believe what just happened.

JL: After the World Series, you ended up letting Pudge Rodriguez walk as a free agent when a lot of other teams would have kept him based on sentiment alone. Can you talk about that decision?

Samson: Sentiment doesn't win games and sentiment doesn't stop you from losing money. As a matter of fact, sentiment makes you lose money. And it behooves smart management to not be sentimental. We had a price in mind that we were willing to pay Pudge. He wanted more and that was it."

JL: Lastly, what is the status of the negotiations for a new ballpark at this point?

Samson: Steady but slow. I've been telling people that I've only been at it for five years but the record is 10, in Minnesota. I've got five years left before I take first place in the amount of time it takes to get a stadium. There's a desire, I think, by everyone to do it but just getting all the stars aligned is tough. It's a public-private partnership and our owner has offered to make the fourth-highest contribution ($190 million) in the history of baseball for a stadium in a market that really hasn't proven itself. Our TV ratings are outstanding, but the heat is a major factor in getting people to come to the park, and that's why a roof and climatization is absolutely critical. There has to be a roof. You have to live there to understand what it's like every afternoon, where it just rains and thunders and lightning. People need to know the game is going to happen and they need to know they can bring clients without sweating through their shirt.
posted by JL | View comments |  

Comments:

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Posted: 11:56 AM, September 20, 2006   by Ryan from PA
As a Marlins fan I agree with a lot of what Samson is saying. The big splash signee wont play as hard as the guy who is just happy to have a jersey on his back.

Through the years the Fish have shown that players' determination and passion to win , means more to them than players getting a large denomination and cashing in.


If the fish cant pull off the miracle of winning the wild card -then i'll be rooting for the AL version of florida - the a's!
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