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COMMENTARY: Marlins need to up their payroll

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It's a long way to 2011, when the Florida Marlins are scheduled to step into their new ballpark in Little Havana.

This past weekend's series in Washington, though, gave a glimpse of exactly what a spectacular stadium debut guarantees for a franchise.

Fireworks, yes.

Full houses, no, at least beyond the buzz of opening night.

Luxury boxes, yes.

An army of carving-station attendants and bartenders to work every last one of those luxury boxes all summer long. No, not even close.

The Washington Nationals are beginning to come to terms with all of this just a few months into their first season at Nationals Stadium, a $611 million showcase built with public money. For all the amazing amenities, attendance has not spiked.

Altogether, the Nats' home average (around 29,000) ranks 11th in the 16-team National League. In 2007, the team's last in decrepit RFK Stadium, Washington ranked 14th. Not much of a bump, all things considered, and there's only one way to sure-fire way to improve upon it.

Get the Nationals out of last place and, if at all possible, into the World Series.

That's the message for Florida owner Jeffrey Loria, who even at this giddy moment, with the low-budget Marlins in first place in the NL East, must be realistic enough to read the trends.

Technically-advanced stadiums will never fully transform a sports market if the product housed within is defective. This goes double in South Florida, where the fan base is far more fickle than most. Waiting to pad the Marlins payroll, then, until a new ballpark rises on the old Orange Bowl site is even worse than playing with fire.

It's dousing the flames altogether.

Hanley Ramirez is due for arbitration this winter. Let him go, failing to lock up the future MVP candidate in a long-term contract deal, and it will be years before someone so talented comes along again.

Josh Willingham, Scott Olsen, Dan Uggla, Mike Jacobs and others won't work much longer, either, for just a tick or two above the major-league minimum of $390,000. Maybe there are others bubbling around in the Marlins farm system who by 2011 will be as good as these guys are, but maybe not.

Having a true post-season contender in the Marlins' new stadium can't be a maybe proposition. Baseball is littered with examples of where that takes you.

The Pittsburgh Pirates got a new stadium, PNC Park, in 2001. They also lost 100 games in '01 and consequently got only a token improvement from 12th in league attendance at the old Three Rivers Stadium to 11th at PNC. Today, the Pirates are doing worse than ever, bumping around with Florida near the bottom of the league attendance standings, and all because they are consistent losers.

In 2003 the Cincinnati Reds opened a new ballpark so great that it is called Great American Ball Park. Just five years later the team is averaging right about 22,000, pretty much the same as it did for home games in the final season of the old facility, Riverfront Stadium.

What of Detroit, the American League team that collected Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis in the most recent Marlins payroll purge?

The Tigers got their new stadium, Comerica Park, in 2000 and experienced a modest rise of about 5,000 in average home attendance. Just three years later, however, the bottom dropped out, with fewer than 17,000 fans per game showing up to watch Detroit stumble to a 43-119 record. The farewell season at Tiger Stadium, a ballpark built in 1912, did much better than that, averaging 25,173.

Can't expect people to gobble up garbage on a silver platter, no matter how posh the housewarming party.

Clearly, not even baseball fans are that gullible, and not even in classic baseball markets.

South Florida, unconventional in every way, will demand a winner in 2011 or else the new Marlins ballpark will lose its shine in very short order.

Loria can't be satisfied with that, especially with the team pitching $155 million into the project. He'll spend more money on players when the time comes.

Just don't wait until Ramirez and the rest of this young and overachieving Florida bunch are gone to higher bidders. That would mean starting from scratch, again.

It's a concept that would sound far worse in 2011, sitting under a retractable roof in Miami, than it ever has at Dolphin Stadium, a leased building with a load of built-in excuses.

Dave George writes for The Palm Beach Post.