Nightengale: Many burned by Marlins fire sale

• Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria betrayed fans, deceived players and lost credibility
• Loria lowered payroll from $118 million to about $30 million in salary commitments in 2013
• Agents vowed they would never permit premier free agents to sign with the Marlins

CHICAGO -- Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria walked past the horde of news reporters awaiting him Wednesday, refusing to stop for questions, but still with time to insult anyone daring to question the Marlins' motives. "Not today, boys," Loria said, ever so arrogantly. "If you guys haven't figured it out yet, I'm not going to figure it out for you."

We figured it out, all right.

You're an owner who betrayed your fans, deceived your players and has lost credibility for as long as you stay in the game.

If the backlash from the Marlins' latest fire sale — a 12-player deal with the Toronto Blue Jays that left the Marlins with no financial commitments beyond 2013 — wasn't enough, along came more bad news when Loria revealed that he has no intentions of selling the team.

Hey, why should he? He has lowered his payroll from $118 million to about $30 million in salary commitments in 2013, meaning he should pocket about $110 million in profits next year, thanks to that fancy ballpark his local taxpayers provided.

The mistake Loria made was delaying the decision to sell naming rights to Marlins Park, which now might not exceed the value of a Frappuccino.

Miami talk show hosts Jeff DeForrest and Marc Hochman didn't have enough time Wednesday to field all of the venom from their callers, with DeForrest firing off a gem of his own.

"The next move obviously is to have Fidel Castro throw out the first pitch next year," DeForrest said. "That's the only way they could alienate the fans more than they have."

Well, at least that would put fannies in the seats with protesters, because no one is going to bother showing up now.

Several owners were snickering at the Marlins dumping their three biggest free agent acquisitions of last winter — Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell — after one season.

And player-agents were livid, vowing they would never permit premier free agents to sign with the Marlins.

Scott Boras has not had a top free agent sign with the Marlins since Alex Fernandez in December 1996, a trend that will continue unless the Marlins change their policy of withholding no-trade clauses.

"I've never had a franchise player there because it was just not something my client wanted to risk," Boras told USA TODAY Sports. "They (Marlins executives) were always upfront about it. They told me, 'We don't do no-trade clauses.' But it's very difficult to sell an expectancy to a player knowing that it might last for only one year.

"Contractually, what they did was appropriate. It's pretty hard to say they don't have the right to do what they're doing. But if you sign there, it's caveat emptor. The money is secure, but where you play is not."

That's also why starter Ricky Nolasco will be the next guy shipped out of town, why prized outfielder Giancarlo Stanton better find an apartment building with a six-month lease, and why Andy Silverman, their vice president in charge of ticket sales, might have the worst job in America.

Their trade might one day go down as a stroke of genius.

But if no one's around to see it pay off, what does it matter?