If it's true that Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez is on the verge of being replaced, and team president David Samson did nothing to dispel the rumors that have suddenly circulated, then Jeffrey Loria has officially become a meddler.

And not just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill delusional owner who wants so badly to win that he will more than occasionally make a mockery of his organization.

No, Loria would be worse. He would be the delusional owner who wants to win so badly that he makes a mockery of his organization -- but doesn't spend any money in the process.

He's a persistent beggar and a demanding chooser. He's George Steinbrenner with an empty wallet.

It would be a joke, really, that the owner who dishes out the lowest payroll in the majors replaces the manager who guided his team to 87 wins and a second-place finish in the division. Especially when even the most optimistic of baseball experts considered the Marlins a sleeper team with a decent starting rotation and little else.

The Marlins brass, however, considered this team playoff caliber. And now those unrealistic expectations are about to cost Gonzalez his job?

It's beyond ridiculous. It's profound in its stupidity.

UNDER SCRUTINY

There doesn't appear to be any behind-the-scenes secrets in this reported plan to fire Gonzalez. It merely comes down to a disappointed owner who wanted his team to play deep into October and figures another manager could have gotten the Marlins there.

What Gonzalez's in-game decisions in this 162-game season actually translate to in terms of wins and losses is impossible to decipher. But if you look at the numbers, they certainly give no indication that Gonzalez was at fault for the team coming up six games shy of a playoff spot. In fact, they would indicate that the Marlins overperformed this season. The Marlins somehow won 87 games despite only outscoring opponents by six runs for the season. No other National League team did more with a smaller scoring differential.

The Marlins were in the playoff race for most of the second half despite their second-best starting pitcher, Ricky Nolasco, getting off to an inexplicably poor start, and another starter, Chris Volstad, having a slightly disappointing sophomore season.

What part of that was Gonzalez's doing? Was it the manager's fault that Jeremy Hermida once again failed to live up to expectations, or that Cameron Maybin wasn't quite as ready as the team thought he was, or that the closer he was handed, Matt Lindstrom, has a fastball that doesn't move, or that Nick Johnson got hurt in the heart of the playoff race, or that Chris Coghlan wasn't on the big-league roster for the first month of the season?

Not even a little bit.

It says something about Gonzalez that his team was able to tally the third-best win total in franchise history with all that working against him.

Yet there was Samson implying that the team was managed improperly in close contests.

LET THE RECORD SPEAK

``As we looked at the performance and things that happened, games that went one way, games that went another way, there is no question we felt we should have been a playoff team,'' Samson said.

So, basically, the team is upset that the Marlins lost a handful of close games? The Marlins were 30-20 in one-run games this season, the most one-run wins in the NL. And that was without a true closer.

Absurd decisions, though, are becoming a pattern with Loria -- certainly when it comes to his team's managers.

This is the same owner who fired Joe Girardi after his lone season as Marlins manager essentially because they didn't get along. Yet it was Girardi's personality that earned him so much praise while managing that young team in 2006, when he also won NL Manager of the Year honors.

UNFAIR EXPECTATIONS

Loria traded in the abrasive Girardi for a new manager that does exactly as he's told, never ruffles any feathers and actually does a better job than Girardi. Now that's not good enough either?

It's entirely respectable to have high expectations in sports. But it also doesn't hurt to be realistic at times. And the reality here is that Gonzalez should be praised for doing so much with so little.

Instead, he's apparently on the verge of losing his job.

Even if it that doesn't happen. Even if Gonzalez is still the manger of the Marlins next season, this public criticism of his performance (and, really, how else is this supposed to be taken?) already has been damaging.

People in Gonzalez's position rarely survive without support from the front office. And now we know that's the case here.

If it does happen, then Loria will have officially established the worst kind of reputation.

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