Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez is being evaluated as we speak by Jeffrey Loria and his lieutenants at the club owner's New York digs. It seems only fair that Loria might also be under evaluation -- preferably by doctors probing whether he is mentally fit to run a major-league ballclub in light of apparent new evidence to the contrary.

The reports that overachieving manager Fredi Gonzalez might be fired by Loria begs that a rule be passed immediately allowing owners to be fired instead. I will make that motion on behalf of Marlins fans and sanity. (I think I'll have no problem hearing a second from fans of any number of franchises run ineptly, perhaps led by the Los Angeles Clippers).

The only thing going right with the Marlins is the product on the field -- and that's despite, not because of, the most penurious owner in baseball and one of the cheapest in all of professional sports.

Florida is lucky to have a roster architect, Larry Beinfest, who is adept at shrewdly building winning teams with the nickels and dimes allotted him. Florida is lucky to have a manager who can take those young players and somehow steer them to playoff contention even when four of his five starting pitchers underperform. So much else about the franchise is embarrassing. The player payroll hovers at an MLB-low $35 million even though income from revenue sharing and TV means Loria could spend more and still make money.

GREAT VALUE

Most Marlins crowds are so small you hear crickets even though the product on the field deserves better. (Wonder if it's because fans figure if Loria won't spend on the team why should they?)

Now the latest embarrassment is the possibility the owner might fire Gonzalez because the owner believed either or both of the past two seasons should have ended in the playoffs.

Is he delusional? Can he be serious? Loria is a New York art dealer by trade, and his thinking on Gonzalez and expectations are about as close to reality as a Dali painting.

The Marlins overachieved so much in Gonzalez's second season in 2008 -- based on the limited talent a limited payroll will provide -- that Gonzalez was named The Sporting News' Manager of the Year. Management evidently was impressed enough then that his contract was extended, through 2011.

This season, most every national publication pegged Florida for fourth of five teams in the NL East and in no way a playoff contender, yet the Marlins finished 87-75, in second place and in postseason contention until the last week or so. Gonzalez could finish second for NL Manager of the Year to Colorado's Jim Tracy.

Yet Loria mulls replacing his very good, solid manager with (according to reports) a recycled Bobby Valentine, who last managed in the majors in 2002; who has only two playoff appearances in 15 big-league seasons; and who is most noted for reappearing in the dugout wearing a disguise after being ejected from a game in 1999.

Loria wants to be hands-on with the Marlins and mess up what has succeeded despite him. Here's an idea. You wanna be hands-on, Loria? Put your hands on your wallet, open it and extract enough money to give fans a team with a decent payroll. (That wallet might open with a creak and a billow of dust and find Confederate bills in there, based on how seldom Loria opens it relative to most owners.)

What a strange time for South Florida pro sports ownership in general.