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McKeon on trade deadline; Conine on Hanley

With a little less than a week remaining before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, rumors are swirling around baseball about potential deals. But manager Jack McKeon said Friday he expects it to be a quiet 10 days for the Marlins.

“As I look at it, I don’t see anybody being traded,” McKeon said. “You’ll see clubs like ours that are down in the standings, they’re going to be scouted a little more heavily because they figure maybe they’ll unload some of those players. … Something could happen, but I don’t see it.”

McKeon had other interesting thoughts about the trade deadline. Here's what he said:

"You guys love that rumor stuff. You see a scout from the Yankees is in here and he happens to be looking at one of our pitchers. Immediately someone thinks, ‘Hey, the Yankees are interested in this guy.’ Well those guys, No. 1, that’s their club to cover, or they’re thinking a lot of times, they’re thinking about possible free agents at the end of the year. It doesn’t necessarily mean someone is in at this particular time. And, also, you’ll see clubs like ours that are down in the standings, they’re going to be scouted a little more heavily because they figure maybe they’ll unload some of those players. So you’ll see a lot of guys in there looking at that particular time at the trading deadline. And a lot of people might slip a word to the media. Like [Mets outfielder Carlos] Beltran, he’s traded to everybody every day. ... A lot of times the rumors — A lot of times the blockbusters are the ones that no one knows about. Like Randy Johnson going to Houston. Everybody had him going to the Yankees and the Dodgers. Then all the sudden, it surprised me. Nobody let that one out."

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Jeff Conine, a special assistant to Marlins president David Samson, raised some eyebrows earlier Friday afternoon with comments he made on The Dan LeBatard Show on 790 The Ticket. Here's the transcript from the interview with Conine...

Dan LeBatard Show: Does Jeff Conine get frustrated by Hanley Ramirez?

Conine: On a nightly basis.

Dan LeBatard Show: Because?

Conine: I don’t know. I just, I don’t know. I think that obviously Hanley is a phenomenal talent. But as a guy that — I’m probably jealous too, because I didn’t have that kind of talent, but I had to work extremely hard on a nightly basis to put my talent on the field. I think there are some nights where he doesn’t try as hard as he should.

Dan LeBatard Show: Does he care enough?

Conine: I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe that’s part of the problem. He is no doubt one of the top five talents in baseball, and you hope that at some point he would get it and become a leader in the clubhouse like he can be on the field.

Dan LeBatard Show: You don’t think he respects the game?

Conine: I would say if you define that as not going out there and putting 100 percent on the field every day, yeah, I would say no he doesn’t.

Dan LeBatard Show: Would you trade him, if it were up to you?

Conine: If it were up to me, probably.

Dan LeBatard Show: You see a guy who’s not being as good as his talent…

Conine: When you’ve got a guy that’s as good as he is and has had the success that he has — He’s not the only one. I think there are players like that, of that caliber, that kind of get complacent with their work ethic and say, ‘You know what, this game is pretty easy for me.’ And for me, it is much easier than it is for many other guys. As you get older and stop working as hard as you once did, your talent starts to degrade a little bit. So often they were able to flip that switch and dominate a game. Well, as your career progresses and you’re not working as hard as you used to, you can’t flip that switch any more and dominate a game. You’ve got to keep on working.

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TONIGHT'S LINEUPS:

Marlins: 1. Emilio Bonifacio, 3b; 2. Omar Infante, 2b; 3. Logan Morrison, lf; 4. Hanley Ramirez, ss; 5. Gaby Sanchez, 1b; 6. Mike Stanton, rf; 7. Bryan Petersen; 8. John Buck, c; 9. Chris Volstad, p.

Mets: 1. Jose Reyes, ss; 2. Justin Turner, 2b; 3. Carlos Beltran rf; 4. David Wright, 3b; 5. Daniel Murphy, 1b; 6. Angel Pagan, cf; 7. Lucas Duda, lf; 8. Ronny Paulino, c; 9. Mike Pelfrey, p

-- Matt Forman

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