'Still so hard' for grieving Marlins GM to get back to business

For Mike Hill, who buried his team's ebullient 24-year-old ace in late September, it wasn't easy staying focused on the business of baseball this week as the game's top executives converged at an Arizona resort to talk shop at the general manager meetings.

It wasn't easy at all, he said, because the grief and shock and horror of losing Jose Fernandez, the Miami Marlins' impossibly talented, irrepressibly joyful star, hasn't abated over the last six weeks.

"It's still so hard,’" Hill told Bob Nightengale of USA Today. "I mean, my office overlooks his memorial on the West Plaza, so I get a daily reminder that he’s gone. It’s obviously an unbelievable tragedy, but it hasn't diminished in my heart. He's with me. He'll be with me forever."

But as crass and insensitive as it sounds, Hill still has a baseball team to run, and even a tragedy as upending as Fernandez's death can't derail that, no matter how revolting the thought of trying to build a team or pitching rotation that doesn't revolve around that electric kid. Hill understands that.

"That's the part that makes these meetings more challenging,’’ Hill said. "You get to the offseason, start planning for the season, and it’s not like he's on the DL. He’s not recovering from Tommy John surgery. He's gone."

He is, and that pain will linger for a very long time, but when it comes to filling that gaping void in their rotation, the onus is on Hill and his colleagues to approach other teams, and not the other way around.

"It's just such a horrible situation for everyone," Chicago White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said. “They’re here trying to move on, and crafting a team, but I can’t imagine what it’s like inside the organization.

"Really, all you can do is follow their lead on conversations. When you talk about a situation like this one, no one's looking to be proactive to address what everyone knows is a great hole for them."