I'm good with that.

The constitution says two years average, but type B have to both meet the two years and have qualified this year, too.

You can make a small payroll work in the regular season, but once the playoffs come it's a lot tougher (it seems). Yes. All the money doesn't change the fact that, even if correlation was 100%, the best team in baseball, when facing another pretty good team, probably only wins 55% of the time. I a ...

I feel like I've trod upon your sacred cow here. So I'm sorry. Markets are semi-static variables in the system. That's true. But there are more variables than that. Revenue sharing. Luxury taxes. The ability of players to get more lucrative endorsement deals one place or the next. The fact that very...

Even Tampa, everyone's poster child for astute and analytical front offices has not avoided streaks of multiple years where their lack of ability to spend their way out of trouble has resulted in poor records on the field.

Hmmm...well...however they are getting their money (TV/Gate/Merchandising/whatever), they have been in the top half of _spenders_ for some time. For a conversation based on the value of spending and payroll, that seems to be the best metric to use.

Just because...here are what I was using for current payrolls: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/y ... 2/dir/desc

I can see where you’re coming from. When judging the competency of front offices I consider “lately” to be more than three years. St. Louis hasn’t come up but that’s been another model franchise in a small market. They struggled last year and might be in for another tough season but in my mind that...

I guess your words were "for awhile" so I suppose that's fair.

I'm not trying to rag on Cleveland. They are a great and storied franchise. They are doing fine. I think this started when you said Cleveland has been winning lately I responded with the fact that they have had losing seasons two of the last three years. I suppose you can argue with me, but to my mi...

Part of the beauty of baseball, though, is that it's the sport where then best team wins the least. So even behemoth clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees are still more likely to not win championships than they are to win one. It's not like the NBA where you can usually predict the playoff round befor...

The Yankees have not had a losing season since 1996. They won only 82 games last year, and everyone freaked out.

Yes, those are nice selective endpoints. The years before that were literally horrible. :) Cleveland has a pretty classic small market cycle over the last 15 years or so. Longer if you want to go back farther. They get really good for 3-4 years while their mega-kids are together, then white-knuckle ...

Danya needed four more votes. de'Medici edges up a little. Puckett falls a little. I expect they may fall as the next wave of old guy fills the list.

I think Flores and Rafael are done with eligibility.

BaseClogger wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2024 1:53 pm

Guardians have been winning for a while too. Reds are Orioles-lite. Tigers are Reds-lite.

Hmmm ... discounting where they are very early in this season, Cleveland has had only one winning season in the last three.

Several good teams on that list. There is a lot of parity in baseball. Unfortunately the smaller spenders haven’t been able to get over the hump consistently in the playoffs but I think that’s just luck. The classic small market cycle has been comprised of focusing development resources on a set of...

The Brewers and particularly the Rays are small market teams that are surviving on baseball acumen and churning young players. That's really what Billy Beane was doing in the heyday of Oakland's competitive period. Everyone focuses on Moneyball and OBP, which was good, but he also worked in a world ...

In context for large market team, choosing not to spend means not getting close to the luxury tax line. The Cubs spent on several players and won a world series. That's pretty successful to me. Things happen, though. Rather than spend to re-up Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez (like fans wanted), they traded ...

Someone crossed the time streams.

Welcome! Write away! I did that, too.