California 2038.6 - An arrogant Jerk's Guide to Sustained Winning

[Ted]

I have really enjoyed Alan's dummy's guide to the ultimate rebuild (apologies if I got the title wrong), so I thought I'd take a crack at doing something similar for sustained winning. There are lots of ways to build a winning team. There are lots of ways to sustain winning. Some types of builds are easier to keep winning with than others. The following is how I have done it. So without further ado:


One of my gaming handles is Soapbox Ted. I laughed so hard the first time someone called me that. Hard to make it my own.

An Arrogant Jerk's Guide to Sustained Winning: Part 1. What Makes a Winning Franchise Anyway?

For me, it starts with an understanding of what it takes to win. I submit that if you look at your team, and you see that you had a good offense last year, and need a starting pitcher, and there is a top starting pitching in free agency, and you have more cap space than anyone else, and you sign that pitcher, etc, etc, etc ..... you are going about this all wrong. That is not how you make a winning franchise. That's too short sighted. What if signing that pitcher takes up all your cap space for the next five years, and now you can't extend your bright young offensive stars.

You may be thinking, but what else should I do? A least I'll be good that one year. My answer is, "I don't know." I'd need to look at your team. In depth. Really understand your club, what your players are like in the majors. Their ages, arb eligibility, contract status. What does you minor league system look like? Who is coming along as replacements? These are all parts. There could easily be ten moves that are better than signing that big free agent starter. It may be that not being good this year and continuing to build is the better move long term.

You have to look at the whole. All the time. It sounds like it takes a lot of work, but not really. Once you know what you have, it changes rather slowly the overwhelming majority of the time. So back to the question. What makes a winning franchise anyway? My answer is having more value than other teams. That value can take a lot of forms, but still, whatever they are, you want more. If you didn't win last year, you don't have enough. I visualize it akin to a dragon guarding a big hoard of treasure. It's MY big pile of treasure. I cherish it. I marvel at it. I'm continually looking for ways to make it bigger. I absolutely never do anything to make it smaller. Call it treasure. Call it value. Call it whatever. But it's mine. You can't have it. I may trade part of it for part of yours, but I've decided that the trade makes my precious pile of value prettier than it was before.

This pretty much drives everything I do. Every move is made with this mindset. If a move appears to make me more likely to win now, but could damage my glorious pile of baseballey goodness later, I don't make it.

I'm not perfect. I don't always stick to my guns. My weakness is my legacy players. I've been playing two men down the last couple years because I won't let Diaz and Vazquez go. Two rosters spots and 3 mil short. But that's a little thing. Very little compared to many of the "win now" moves I see all the time.

So that's it. That's how you win consistently. You identify value appropriately and accrue it. You hoard and hoard and hoard until it is a big glittering mountain of stupendous baseball value. Then that value goes and wins games for you. You let the record sort itself out. If you have more value, you'll win more games. You'll make more payoffs, and win more championships.

I feel like this has been a lot of saying nothing, but understanding that this is the way I look at winning has to be stated or the rest of this series is just random tips without a unifying theme. Sorry for the boring start, but it had to be said. See you next time in "Part 2. What is this value you speak of?"

[RonCo]

Pulling up a chair and turning my hearing aid on.