OT - I'm bored, Part Pangos & Bell!

[dash]

Interesting that Reyes never had a 3 hit, 3 runs scored game in his 300+ games with the Jays like Tulo did last night. Nice debut Troy.

 

[Darkstone42]

The Cards just got a massive TV deal. They might be shooting up the salary column soon.

Something which strikes me about your table, Dare, is holy crap the Rays have been well-run.

 

[dare2be]

The Cards just got a massive TV deal. They might be shooting up the salary column soon.

Something which strikes me about your table, Dare, is holy crap the Rays have been well-run.

The other thing that strikes me from the table is the Pirates. Their salary has climbed up significantly in the last 3 years, and their win rank climbed correspondingly as well (no longer a 20-year-long sub-.500 team).

Here was the source of my data:

MLB Cost Per Win (By season): 2015 MLB Season

 

[Darkstone42]

Of the ten teams at the top of that list after the Yankees, all but two are higher in the salary rank than they are in wins. Of the bottom ten excluding the Astros, all but two are higher in the win ranking than salary. This chart is showing that teams that don't spend as much are punching above their weight class on a regular basis while teams that spend are not winning commensurate with their spending.

Are you suggesting that either the teams with the highest salaries should/deserve to have the best records or are you suggesting that an imperfect alignment dispels any and all complaints about payroll disparity?

Random variance can account for either.

Let's look at the Pirates' recent stretch of success. After NH came on as GM, the team got worse as he traded away their veterans, then they finally started to improve. But the big thing was that McCutchen exceeded expectations and became a superstar, an NL MVP. That was a stroke of luck. The bigger stroke of luck was signing him to an extension while he was still a good but not great player, the season immediately before his breakout. They did the same with Marte. Mercer's been surprisingly useful. Harrison came out of nowhere. Their reclamation projects in Liriano and Burnett worked out. Everything had to break right for them to succeed. There wasn't room for error.

That's the difference. If any of those things goes a different way, we're not talking about the Pirates as a playoff and World Series contender. They're rebuilding again.

 

[Cobiemonster]

Oh snap

 

[dare2be]

Let's look at the Pirates' recent stretch of success.[...] Everything had to break right for them to succeed. There wasn't room for error.

And they still haven't really succeeded. Two wild-card berths in that time, one playoff series. They still haven't caught the much higher-spending juggernaut in their division, nor beat either higher spending teams in the playoffs.

 

[dash]

Oh snap

AA is pushing his chips to the centre of the table.

 

[Cobiemonster]

 

[dash]

 

[Darkstone42]

They've still got a ways to go to catch the Yankees. Could put them in a nice spot to get the wildcard, though.

 

[dash]

They've still got a ways to go to catch the Yankees. Could put them in a nice spot to get the wildcard, though.

It's the AL LEast, DS, I think everything is up for grabs.

 

[Cobiemonster]

They've still got a ways to go to catch the Yankees. Could put them in a nice spot to get the wildcard, though.

They could possibly get a wild card spot, the competition in the AL isn't that great right now

I was reading on twitter that one of the perks of getting David Price is that they play the Yankees something like 13 more times this season and that he could get 3 or 4 starts against them

 

[Darkstone42]

It's the AL LEast, DS, I think everything is up for grabs.

The Yanks are a good team. They're not just an overachieving team, they're legitimately talented. Early injuries to their rotation put them in a bit of a hole, but they're healthy now.

Seven games is a big gap to close against a talented team with just about 60 games left, especially when the big fix to the big weakness only helps every fifth day, or at best twice out of every five days.

Incidentally, this is the same reason I wouldn't have wanted the Pirates to go after a rental who would cost a lot. Small upgrades are enough to keep the team afloat, because a big splash in the trade market isn't how they'll catch the Cards this year.

 

[Cobiemonster]

 

[Darkstone42]

I do, however, fully expect the Jays to get the top wildcard spot after this deal.

 

[dash]

The Jays and Yankees meet 13 times before the season is over, so the Jays in that respect have a lot of control on whether or not they will play October baseball.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

1) WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

2) The fact the only big piece they had to give up was Norris is so fucking sweet.

3) They still need another starter if they plan on being taken seriously, thus making it even sweeter that Norris was the only piece given up.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

Are you suggesting that either the teams with the highest salaries should/deserve to have the best records or are you suggesting that an imperfect alignment dispels any and all complaints about payroll disparity?

Random variance can account for either.

Let's look at the Pirates' recent stretch of success. After NH came on as GM, the team got worse as he traded away their veterans, then they finally started to improve. But the big thing was that McCutchen exceeded expectations and became a superstar, an NL MVP. That was a stroke of luck. The bigger stroke of luck was signing him to an extension while he was still a good but not great player, the season immediately before his breakout. They did the same with Marte. Mercer's been surprisingly useful. Harrison came out of nowhere. Their reclamation projects in Liriano and Burnett worked out. Everything had to break right for them to succeed. There wasn't room for error.

That's the difference. If any of those things goes a different way, we're not talking about the Pirates as a playoff and World Series contender. They're rebuilding again.

I'm suggesting there's a consistency amongst teams that use the prospect route and teams that use the spend big route, and it goes against the whole "rich teams buying titles" concept.

Not understanding your point about the Pirates - management did their jobs and things worked out well and that's rare? Isn't that what's supposed to happen? Also, McCutchen was taken 11th overall in a deep first round. That's usually where you find superstars.

 

[dare2be]

Not understanding your point about the Pirates - management did their jobs and things worked out well and that's rare? Isn't that what's supposed to happen?

It's a lot more rare for teams that have less than half the money to work with. Imagine how much worse it would be if the higher-spending teams' management would do their jobs as well as many of the financially strapped teams. And truthfully, before many of the lower-tier teams figured out how to survive in the current landscape, I recall it being much worse in the 90s and early 2000s, but I don't have the data at the moment to back it up.

And as for the Pirates the last 3 years, management did their jobs, but also spent twice as much to do it. Before that they had a 20-year drought of sub-.500 seasons.

 

[Bloody Brian Burke]

It's a lot more rare for teams that have less than half the money to work with. Imagine how much worse it would be if the higher-spending teams' management would do their jobs as well as many of the financially strapped teams. And truthfully, before many of the lower-tier teams figured out how to survive in the current landscape, I recall it being much worse in the 90s and early 2000s, but I don't have the data at the moment to back it up.

It evens out because players want to test free agency even if they're with one of the big spenders to begin with (recent examples include Scherzer, Grienke, Cano, Ellsbury, Lester) so those teams wind up losing their developed stars, too. Of course, some manage to re-sign them and sometimes that works out (Kershaw, Felix) and sometimes it really, really doesn't (Verlander, Howard).

Of course the late 90s-early 00's were much more unbalanced, but teams weren't privy to the new world of analytics yet and no team other than the Yankees came close to spending $100 million on a roster. $100 mil is probably somewhere around the median payroll these days.