Comments on: Building a Winner

By: verdun

verdun — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:48:45 +0000

In some ways it’s kind of amazing that owners and general managers seem to think that a bunch of stars is going to win. Baseball history is full of great teams with a bunch of role players doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. Using 2 Yankee teams and one Dodger team for examples we can see the 1927 team with Ruth and Gehrig as superstars, then Combs and Lazzeri as Hall of Famers, and the rest of the starters as role players. The ’98 Yankees are much the same with Jeter probably a sure fire Hall of Famer and the rest a lot of very good players who made a wonderful team. I’ve excluded pitchers in both cases to concentrate on the hitters. The 1965 Dodgers are exactly the opposite with Koufax and Drysdale and a bunch of hitters no one’s ever heard of (except maybe Wills). Each of them have in common they won a World Series and each did it without a lot of superstars.
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By: sportsphd

sportsphd — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:40:09 +0000

I would place three as first rate free agents, Teixeira, Sabathia, and Guerrero. Outside of them, it is noticeable how big the dropoff is to the next top free agent. Torii Hunter? Nice player, 3 hitter on a team in the ALCS, but having him as your 3 hitter is symptomatic of why the Angels are having trouble beating the Yankees. The Dodgers did particularly well with deadline trades, i.e. Ramirez and Blake, as did the Phillies with Lee.

By: verdun

verdun — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:43:24 +0000

One thing that jumps out at me is the lack of really 1st rate free agents picked up by any of the teams, except possibly NY. I suppose Ramirez (at LAD) and Lee (at Philly) would have been 1st rate, but they are technically trades. Only Guerrero of the Angels and Tex and CC of the Yanks could be considered 1st rate free agent signings.
I supposed others might consider Abreu and Hunter top of the line, but I don’t. To me a 1st rate free agent is one you get that allows you to legitimately say “now we’re gonna win because we got him and nobody else does.” I don’t see any of the LA players that way, except that Guerrero was seen that way back in 04.
So maybe it’s better to pick good draft choices and then throw money at your home grown players rather than go after free agents.
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