The holiday gift for baseball fans is teams — most anyway — are trying again.
That should be par, right? Except what became not only modern, but congratulated in recent years was racing to the bottom. Many organizations were hungrier to rank near the top in Baseball America’s prospect lists than contend.
The Cubs and Astros won championships with this philosophy, but the overflow of franchises that followed this strategy assured by sheer volume that not all could be successful. Plus, it led to a more wretched product on the field. The middle class dwindled, creating a disparity of extreme success and failure.
In 2019, four teams won 100 games in the same season for the first time (hat tip to Lee Sinins of MLB Network research) and from 2017-19, 10 teams won in triple digits. The previous high for a three-year time frame was eight.
In 2019, four teams lost 100 games for just the second time, and in 2018-19 seven teams lost 100 games — the most ever in a two-year span.
In 2018-19, 14 teams either won or lost 100 games — as many as did from 2010-17.
Attendance dropped for a fourth straight year in 2019. You can talk weather or pace of play. But who would pay to see punching bags and teams propped up by punching bags?
The five largest per-game rises in attendance last year belonged to the Phillies, Twins, Padres, Mets and Reds. Of those teams, just Minnesota made the playoffs. But all five tried greatly to improve last offseason amid a general malaise.
The job of a major league team should be to a) win and b) entertain its fans. Charging major league prices and purposely putting an inferior roster on the field should be baseball sacrilege. It is why the Players Association should be doing all it can in collective bargaining negotiations to punish recidivist losing, rather than allow serial failures to benefit from high draft picks and greater funds. And the Commissioner’s Office should be partners in this, not antagonist.
Because we can hail the Cubs/Astros model. But I would rather note that the A’s, Indians and Rays always do their best to win as many games as possible, and have been joined recently in that pursuit by the Brewers and Diamondbacks. Those teams have five of the 12 best records over the past three years, have all made the playoffs at least once in that time and have just one losing record out of a possible 15 seasons from 2017-19.
The union and MLB should be devising how to funnel more funds and draft picks to teams doing more with less rather than the Orioles. Baltimore stands out right now as not trying to be better than last year, when it lost 108 times after losing 115 the year before. It will be noted that the Orioles hired their GM, Mike Elias, away from the Astros to follow the Houston path. But Brewers GM David Stearns comes from the same tree and is trying to win as much as possible in Milwaukee.
Now, this is not about delusion. No one thinks, for example, the Marlins are going to win 100 games. But by adding legitimate major leaguers such as Jesus Aguilar, Jonathan Villar and Francisco Cervelli, they could avoid losing 100. They can make the competition more legitimate. They can put professionals with their young players. There is no obligation to any of those players beyond 2020, so if it doesn’t work out, the Marlins just move on. But if any are good, the Marlins will be better for it and also potentially have July trade chips.
The same is true with the Tigers adding C.J. Cron and Jonathan Schoop. The Royals took a one-year, $2.95 million flier on Maikel Franco. I love that move. He has never fulfilled his prospect tout. But he will play at just 27 next year. So if he gets it late, Kansas City benefits. He cannot be a free agent until after 2021. So the Royals can keep him, trade him or just non-tender him after the year.
That is the bottom of the free-agent market. At the top, seven of the 10 largest contracts were issued by teams with losing records last year, eight are by non-playoff teams. The White Sox (seven straight non-winning seasons) have signed three of the top 10, and one each have gone to the Phillies (eight straight non-winning seasons), Reds (six), Angels (four) and Blue Jays (three).
Will they all work out? Of course not. There is a cost to trying. But what we too easily forget is the sizable cost for not doing so — in a less competitive atmosphere in the sport and less interest from a local fan base.
So it is good that so many fan bases have gotten to open presents early this year.
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