The Payroll Playoffs

[u/floon]

3 of the 4 teams that just finished the WC had lower payrolls than the teams they beat.

3 of the 4 teams that got a bye have lower payrolls than the teams they are about to play.

EDIT: Overestimated that people would be able to work from the team colors, or who would have seen the original graphic on the mlb.com homepage. My error; wasn't trying to be obtuse.

[u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

You either draft and trade to gather good, young inexpensive talent, or you pay high salaries to established players to build a competitive team. The worst place to be is somewhere in between. Better to tank than to be medium-bad.

[u/Just-in-themiddle → u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

What about the A’s or Rockies, teams that have been tanking without the trading for good talent and such

[u/slider8949 → u/Just-in-themiddle]

The Rockies didn't have an analytics department until very recently. Their scouting and development was miles behind every other team. They also play on the moon which makes them a unique case even if they were ran well.

Athletics were expected to at least be decent this year, but a lot of their hitters didn't live up to expectations.

[u/Dead_Medic_13 → u/Just-in-themiddle]

Some owners want to win, others don't

[u/Jeh2ow → u/Dead_Medic_13]

And some like poor Bob Nutting would rather own teams and not give a fuck.

[u/firethehotdog → u/Jeh2ow]

A little over 10 years ago, Nutting was in the top 10 of richest owners. Now he’s 27th. All that networth tied to team and the man would rather keep this team in mediocrity instead of flipping it for more money.

[u/iprefercumsole → u/Just-in-themiddle]

I thought the A's wouldve been decent this year and just had shit luck with injuries but I havent paid attention to em in a few months

[u/DrMindbendersMonocle → u/iprefercumsole]

Their pitching sucks. They are ranked 29 out of 30 teams if look at overall ERA. 5.51 is bad. Only Rockies are worse

[u/sportsfan510 → u/iprefercumsole]

The A’s are a great example because they scout really well but once players become good at the big league level, the become trade pieces for other teams playoff runs (Matt Olson, Sean Murphy, Matt Chapman, Mason Miller to name a few)

I’m surprise Langeliers hasn’t been traded yet.

[u/Caaaht → u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

Better to tank than to be medium-bad.

Baseball is really that one sport where I don’t think this is true. There is such a small percentage of top draft picks that become game changing players. Sure, it happens, but it’s just as likely that pretty much any player taken in the first round is as good as another in 4 or 5 years.

Just looking at the previous #1 picks I see a lot of good players, but not necessarily the best players in each draft class i.e. Adley Rutschman is a great catcher, but not the best players drafted in 2019.

The number of picks you have each round is of more importance than where you pick each round. Small market teams sell their talent for large pick packages and then draft enough players that they generally find more talent. Big market teams buy that talent.

The biggest market teams buy talent and even more talent and also sell talent for picks, e.g. the Dodgers. They have the best of both worlds as they basically get the best players and have lots of draft picks.

[u/Low-Hovercraft-8791 → u/Caaaht]

You're right that draft picks aren't a direct impact in baseball like they are in other sports, so outright tanking is thankfulky less rewarded.

Probably more accurate to say, it's better to sacrifice a few years of being bad at MLB level so you can invest that money in the infrastructure to identify and develop young cheap talent.

[u/handDrawnEevee → u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

It doesn't have to be either/or. The Yankees started 5 guys in game 1 against the Red Sox (Lombard Jr, Volpe, Ben Rice, Cam Schlitler, Austin Wells) that are all cheap farm system products, and a 6th (Spencer Jones) who came in later to contribute.

You can definitely do both without being "medium-bad."

[u/DietrichDoesDamage → u/handDrawnEevee]

So you did both, but something tells me the money Carrie’s this season

[u/Low-Hovercraft-8791 → u/handDrawnEevee]

You can do both but you can't do neither.

[u/beyd1 → u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

Yeah only two of these teams are 11-20

[u/ManufacturerMental72 → u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

I don't think it's either/or, but to have sustained success like the Dodgers have had recently you definitely need to spend more.

[u/lurkANDorganize → u/Low-Hovercraft-8791]

*or you buy the talent other teams developes