Best way to build a team debate

[reillymcshane]

I've seen some recent discussions about the best philosophy about building a team.

 

Having a lot of money is probably the best option - but it's not available to Milwaukee. So, there's sort of this two way approach:

 

School of thought 1. Some people point to smaller market teams like the Twins and the A's and note their successes, while their detractors point out lack of World Series titles and quick exits from the playoffs. The general thought is that this kind of team builds from within, make good drafts, makes key trades/signings only when necessary, keeps the team within a budget. It builds a more steady 'good' team, but one that is rarely outstanding.

 

School of thought 2. This is more in the thought of 'going for broke' - loading up a team when you see the opportunity. Trading prospects for proven talent, making bolder signings, etc. This leads to the occasional magical year, where you develop a 'great' team that can win you a World Series - but it frequently is followed by sell offs of talent as the team can't maintain the level of payroll. The Florida Marlins are frequently brought up as an example.

 

So what's the answer? Is it worth it to try and 'go for it' and make some dramatic deals to try and make a play for the World Series?

 

I decided to look at the last 15 World Series winners (basically, since the last strike, when the economics of the modern game have developed to what we have today).

 

I looked at the rank in spending a team had the year the won the World Series, the two years before they won, and the two year after they won. This gives you a 5-year time span seeing how a team ranked in spending.

 

The results are as follows (year is followed by team that won the series, then five numbers - the middle one being the ranking the year the team won the World Series).

 

1995 - Braves - 6/3/3/3/5

1996 - Yankees - 1/2/1/1/2

1997 - Marlins - 25/15/7/20/30

1998 - Yankees - 1/1/2/1/1

1999 - Yankees - 1/2/1/1/1

2000 - Yankees - 2/1/1/1/1

2001 - Arizona - 9/7/8/4/10

2002 - Angels - 19/22/15/12/3

2003 - Florida - 26/25/25/25/19

2004 - Red Sox - 2/6/2/2/2

2005 - White Sox - 22/15/15/4/5

2006 - Cardinals - 9/6/11/11/11

2007 - Red Sox - 2/2/2/4/4

2008 - Phillies - 12/13/12/7/NA

2009 - Yankees - 1/1/1/NA/NA

 

Looking at this, it shows a few things:

1. The Marlins are the only team to really 'buy' into a series and then have a sell off - in 1997, moving up in spending steadily, then going down just as steadily.

2. The Marlins have NOT done it twice, as people like the say. Yes, it was done in 1997 - but the 2003 win showed a team remarkably stable in the pre and post World Series spending levels. The club won with cheap young talent (which they've steadily moved as they got too expensive).

3. Spending is (other than 1997) remarkably consistent for each World Series winner. Very rarely are teams jumping up or down 10 spots before or after a win. The White Sox jumped 7 spots in two years heading up to their win - the biggest jump other than the '97 Marlins. Otherwise, most teams kept within 4-5 spots of spending prior to their wins.

4. A few teams rose dramatically AFTER winning the World Series - notably the White Sox and Angels. This may be the team simply getting the most out of a bigger market.

5. No team dropped more than a couple of spaces AFTER winning the World Series - again, other than the 1997 Marlins.

This only looked at World Series winners. Not all participants.

There is nothing conclusive, but I have the following observations:

1. Believing that teams can do the 'Florida Marlins' thing and do a sudden splurge on spending to win is misguided in the fact it only happened once - not twice as people often believe.

 

2. If World Series wins is the goal, then spending heavily on players for a one or two year push has not shown much success - with only the Marlins significantly increasing payroll to buy a winning club - and then having to disband it as the team lost money. It has not happened again - 1 of 15 to me is a bad bet.

3. The Brewers have established themselves as a low/mid tier spending team - 19/15/17 over the past three years. There are few teams like this that have won - with the White Sox and Angels the closest examples. But these are both far larger markets, so I don't know if that kind of growth is possible. The Brewers could possibly force themselves up a few notches into the low teens, but it might be harder to sustain.

My feeling is that the team is best off by showing steady competitiveness within their division. Keep people interested in coming to the park, buying jerseys, etc. Then, when you feel you have the chance, you roll the dice every now and then (like the Sabathia trade). Maybe take on some salary, make a signing, etc. This means you never get to sign three guys like Teixiera, Sabathia and Burnett in one year. Maybe one - but not three. And you don't deal your top three prospects for one or two guys - maybe one prospect, but not much else. In the end, you have a consistent core of quality young talent (cheap) that can be meshed with more expensive pickups when the time is right. Still, we have to be able to spend. No team in the lower 1/2 of the salary structure has won the series, other than the 2003 Marlins.

 

I will say that I wish I had the time to look at FAILED teams - teams that did make dramatic grasps at winning - teams that overspent for 1-3 years in an attempt to win it all - only to have it all collapse when they didn't make it. That would probably take a lot more work.

Again, this is just something for people to chew on. I'm sure others can draw some interesting conclusions from the information.

 

[Invader3K]

My feeling is that the team is best off by showing steady competitiveness within their division. Keep people interested in coming to the park, buying jerseys, etc. Then, when you feel you have the chance, you roll the dice every now and then (like the Sabathia trade). Maybe take on some salary, make a signing, etc. This means you never get to sign three guys like Teixiera, Sabathia and Burnett in one year. Maybe one - but not three. And you don't deal your top three prospects for one or two guys - maybe one prospect, but not much else. In the end, you have a consistent core of quality young talent (cheap) that can be meshed with more expensive pickups when the time is right.

 

This sounds pretty much like the Brewers current strategy.

[colbyjack]

reillymcshane, nice job with the research, and overall good post. I know it's time consuming to come up with those numbers, but I would be interested to see where all playoff teams from the past 10 years fall in as far as payroll is concerned given the parameters you outlined, as well as seeing the results of the teams that made a one-to-three year window to be successful as you noted.

[TheCrew07]

I think having a large amount of money to spend can help cover up other issues in the organization but isn't necesssary to win.

 

I've always been of the opinion that the best way to build a team is to start with the pitching staff, the position players, then the bullpen. That's my utopian way of doing it.

 

I really don't think the Brewers are ever going to be able to compete player for player on the 25 man roster with the larger market teams, but I do think they can build a rotation that's just as good if not better. It all depends on what you personally believe in... if you believe that pitching > hitting, meaning that good pitching always beats good hitting, then instead of trying to compete with teams for 25 players, we really only need to focus on the rotation. The tangible benefits of a solid rotation extend to the bullpen, defense, the draft, and so on throughout the entire organization. I firmly believe that the pitching sets the bar for the team... if you have great pitching you have the potential to be a great team but if you're pitching is just average, you're going right around average to maybe good, but never a great team. In the playoffs you really only 3 pitchers, so you can get to the post season with a an average to below average staff on the whole, but it needs to be top heavy enough to be able to cut the garbage out like St. Louis did for their most recent championship. A rotation of 1 stud pitcher and 4 average pitchers will win games in the regular season, but I'm not sold it works in the post season. It's as simple as a pure numbers game, I'd rather focus on 5 good pitchers than 8 good position players. Pitching is power in baseball, without it and without payroll flexibility a team will always be on the outside looking in.

 

As far as an example, I absolutely love what TB did to get to the World Series and they did it with a core of young pitching that the organization didn't develop. The rotation was Kazmir, Shields, Garza, Sonnanstine, and Jackson. Kazmir, Garza, and Jackson were all acquired via trade, and I absolutely love the contract that Shields is signed to and would like the Brewers to do a similar deal with Yo and every young stud pitcher that comes after him. In addition to that rotation they had players they had drafted and developed in Neimann, Price, and Davis all waiting in the wings, what a truly great position to be in as an organization. They over spent on Burrell a little bit trying to remain competitive in the division this last off season as the Yankees went on their spending spree but they got to the WS having a great rotation, money well spent on their best players, and a bunch of averagish position players to go with 2 super star position players in Longoria (who was a rookie) and Crawford.

 

The Brewers have done a nice job developing bats, I think you always need a couple impact bats in the lineup, the more the merrier, but again I don't think you keep bats at the expense of building a rotation. I don't want or need to have an impact bat at every spot in the lineup, it would be nice to be sure, but again my focus is on the pitching staff. 2 impact bats with a buch of average to above players is fine with me. This is why I came down on the Hardy side of the fence in the Hall/Hardy debates and the Escobar side of the fence in the Hardy/Escobar debates even though Hardy was by far my favorite Brewer. I think anytime you have a replaceable player at a position and a hole in the rotation it's wise to attempt to form a package around that expendable player to acquire your missing rotation piece, I'm not a fan of quantity deals, I want quality coming back. Hopefully in the future we'll have enough pitching where this isn't an issue and we can be dealing an expendable pitcher to fill holes elsewhere. I'm aggressive by nature, which is mostly why I disagree with Melvin, he's conservative and takes the "standard" approach to roster management for lack of a better term. I really like how Tampa aggressively traded for talented pitchers while continuing to draft and develop pitchers in house, but again that just doesn't seem to be something DM is willing to do. It isn't necessary to field a complete lineup if you have pitching, and if you don't have pitching it really doesn't matter what you have for position players the team isn't going anywhere. San Fran was dead last in team OPS last season, but had the second best ERA in the NL, won 88 games, and finished 2nd in the WC race. The Phillies have a good offense every year but made their championship run when their pitching peaked, the same for Colorado, the same for Milwaukee in 2008... I guess the distinction here for me that is that I view offense as a means to butts in the seats, but isn't the best way to build a championship caliber team for a small market.

 

As far as the bullpen goes, I could care less as I'm into minimizing their role from the start, I want my 5 best pitchers to pitch as many innings as is prudent (every pitcher and game will be different so it's too difficult to quantify any other way) and go from there. I think it's much easier to acquire bullpen players than starters, some failed starters make great relievers ala Gagne and as relief performance from year to year has a high degree of variance at it's core, I'm alright putting the BP on the backburner. I honestly believe that if an organization is focusing on pitching the surplus is going to carry over to the bullpen and the BP will take care of itself. I like Miwaukee's new found philosphy of using mid to late teen picks on players like Fiers and Wooten who don't have the great stuff, but command their pitches and know how to pitch from the start, we'll also add some relievers in that manner as well. What I absolutely don't want is to be spending a significant portion of a limited payroll on the bullpen, especially a closer. I'm fine giving a dominant reliever closer money if he's willing to pitch the highest leverage innings and approach 80-90 IP on the season, but even then they are getting near SP money for 1/2 the innings, there's just not as much value in relief pitchers. Nothing irks me as much as defined bullpen roles... even out the workload if possible and only use your best pitchers in the most significant situations, don't waste them because it's the 7th or 8th inning.

 

I still maintain it's much easier to sign value in FA bats to plug holes than it is pitching, so if we're talking about Milwaukee signing players in FA I'd rather they went with position players, then starting pitching, and if absolutely neccessary a reliever. Put simply, it's difference between spending 10 million for Cameron vs Suppan, Cameron was by far the more productive player. As I'm into maximizing talent I would not sign FA pitchers and would spend my assets acquiring young pitching, not necessarily MLB ready pitching, but talent with significant upside, I don't see the Brewers ever competing for significant FA pitching talent, it's simply out of their price range, so signing any averagish FA pitcher to a market should be a last resort.

 

As far as trading would go, I believe that rental player deals have their place, but they weren't the best possible fit to get the most production out of this core of position players. I'm not against rental deals in principle, more so the situation that Milwaukee was in/will be in until the rotation is settled to "my satisfaction" (I'm well aware this only my point of view). Doug needed to be thinking about replacing Sheets with a long term solution in 2008/prior, not just this off season or last off season. I can't help but wonder if acquiring Sabathia and sitting on Hardy actually shortened the window of opportunity down to a single year the way things are going and I'll always wonder what could have been. Was that 1 playoff appearance and a 1 and done series worth 2 or 3 potentially down the road? To many people it was, but I'm just unable to shake the feeling that we could have been even better in 2009 and going forward than we were in 2008 if things had fallen in a different manner. To be clear this is not about Hardy regressing last season, I barked about moving him as our most expendable asset all last year, it's about missed opportunities to a address a long term need.

[strawbossisevil]

1) The first major "flaw" I see in your argument is this idea that the Brewers "sat" on Hardy. Escobar was not ready for the majors last season, he needed that extra year in the minors. Yes, in a perfect world we should have traded Hardy last offseason when his stock was highest, but no one saw this collapse of production coming. Had that sudden collapse not happened so suddenly, we would still have gotten a lot for him. Plus, what your argument fails to account for is the fact that we will now have one more year of Escobar in his prime. Maximizing value from your prospects is vital for a small market.

 

2) No one could have known when the Sabathia deal happened that it would result in a first round exit. When the deal was made, Sheets was healthy. If Sheets remained healthy, we would have gone into that playoff series with a rotation of Sabathia, Sheets, and Gallardo. Combine that with our strong offense and we had as good a shot as any other team of making it deep into the playoffs. If said deal would have gotten us to the World Series, I have no doubt you'd be whistling a different tune. The point is, one can not make the WS without making the playoffs. Unfortunately the coin-flip that is the playoffs didn't work out for us.

 

3) We all would like internal options to stick into the rotation, however the problem is this. Either A) we gut our minor leagues by trading away all of our advanced prospects for SP or B) we sign a somewhat overpriced FA pitcher. Due to our huge reliance on the farm system to remain competitive in other areas of our ballclub and the budget money we had available this offseason the choice was simple.

 

4) Comparing our situation with Tampa Bay isn't really fair because they went through an extremely long run of top 5 draft picks. They stunk so bad for so long that they had all of these top of the draft draft picks to trade away for top pitching prospects. Their farm system was absolutely loaded because of their ineptitude (yes, worse ineptitude than even the Brewers over the past decade). And as far as we know, it may only turn into a one year shot for them as well (does anyone see them taking down the Red Sox or the Yankees this year? I don't).

 

5) As far as the Brewers having only one shot at the playoffs. Even at this stage in the offseason without the addition of a second FA/trade target pitcher I think we are likely going to be one of the favorites in the hunt for winning our division. The Cubs are unlikely to add a lot this offseason and have aging superstars who each year are getting worse and more injury prone. The Cardinals just added Brad Penny who had an ERA in the high 4s last year, and an ERA in the 6s the year before that, along with a history of arm troubles. If they aren't able to resign Holliday and DeRosa, their offense is going to be putrid aside from Pujols, plus they'll be wishing on a star that Carpentar's arm doesn't fall apart as it so often does. If we add a Coreia-type pitcher via trade, we may even start the season as the NL Central favorites.

 

Edit: 6) Pitching can not be the be-all, end-all of an organization. As most know, pitchers face a higher amount of injuries and are a much more dangerous investment. If one puts all their chickens in the starting pitching basket, you are playing a risky game. On top of that, as most of our years with Ben Sheets should tell us, having a solid pitcher with a bad offense is not equal to a lot of wins.

[CheezWizHed]

Yes, very nice post. The Brewers right now have a good fan base and its imperative that they keep it strong. That's the only way to keep our revenues in the middle, which is the low end of making the WS.

 

I'm curious, how did we match up with the Twins in revenue?

 

I think this also makes a strong statement for the future need of a salary cap/revenue sharing/whatever to balance the large and the small. Otherwise, the low end of the pack has no chance...

[dadofandrew]

I think the Marlins' way is as good as any to win titles, but is probably tough to keep many fans that way, so it's tough on the bottom line.

[pingman]

build thru the farm system....via the draft & international free agents....focus on projectable pitching prospects, especially high school kids but then you need volume.....invest heavily in scouting & minor league development

 

...stock pile pitching prospects in your system then trade the excess to fill holes in your everyday lineup

 

....when the above fails, then free agency...

 

Sincerely,

The Atlanta Braves (I'd put the Twins in that category too but more because of their position players than pitching)

[topper09er]

Unfortunately the coin-flip that is the playoffs didn't work out for us.

The playoffs are not a coin flip. You just said that if we went in with Sheets, CC and Yo we would have been able to go deeper, but we had Suppan instead of Sheets and the better team, the Phillies, beat us. If they are just a crapshoot then we had the same chance of winning no matter who was in our rotation because it is just luck anyways.

 

Sorry for getting off topic but this is my main problem with moneyball, Beane just assumes the only goal of a baseball team is to make the playoffs and the rest is just luck. I think his teams falter in the playoffs because if your mentality is only the 3TO you are always going to lose to good pitching. Good pitchers dont walk batters or give up many HRs. You need players who can hit for average to beat good pitching, who you usually face in the playoffs.

[The Truth]

Hindsight is 20/20 but yes they should have traded Hardy and Hall a year ago (i.e. in the off-season). If Escobar wasn't ready for a full season, then fine start Counsell on opening day... the Brewers weren't in any stretch of the imagination title contenders last year, so it didn't matter

 

Right now, in terms of World Series title contention, they have a good solid #3 in Randy Wolf, and a good solid #2 in Yovanni Gallardo... if they are serious about trying to win it all in '10, with a great nucleus of Fielder and Braun, then they should trade for Roy Halladay at any cost... if not then they should look at it like a rebuilding year and hope for the best (which, actually, is what I think they are doing, I think they are looking at 2011 as the year they "go for it all")

 

Some of it so far has just been chips not falling like they could have... as an example, Rickie Weeks when drafted was looked at as potentially being what Chase Utley has become, an elite player... the Brewers have 2 elite hitters, if they had a 3rd or a 4th that puts them more in Phillies or (dare I say it) Yankees territory. Some of us (myself included) think Alcides Escobar has potential to be an elite player. If Weeks can put it all together and reach his potential and stay healthy (huge "ifs" I know) you are looking at a pretty potent lineup that truely is just one superstar pitcher away

 

So, I think the Brewers are doing it the right way. If Sheets had stayed healthy in 2008 I think the Brewers could have potentially been a World Series team that year

[NievesNoNO]

Essentially, for at least 3/4 of the teams there is really only one answer. That being to draft and draft well. Whether it's position player or pitchers those picks have to count. I think for the most part all the teams have the same philosophy. Draft well, sell high on players, obtain key free agents. Obviously that's where the challenge is. The extra money to spend is huge, so I think the Brewers need to do what they've been doing and keep a strong fan base coming into the stadium.

 

This is obvious, but the big market teams are able to keep their homegrown talent and get the best available free agents. The smaller/mid markets need to pick and choose. So step two is to make sure when your quality players leave you get something of value in return for them. Inevitably the Brewers will not be able to afford a championship caliber team each season, so when the time comes to trade/let one of their players walk they need to hit on those players that are coming back in return be it compensation draft picks or traded players.

 

Whatever the individual philosophy is regarding drafting players, offense, pitching, or defense there needs to be some balance. Teams won't win with just pitching or just hitting or building only through the draft or just through free agency.

 

The Brewer have got it right for the time being. Melvin and Mark A. have brought baseball back to life in Milwaukee. We can disagree over individual moves or decisions Melvin has made, but you have to admit by and large he has done an excellent job over all. Fans are pouring in the stadium, we finally returned to the play-offs, and we have some star power. Now, the next challenge will be to get over the top and then hold some consistency with the success. Whether Melvin is the guy for that is debatable, but the work he's done thus far has been excellent.

 

Nice debate.

[endaround]

Unfortunately the coin-flip that is the playoffs didn't work out for us.

The playoffs are not a coin flip. You just said that if we went in with Sheets, CC and Yo we would have been able to go deeper, but we had Suppan instead of Sheets and the better team, the Phillies, beat us. If they are just a crapshoot then we had the same chance of winning no matter who was in our rotation because it is just luck anyways.

 

Sorry for getting off topic but this is my main problem with moneyball, Beane just assumes the only goal of a baseball team is to make the playoffs and the rest is just luck. I think his teams falter in the playoffs because if your mentality is only the 3TO you are always going to lose to good pitching. Good pitchers dont walk batters or give up many HRs. You need players who can hit for average to beat good pitching, who you usually face in the playoffs.

 

Actually good pitchers tend to give up a normal amount of home runs

[strawbossisevil]

The playoffs are not a coin flip. You just said that if we went in with Sheets, CC and Yo we would have been able to go deeper, but we had Suppan instead of Sheets and the better team, the Phillies, beat us. If they are just a crapshoot then we had the same chance of winning no matter who was in our rotation because it is just luck anyways.

 

Sorry for getting off topic but this is my main problem with moneyball, Beane just assumes the only goal of a baseball team is to make the playoffs and the rest is just luck. I think his teams falter in the playoffs because if your mentality is only the 3TO you are always going to lose to good pitching. Good pitchers dont walk batters or give up many HRs. You need players who can hit for average to beat good pitching, who you usually face in the playoffs.

Coin flip is perhaps a bit strong. I imagine the better team probably wins around 55% - 60% of playoff series. But that's just based on calculations I've seen posted on this site by those who have crunched the numbers. Truth be told, especially in the 5 game series, anything can happen. The longer the series, the more likely it is that the better team wins. Statistically speaking by having the better team, you might improve your chances of getting through a playoff series by 10%. That's a pretty marginal amount, and it's why many point to the playoffs as being somewhat of a crap shoot.

[RobDeer 45]

The Twins win because they have a steady presence in the clubhouse and front office. They are consistent in what they do. Good defense, good young pitching, and they don't overpay for larger named average FA's. They bring in guys that will play hard and they are hard not to cheer for. I really think the Brewers need to adopt their method of philosophy. The only complaint I have with the Twins is they never go for it at the trade deadline. I think you have to do that every once and awhile. But shoot, I'd rather have the Brewers in the hunt every year than only once and awhile.

[rluzinski]

The playoffs are a coin flip, relative to a 162 game season. A true 95 win team is going to make the playoffs more often than not. That same team might have only a 25% chance of winning the World Series, however. The most dominating teams in history only win about 2/3rds of their regular season games. Now, they have to go to the playoffs and play against above average teams. The difference between good and great in the playoffs isn't all that.

[RockCoCougars]

Don't sign reigning NLCS MVP's to four year contracts..... Seriously, I think the key is drafting and developing young pitching. It's tough to win without a deep pitching staff. You can crunch sabermetric numbers all you want, but Billy Beane wouldn't have been so smart without Zito, Mulder and Hudson. The primary reason that teams like the Twins seem to compete every year is that they have abundance of young arms that they can bring up. We saw the opposite of that last year when the Brewers best option was Burns. As for offense, I would try to find 2-3 players to build around, lock them up long term and then use young cheap guys and sign bargain veterans that fall through the cracks to fill the remaining positions.

[logan82]

The Twins team defense hasn't been very good the last few years.

[Thurston Fluff]

The playoffs are not a coin flip. You just said that if we went in with Sheets, CC and Yo we would have been able to go deeper, but we had Suppan instead of Sheets and the better team, the Phillies, beat us. If they are just a crapshoot then we had the same chance of winning no matter who was in our rotation because it is just luck anyways.

 

Suppan helped the Cardinals beat superior teams and got them a world Series title. If it happens once it could have happen the same way again.

If you have a 30% chance of winning your best shot of getting that win is in a smaller number of chances.

[gobrew23]

Hindsight is 20/20 but yes they should have traded Hardy and Hall a year ago (i.e. in the off-season). If Escobar wasn't ready for a full season, then fine start Counsell on opening day... the Brewers weren't in any stretch of the imagination title contenders last year, so it didn't matter

No one expected Counsell to have anywhere near the season that he had last year. If Melvin's plan coming into 2009 was to have Counsell be the starting SS, people on this board would have been ready to crucify him.

 

Yeah, it would have been nice to get a huge return from JJ, but I would have been upset if he was traded before last year. No one could have predicted his huge drop off in production.

[Invader3K]

Yeah, this idea that Melvin made a bad move not trading Hardy is incredibly revisionist.

 

It does seem that Melvin finally changed his ways, starting with the demotion of Hardy and the trade of Hall. He then flipped Hardy for a young and cheap center fielder, and let Cameron go because he was too expensive. I think he's going to be more ruthless with underperforming players and more aggressive in moving guys before they get too expensive (ie. the Twins model). I just hope it isn't too late to reap the dividends of years of key draft picks.