MLB Playoffs 2007 - here we go

[tennisWalt Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tennisWalt]

And The Winner Is.............!

Chicago Cubs Salaries $104,183,289

Arizona Diamondbacks Salaries $56,947,546

Colorado Rockies Salaries $53,274,000

Philadelphia Phillies Salaries $99,773,213




Boston Red Sox Salaries $143,523,714

Los Angeles Angels Salaries $104,518,833

New York Yankees Salaries $212,806,

Cleveland Indians Salaries $66,520,667


Walt

MLB Team Salaries | MLB Division Salaries | MLB 2007 Salaries

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

Chicago Cubs Salaries $104,183,289

Arizona Diamondbacks Salaries $56,947,546

Colorado Rockies Salaries $53,274,000

Philadelphia Phillies Salaries $99,773,213




Boston Red Sox Salaries $143,523,714

Los Angeles Angels Salaries $104,518,833

New York Yankees Salaries $212,806,

Cleveland Indians Salaries $66,520,667


Walt

MLB Team Salaries | MLB Division Salaries | MLB 2007 Salaries

Yeah, this is why I crack up when I hear Sox fans refer to the Yankees as the "Evil Empire". It's like Warren Buffett calling Bill Gates a spoiled rich kid. It's also why most people outside of Boston hate the Red Sox as much as they hate the Yankees......

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Somewhere in the internet (Google fails me at the moment) there are tables showing what teams pay in salary per win delivered - payroll efficiency.

For the data to really be meaningful, you need to take rolling averages over a minimum of 3 years. Needless to say, Oakland and Minnesota are the most efficient. IIRC - the least efficient teams are Seattle, Philadelphia, the Cubs, and the Yankees.

***

As I've commented before, the most ominous implicaition for fans outside of NY is that once again Steinbrenner has stopped meddling in baseball operations. The last time that happened was in the early 1990's, when Steibrenner was suspended. Freed of Steinbrenner's meddling the NY baseball operations people built the team that dominated baseball five years later - that group brought in all of the homegrown players that were the core of those teams - Jeter, Williams, Rivera, Posada, Pettite, etc., and supplemented that group with some key trades and selective free agent acquisitions.

As Steinbrenner and his Tampa sycophants got involved in operations after Steinbrenner's ban was lifted, the Tampa group made a lot of very bad personnel decisions, mostly involving trading away young players for vets, signing fading free agents to fill the holes, and generally making bad drafting picks.

That changed about three years ago when Steinbrenner ceded operating control to Cashman when Cashman was ready to leave. With Cashman in firm control, the Yankees reversed course and once again are focused on developing player talent from within and being much more selective and targeted in free agent acquisitions. It was really apparent last season and last winter when, despite the holes in the starting rotation, the Yankees didn't clean out the farm system to acquire starting pitching, nor did they go into the free agent marketplace this last winter and skim the best of a very mediocre group of pitchers. Instead they decided to limp through this year, patching things together as best they could, while waiting for more strategic opportunities and allowing the young talent to develop from within.

The impacts of those corrections are now showing on the current Yankees roster. IMHO - the Yankees are setting themselves up for a run of dominance that will equal or exceed their late 1990's run. The guys who are running the Yankees now are smart in baseball operations abilities, with their available resources they are operating the deepest and most far-flung scouting and player development operation, and they are quite skilled at blending numeric analysis and scouting information to generate intelligent player assessments.

Oh .. and because they didn't clean out the farm to filll out their rotation last year, they are now in a credible position to make a run at trading for Johan Santana and locking him up on a long-term deal.

The Red Sox under Epstein, of course, are operating in a similar mode. In fact, it's likely that one of the reasons Cashman was able to gain more control was by referencing the progress that Boston was making under Epstein.

***

Finally, one reason Boston is despised outside of the NE. Boston fans are, incredibly, even more obnoxious than Yankee fans. Really. While Yankee fans are often boorish, the percentage of them that are decently knowledgeable of baseball is much higher than with Red Sox fans.

[biskits Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close biskits]

"Despised"????

Steve
"Despised" is a little strong, isnt it???
If Red Sox are so despised outside New England, why did USA Today
run a front page article last month labeling the Sox "America's Home Team"???
What happened to the old adage "If you can't say something nice about somebody, dont say anything at all..."
As a life long Sox fan, I am not particulially fond of the Yankees, but
I dont "despise" them...I mean, its only a game!!!

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

Finally, one reason Boston is despised outside of the NE. Boston fans are, incredibly, even more obnoxious than Yankee fans. Really. While Yankee fans are often boorish, the percentage of them that are decently knowledgeable of baseball is much higher than with Red Sox fans.

As much as the "unknowledgeable" part also bothers me, it's primarily their continual whining with regard to the Yankees. The whining was ok when the Yankees payroll dwarfed every other teams (hence "Evil Empire"). But now that the Red Sox have, and have had, the 2nd highest payroll, it just comes across as sour grapes. I think most true baseball fans across the U.S. see the Red Sox in the exact same light as the Yankees......the best teams money can buy. As a point of reference, the Red Sox paid as much for the rights to negotiate with Dice-K as the Pirates spent in payroll this year. Enuf said!

[biskits Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close biskits]

Elan,
Referring to the Yankees as the "Evil Empire" is not whining or sour grapes as a far as most Red Sox fans are concerned...its just a not so affectionate nick name that has evolved as a result of a 90 year rivalry...You may not believe it but most Sox fans have a real respect for most of the Yankee players, and players on all other teams that go out and give their best day in and day out...like I said, its just a game...
Wishing your favorite team all the best in the playoffs!!!!
Paul

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Steve
"Despised" is a little strong, isnt it???
If Red Sox are so despised outside New England, why did USA Today
run a front page article last month labeling the Sox "America's Home Team"???
What happened to the old adage "If you can't say something nice about somebody, dont say anything at all..."
As a life long Sox fan, I am not particulially fond of the Yankees, but
I dont "despise" them...I mean, its only a game!!!

Not at all. If you don't think Red Sox Nation is despised among other than casual baseball fans outside of the NE, you are unaware. Within the confines of people who are true fans of the game - the people who are committed to the game come what may, who regularly attend to the game no matter what the fortunes of their team, the people who really care about whether the scribes get it right when MVP awards are given or players or when fans vote for the All-Star game - Red Sox Nation is loathed for the highest quotient of ignorance, arrogance, and obnoxiousness.

Yankees fans are at least their equals in arrogance and obnoxiousness, but overall are considerably more knowledgeable than Red Sox fans (outside of Fenway).

Frankly, I think it's because the so-called Red Sox Nation ranks have been swelled in the last several years by a number of people who are less knowledgeable fans but have "identified" with the Red Sox because being a Red Sox fan has a "Yuppie" cachet

[bigfrank Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close bigfrank]

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

Elan,
Referring to the Yankees as the "Evil Empire" is not whining or sour grapes as a far as most Red Sox fans are concerned...its just a not so affectionate nick name that has evolved as a result of a 90 year rivalry...You may not believe it but most Sox fans have a real respect for most of the Yankee players, and players on all other teams that go out and give their best day in and day out...like I said, its just a game...
Wishing your favorite team all the best in the playoffs!!!!
Paul

From Wikipedia:

In recent years, the American professional baseball team, the New York Yankees, has been nicknamed the "evil empire" because of their huge team salaries and success in obtaining any player of their choice with lucrative contracts.

---

I fail to see how Red Sox fans still referring to the Yankees in this manner is anything other than the pot calling out the kettle. Perhaps it's just a difference of perception between the front-running "Red Sox Nation" and the rest of us, but there's a lot more non-Sox fans than there are Sox fans.

WRT to the playoffs, in all honesty, they don't interest me nearly as much as the pennant races themselves. Advancing in the playoffs in baseball isn't particularly representative of team quality due to the over emphasis on starting pitching in a short series. As long as the first round of the playoffs is 5 games, they're kind of a joke, IMO. I'm in favor of reducing the regular season back to 154 games and expanding the Division Series to 7 games. Then, all of the series (DS, CS, WS) should be compressed into about 8-9 days (2-3-2 format) to reduce the likelihood of seeing one pitcher start 3 times. It'll never happen, but it should.

[biskits Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close biskits]

Steve
Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black....
"ignorance, arrogance, and obnoxiousness.... sour grapes and whining"
Take a look in the mirror my friend.....these words definitely describe your last several posts on this thread...
Have a nice day!!!!

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Steve
Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black....
"ignorance, arrogance, and obnoxiousness.... sour grapes and whining"
Take a look in the mirror my friend.....these words definitely describe your last several posts on this thread...
Have a nice day!!!!

Good point - well taken. My apologies.

[biskits Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close biskits]

Steve
No apology necessary....like I said earlier, its only a game.
Baseball is a sport and professional baseball is a business.
My life is not going to be changed by who wins the playoffs or who wins the World Series...
( Although as a Red Sox fan, I would obviuosly like to see them win both!!! )

Have a great weekend!!!!
Kind regards,
Paul

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Steve
No apology necessary....like I said earlier, its only a game.
Baseball is a sport and professional baseball is a business.
My life is not going to be changed by who wins the playoffs or who wins the World Series...
( Although as a Red Sox fan, I would obviuosly like to see them win both!!! )

Have a great weekend!!!!
Kind regards,
Paul

Agreed - and some of the fascination for me is seeing how common issues in business repeat themselves in baseball. There are the same issues of incompetent management, malingerers, and upper management delusion, self-absorption, ego that we all see in our everyday lives. While we may not know the technical components of baseball as well as the players and coaches, astute fans are every bit as knowledgeable about management of teams as almost any other observer.

Take the whole issue of conflicts between the old school scouting guys and the number crunchers. It's utterly fascinating, and completely predictable based on what has happened in every other business where measuring tools have been applied in fields that previously relied on intuition and judgment.

Invariably it's found the human skills of observation and judgment are good in some areas, and not so good in others. People's eyes simply are not reliable. Evaluations of skills are tremendously biased by how the observer feels about the person he is observing.

****

I am utterly convinced that marginally talented scrappy players with a dirt-on-the-face ethic are significantly over-rated by many baseball operations people. I'm not convinced of that because I think I'm smarter at evaluating baseball talent; I'm convinced of that because I've seen that happen in every employment setting I've seen in my life and I see no reason to believe the running a business is somehow uniquely different from any other organization in the world I've encountered. On top of that, there is supporting objectively collected that suggests that is happening.

So I look and I see strong suggestive evidence that the bias does exist, and it would require an absolutely stupendous leap of faith required for me to believe that type of bias doesn't happen in baseball organization.

I also think it's interesting to speculate on why that particular bias exists. IMHO, it derives from how baseball operations people are selected. The overwhelming majority of those guys (Kim Ng with the Dodgers being about the only female senior baseball executive, and even Ms. Ng has had more involvement on the business operation side than the baseball operations side) are former ballplayers who were not that highly skilled. Most of them never made it to MLB, and those who did generally were utility players at best.

But they loved the game, and they wanted to stay in it. When they were players they played as hard as they could, they put forth every bit of effort they could, and they pushed themselves as far as they could with the talent they had. They inculcated themselves into and absorbed the lore of the game, its traditions, and it's culture. They chatted strategy and decisions with their coaches and managers. When they were the veterans on a team they made a point of schooling and helping the younger players coming along.

Those are the guys who become scouts, minor league managers and coaches, cross-checkers, and player development executives. And when they see a guy who reminds themselves of what they remember as a player, well there's a nice warm spot that opens up. And when the guy actually does have enough talent to make it to MLB, there's a real round of satisfaction that follows.

That doesn't just happen in baseball; I've seen the same thing happen over and over again in business. A boss just takes a liking to some junior employee who reminds the boss of himself or herself at that age. Same energy, enthusiasm, whatever, and that junior employee starts getting the good evaluations, gets the juicier assignments, gets pushed more rapidly. The employee gets praised and rewarded for intangibles, while others who are contributing just as much and have other different intangibles don't get the same recognition.

Have you ever noticed how all of those scrappy, dirt-on-the-uniform, intangibles types of players are small white guys? Where are the scrappy dirt-on-the-uniform latin players?

To take a couple of players whom I am familiar with. When Stan Javier was playing, for example, why wasn't he singled out for attention in the same way that David Eckstein was? Mark McLemore got recognition for his versatility, but he didn't get the scrappy reputation that goes with guys like Eckstein, Punto, Bloomquist, etc.

***

When more precise measurements are brought into settings where they haven't been used before there's always a backlash, as certain long-held and cherished assumptions are found to be wrong. As I mentioned above, baseball operations are filled with guys who are totally and thoroughly steeped in the lore and traditions of the game.

Then you get these young kids coming along, most of whom never played minor league ball, with their reports and sheets "proving" that you've been mistaken all of your life, that the foundations on which you've built your professional life is really pretty crumbly - well the reaction is pretty predictable. Again, this isn't unique to baseball.

But the winners in the process are the organizations that realize it's not an either-or situation; those organizations that best learn how to blend the two schools of thought will gain an advantage.

Almost every team in baseball knows this and is trying to blend. For some it's pretty hard, as the "old school" ways are more deeply entrenched. And there are still guys such as Pat Gillick who won't use it at all (and who see the game as they know it fading from their grasp).

But the teams that are the most adept at incorporating modern evaluation tools are disproportionately represented in the playoffs.

Just as happens in settings outside of baseball.

[4ARedOctober Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close 4ARedOctober]

Interesting you mention the Dodgers who are still imploding from the effects of a Beane disciple Paul DePodesta. The Dodgers are a perfect example of gutting a team who was 2004 division champion and then making questionable trades and signings, throwing together different statistical pieces of the puzzle and ignoring team chemistry. After a 91 loss season and clubhouse implosion in 2005 they stopped the 'experiment'.

I don't think it is so black and white like you seem to sometimes paint the picture. There is not one model that works for everyone. And when a model is found and copied then there is a different dynamic and affect on all the others who are following that model. Beane's 'Moneyball' is a good example here.....it was very successful and Beane was able to take advantage of the rest of the league at first. Then comes the competition who realizes what he is up to and does not make those trades Beane was so famous for 'stealing' players. And there is now more competition for the same type of players.

There is a lot of gray in between and I agree that the 'blending' is the key to organizational success. Many teams use statistics in addition to the 'old school' methods. It is also a matter of how they use them and how management puts teams together. It is a balance of budget and talent and the real work is done in the minor leagues. The farm system is what is eventually going to make or break a team and its budget in the long run. Team chemistry is overlooked as well too many times by the statistical purists. Take players like Jeff Kent, Milton Bradley, and Jose Guillen who are team cancers.

Scrappy Latin players....look at the Angels Maicer Izturis.

[4ARedOctober Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close 4ARedOctober]

Now back to the original topic......

How about those Indians.....Oh how I wish we played the Yankees in the first round. I would much rather face the Red Sox in seven games instead of five. Scioscia should have taken the home field advantage more seriously....oh well.

I agree that the DS should be seven games instead of five even if that means shortening the long season a bit.

This is the first game the Angels will be facing Dice....so that favors the pitcher but the Angels can figure him out.....lets just hope he doesn't have any Josh Beckett moments.

Wow the Rockies are still hot. I thought the Phils were hot at the end too and would be able to keep up....it is not over yet as the Phils know what it is like to take it right to the very end.

Diamondbacks......all I can say is:

The Curse of the Cubs