Baseball fans: the Meteor or the Glacier?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately, mostly while watching the late playoffs. As always, there are a number of teams in the majors which build themselves up slowly, drafting wisely, developing players, making themselves into contenders who are there year in and year out, in position to make a run at the championship. Recent vintage teams of this type would be the Astros, the A’s, Atlanta, St. Louis, and maybe one or two others. These teams I would categorize as “Glacier” teams: they move slowly, perhaps, but they inevitably grind their way up the standings and always seem to have a shot come October.

Then you have other teams, “Meteor” teams, which come out of nowhere, streak through a season, win a championship, then disappear back into the darkness from whence they came. Recent teams like the White Sox, Diamondbacks, Marlins (twice, in fact), and others throughout baseball history, fit this category.

(The Yankees, by the way, I would put in neither category, as I would argue they belong in a category all their own.)

So what I’m wondering is, baseball fans, which kind of team would you rather have as your own? Would you prefer your team be a Meteor that has that one great season and wins it all, then rapidly falls back into the “second division”? Or would you prefer a Glacier, a team that may not win it all, but is in the hunt almost every single year?

Note that being a Glacier does not preclude a team from winning the World Series. Atlanta got one back in the day; Tony Larussa had damn near 10 years of falling short before the Cardinals won this year; and I think Boston would fall into the Glacier category, too. A Glacier team may eventually win the Series, but they will fall short far more often than not. They pay the price in regular disappointment.

But is that better or worse than getting one championship, then quickly falling back into 97 loss seasons, a la Florida and Arizona?

So which is it for you: the Meteor or the Glacier?

2

Well, the Plexiglass Principle (that teams that suddenly gain a lot of wins in one season tend to lose at least half of them the following season) always seemed to me to indicate that the slow and steady works better.

The problem with your ‘Meteor’ approach is that it’s pretty much as uncertain as anything else in the game. Lightning strikes, yes, but it’s almost impossible to predict when it will. Large buys on free agents might have short term gains but long term end up dragging a team down.

3

Actually, I was thinking of this more in “hindsight” terms. That is, would you prefer being a fan of a team like the Diamondbacks, with that WS championship in the bank, which you can look back on in a hazy glow of good feelings, which presumably makes the ensuing fall from grace not so bad? I know you can’t really plan for the “lightning in a bottle” season, but as it does occasionally happen, I think it’s reasonable to hope for it, if your team is a consistent loser. Remember, the Braves weren’t always perennial contenders–they went from worst to first in '91, then subsequently established their kinda-sorta dynasty.

I’m not saying you want your team to plan on the Meteor approach. I understand that no one would want to sit around waiting for the next Royals championship (if ever); you want to root for a team that at least seems to have a chance.

Maybe the question should be, would you be OK with it if your team unexpectedly won the title (as the Tigers almost did this year), even if they were to immediately drop back into the toilet thereafter? Are White Sox fans still feeling pretty good about things now? Or do you prefer the continual contender (even with no guarantee of any rings)? After all, the slow and steady Glacier approach does not always yield a championship (…he said, after watching seven straight years of the A’s falling short…)

I admit, the idea is a bit hazy, and the question is elastic and not well refined. But I’m curious how other people perceive this idea of sudden success vs. trudging up the hill.

4

The Tigers have gotten a bunch of very young talented players. The big money clubs will be after them when the contracts run out. They can not hold them all so they have to be successful now. I believe this is one thing that hurts the game. Yet players have a right to get as much money as they can. Their careers are short and uncertain.
How can a team compete year after year with the Yankees. So far they have not used the money that wisely. If they had better management they would be farther ahead.
I see no way a team can develop and rely on a farm system. The players are extremely young and many fail to develop. It is a crap shoot.

5

I dunno, it seems as if teams like the Braves and the Twins have done a very good job of this. The A’s seem to do something similar, where they trade away their soon-to-be free agents for good young players. They’re all doing it without splashy free agent signings.

6

Not that the Braves spend big since AOL bought them out, but throughout the 90s run they ran among the top budgets and invested wisely in their farm system. There were a few years where they outspent the Yanks. In 1996, they were very close. The Yankees have only gone completely insane on spending since around 2001. You will note the lack of Rings in this same time-period. The Yanks did far better, when they spent at the top each year but near the rest of the top and kept the farm system pumping. Brian Cashman is trying to get them back there again; I have no idea if he can succeed.

If I was not a Yankee fan, I would prefer a Glacier team to a Meteor. I would like my team to be competitive nearly every year and not just shoot up to a quick win and fall away again. It seems like there is no continuity in that fashion.

Jim

7

First of all, gonzomax:

That’s just plainly nuts, gonzo. In fact, MOST World Champions were predicated on solid farm systems and a lot of teams have sustained success relying on their farm systems. Oakland is the most obvious example; they have been in contention for eight straight years now and there is no reason to believe next year will be any different. How do you explain them if you can’t rely on a farm system? How do you explain the Twins, who have been in contention for quite some time now?

Anyway, glacier teams are a better bet, and they’re sure as hell more fun to watch most of the time. While Detroit, or the 1997 and 2003 Marlins, certainly are cool to see, they’re a rarity. Most champions are the product of fairly normal development plans:

2006 Cardinals - Contenders more or less continuously for ten years before winning.
2005 White Sox - Actually a fairly consistent contender; the previous five years were all .500 or better and were coming off three straight second place finishes.
2004 Red Sox - Third straight year in the playoffs.
2003 Marlins - Meteor team.
2002 Angels - Meteor team.
2001 Diamondbacks - Actually had won the division just two years before, posting a better record then than in their World Series year, and then won the division the year after. Not a long run (five years of winning) but not really a meteor.
1998-2000 Yankees - Not so much a glacier as the planet Hoth.
1997 Marlins - Meteor.
1996 Yankees - See above. Actually had only been in contention for three years at this point, but they’re the Yankees.
1995 Braves - Glacier of glaciers.
1992-1993 Blue Jays - Glacier. Under the old two-division system, these were division titles 3 and 4 in a 5-year span, and years 10 and 11 of unbroken winning seasons.
1991 Twins - Meteor.
1990 Reds - Consistent runners-up for years.
1989 A’s - A very powerful contender for a number of years.
1988 Dodgers - Contended throughout the 1980s.
1987 Twins - Meteor.

The great majority of teams that have prolonged losing spells don’t suddenly start winning. Things were good if you were a Twins or Marlins fan, but consider the hapless Pirates, Royals, Devil Rays, or Rockies. And while I’m glad the Angels won their World Series, bear in mind it took them forty years.

8

RickJay, I think I too lean towards wanting a Glacier team, if only because I think building the team slowly, and for the long term, is the “right” way to do it. But I could see the other side, because it is frustrating to see a team get close each year and come up short. And gonzomax does make a valid point: young talent often does not develop according to plan, and with free agency sitting at the end of a successful development cycle, the window of opportunity can be tight. That’s why I posted the question: I couldn’t come up with a solid answer myself, despite thinking it over a lot the last couple of weeks.

And of course, sometimes it’s difficult to tell which team is which kind. I put the White Sox in the Meteor category, but it’s possible they’ll rebound and get right back in it next year. I just think it’s a Meteor situation because of the history of Chicago baseball.

And as I said above, I think the Yankees are a category unto themselves. They may look like a Glacier, given the last decade, but until they got into the playoffs in '95, they hadn’t done squat for over a decade. (Those A’s teams of the late '80s regularly tortured the Yankees–it’s one of my fondest memories of that time.) But they did build it up in the '90s, yet also retain the ability to blow the doors out and shoot for it here and now.

So I think it’s a subtle and interesting question. I’m glad for the feedback you folks have given. Much to think about.

9

Speaking as a guy who’s been following a team who since 1994 has never come close, I can tell you right now I’d kill for what Atlanta Braves fans have had.

But there is NO strategy that guarantees success. Ask the Texas Rangers how a free agent approach worked for them; the more they relied on free agents, the worse they got. They won division titles in the 1990s with a team heavily staffed by young homegrown stars, and the more big contracts they added the further behind they fell. In one year, 2001, they hired, as a free agent, one of the greatest players in the entire history of the sport away from Seattle, and they finished last and Seattle won 116 games. The free agent approach often fails.

Or, again, ask me, the Blue Jays fan. This year they added three huge contracts and several moderately pricey ones and finished eleven games out, and now the farm system is bare and the future looks bleak. I sure wish they’d put more money into scouting and signing high value picks, because the team may be utterly screwed now. The big contracts are immovable and there’s no hope at Syracuse. So what now?

Sports has an inherent degree of unpredictability and there’s no approach for player acquisition guaranteed to work, unless, as with the Yankees, you have such an advantage in resources that making mistakes doesn’t affect you. What is definitely true is that

  1. Teams that put winners on the field more often tend to break through and win the World Series more often, and
  2. Consistently putting winners on the field means having a strong farm system. Even the Yankees have had a surprisingly strong farm system, without which they would not have won as many division titles as they have.
10

Then again, the free agent approach did work–finally–for Boston in 2004. None of the most important players on that team (except perhaps for Varitek) was developed in their farm system. Granted, Boston is almost the same as the Yankees, and they have long been a team in the “upper division”–a Glacier, to be sure. But they do somewhat counter the argument for developing young talent.

I certainly would not argue against the idea that, as you say, “there is no strategy that guarantees success.” Certainly not in baseball. However, while I have commented here on the strategic side of the issue, that’s not really the point of view I had with the original question. I’m not seeing as if I were a GM; it’s more about expectations as a fan. I guess that, maybe, the question I’m really wondering about is, “Are you enough of a baseball fan that you’ll stick through the lean years, until the lightning does strike? Or, do you need to see the team consistently winning and getting close, or else you’ll just say ‘to hell with them!’?”

(That “you” is not specifically you, RickJay. It’s a universal “you.”)

Maybe I’m trying to tease this out because I am one of those types who will go to watch a game in an almost empty stadium–truth be told, I actually prefer the low-turnout games–because I love the game, not just whether the team is winning or not. It’s nice when the team wins, but it’s not necessary to keep me going to the games. And I’m wondering, are there still a lot of people out there like me, or are most people just about the winning?

I think there are implications in that for the game’s future, if the fan base is only comprised of people who want to see their team win. The record attendance revenues belie that idea, but the record low TV ratings for the World Series–where there are only two teams left to do any winning–seem to say I’m a rare breed. And we had a lot of people in the playoff threads who explicitly stated that they had no interest in the playoffs once their team was gone. And I suppose I’m not the only one thinking about this stuff; those commercials with Lasorda goading disaffected fans into watching indicate that baseball’s poobahs see this as a matter of concern, too.

I’m doing a lot of thinking out loud in this thread, to be sure. I’m trying to get my head around what seems to be an amorphous issue, and I do appreciate the input from those who’ve posted here. I’m off to do more pondering.

11

The two teams that finally made it to the World Series were smaller Markets and both backed into the Post Season. I believe that is all it took to have extremely low ratings. Most sports people thought that these two teams or the Twins would result in low ratings. They were also worried about a Subway series tuning out most of America. They wanted at least one team from NY or LA in the World Series.

Jim

12

First off let me say that im a St. louis season ticket holder, so that’s were this statement is coming from.

Personally I’d rather see a team that puts out a competitive squad year to year, then one that sells the “farm” for the chance of winning the big one. I would have a hard time shelling out a couple thousand dollars next year to see crap (even with this years championship). With my wife and me the season is the sundae, the playoffs are the cherry (which just happen to be one huge cherry this year) :smiley:

13

Let me say upfront that, as a baseball fan, I agree with most of the comments here about building from a farm system as both a better strategy for team success and from a general fan perspective.

However, I’d like to expand the question to discuss which strategy is better at trade-deadline time. If you are a contending team, how much value do you put on keeping the farm system intact vs. “going for it” now? Do you, say, trade away top prospects for Alfonso Soriano–who would likely become a free agent at the end of the season–if you think you have a chance to win it now?

While we don’t know what the Nationals were asking for Soriano, the fact is he wasn’t traded. Still, I think part of the reason for this was because contending teams overrate the future potential of their farm system. My own feeling is, if you have a chance now, go for it, be a meteor.

14

I also enjoy the game, but I have a hard time paying Major League prices for a meaningless game. If the stadium is almost empty because it is a mid week day game, but both teams are still competitive, that is one thing. But, I would have a very hard time paying regular prices for a late season game between two cellar dwellers. I’ll happily watch a spring training game, minor league, or college game and just enjoy the game.

The World Series has lost being “The World Series.” The NFL has managed to market the Super Bowl so that most of the country will watch regardless if they care about the teams involved. The World Series isn’t in the same class any longer. Unless you have teams with major star power, or a good major city vs major city rivalry, ratings will be down. If Mark McGwire was still pounding 70 home runs for the Cards, I think there would have been more interest in the 2006 Series.

15

What makes the Meteor team so much better that one year than the previous/next year? Is it because of stellar players (and/or managers/coaches) who are only on the team for that one year before moving along? If so, that’s another point in favor of the Glacier: if I’m going to follow a team year after year, I want to see some familiar faces.

16

That’s not necessarily an either/or, TB. Most of the Tigers were there last year and the year before. Many of them were there in 2003 when they were being crushed five times a week.

17

Regarding the low ratings: it’s not just this year. Every year, seemingly, we hear that that year’s Series is the lowest rated ever. So is everyone who follows baseball now a fan of winning, as opposed to the game itself? What you guys are saying, RetroVertigo and dalej42, doesn’t jibe with how I approach the game. I don’t necessarily view a September game between two also-rans as a game that’s “meaningless” or “crap.” Even with a game that far outside the pennant race, you could still see a no-hitter. Or a guy hit 3 home runs in a game. Or just a wild and crazy game that’s a lot of fun to watch.

What I seem to be teasing out of this discussion is that I approach baseball differently from other fans. The game itself is of value to me. I won’t watch every game, but I won’t necessarily turn away just because it does not feature “my” team winning, either. That also addresses what you mentioned, Thudlow Boink. I get the “familiar faces” thing, to an extent–I have favorite players on the A’s, for instance–but for a long time now I’ve gone by the mantra, “root for the uniform, not the player.” Those faces will come and go (inevitably, in modern sports), but the team will still be there (unless they pull up stakes and move, in which case to hell with them). That seems to be the sort of long range approach that most folks are not taking towards the game anymore. Baseball’s not about instant gratification for me. But it seems to exactly about that for some. The problems with ratings and the popularity of the game may be systemic, something much broader than a bad match-up in the Series, if everyone is only interested in seeing their team win. The current bump in revenues and attendance may be hiding problems that could bode ill for the future of the game.

While I have said that I lean toward having a Glacier team to root for, it’s that long term approach, that love of the game itself, that makes me see the merit in holding on and waiting for the Meteor. After all, Cubs fans have famously enjoyed the game without more than the occasional, slim hope of a championship for a hundred years now.

And CJJ*, your question is a little more of a GM-perspective question than a fan question. However, I would note, that situation is one where a potential Meteor team–meaning, a consistent loser–could turn itself into a Glacier. Making those deadline deals can be the shift point where the environment around a team changes, when people within and without the organization can start to perceive the team as being a potential contender instead of an also ran. That’s exactly what happened in '99 and '00, when the A’s made deadline deals for Kevin Appier and Jason Isringhausen and others. Suddenly, after several years of being losers, the A’s started looking like a team with a chance. And they’ve been contenders ever since. Perhaps another reason to root for a Meteor, even if it seems hopeless (KC, Cubs, TB, etc.)–it can turn around quickly, with just a couple of shrewd moves.

Lots to think about here. Thanks for all the input everybody.

18

IMHO the “low” ratings are a function of things that a beyond baseball’s control and some things that are its own fault, and some things that are its broadcast partner Fox-TV’s fault. Network ratings have been dropping for all sports for quite some time as the viewership fragments (Monday Night Football ain’t what it used to be either) which is beyond baseball’s control. Baseball can control, but hasn’t, the time of the post season games which start too late and take too long for the east coast audience to watch the entire game. Then there’s Fox sports, which annoys some fans (such as me) with that annoying, cloying Tim McCarver, and their whizbang, dizzying production values, their continual ingame promotion of Fox shows, and their insistence on throwing in shots of the crowd every other second, or so it seems.

19

I can name that tune in one note: Scooter.

You certainly make valid points.

20

I have no problem with going to a “meaningless” (by this I mean in regards to the pennant race) game I have been to plenty over the years. What I wouldn’t do is pay thousand’s of dollars for the tickets, parking, gas, and food to see a team like KC that doesn’t even try to put a competitive team on the field. Personally I live for baseball, I have no problem sitting down and watching anygame at anytime. I just don’t see selling the teams future to win today as good strategy. Obviously the goal of the season is to win the World Series, but next year has to be taken into account with any move that is made.