The team is objectively built in a smart way, taking into account financial constraints and taking advantage of underrated assets while trading away, or allowing to walk away, players who the market overvalues. That is basically what “Moneyball” was about; the idea that a team (or a business, because like all Michael Lewis books, the book is about more than just the industry being examined) can succeed by exploiting people making mistakes in how they value things. The other teams that made the LCS are certainly smart teams but to some extent they all spent their way in with sheer buying power - the Dodgers more than anyone else, in fact.
Indeed, they are 14-8 in playoff series since 2000. It would appear Moneyball-type teams can do well in the playoffs! Thanks for pointing that out.
The Dodgers are the anti-Moneyball, the Yankees of the NL, and so are Exhibit A in the case that you can’t always spend your way to a World Series. And the A’s demonstrate that Moneyball doesn’t get you there either. It truly is, to a great extent, luck.
I’d rather be an A’s fan right now than a Blue Jays fan. The A’s had a chance, at least.
The anti-Moneyball team of 2013 wasn’t the Dodgers, who at least exhibited some sense in assembling a team that did win a lot of games and won a playoff series. I mean, hey, they were still playing ball on October 19. They did it with some brute force spending but they weren’t openly stupid like the Angels. The real anti-Moneyball team was the Blue Jays, who pumped up the salaries big time to assemble a team with an appalling number of holes, and who’ve emphasized athleticism and players who LOOK good over players who actually do the things that make teams win.
Puig may have it in him to become a great ballplayer some day, but it’s going to take some maturity and experience. Last night may show something about the Dodgers’ and Cardinals’ relative abilities to take young, inexperienced players and teach them how to play The Right Way[sup]TM[/sup]—or it may just be a matter of individual personalities.
I think you’re partly right, and I certainly don’t want to dispute the “wonderful organization” praise, but: in retrospect, it may be the best thing that ever happened to them, but they certainly minded letting Pujols walk away at the time. And with the exception of Beltran and two or three relief pitchers, this year’s team isn’t about picking up players from other teams; it’s all about producing prospects from within.
To me, the amazing thing about this year’s Cardinals is that they did hardly any deals during the 2013 season or preceding postseason. Despite losing some key players, they didn’t add anyone from outside the organization except (unless I’m forgetting someone) Randy Choate, John Axford, and Ty Wigginton, whom they got rid of midseason.
St.Louis is far from a “small market”. They have a huge fan base, near the top of attendance and above average ticket prices. They have plenty of money to spend. You’re confusing fan base with metropolitan size. With that reasoning, Boston, which is not in the top ten of metropolitan sizes among MLB cities, would be considered a “medium sized market”. Their 2013 opening day payroll was $110 million, twice as much as the A’s $55 million
What a horrible game last night, to just watch a team fall apart in front of your eyes. No pitching, no offense, horrible fielding.
I hope the Dodgers consider moving Puig to the minors for a full season. He simply doesn’t have a grasp of the fundamentals yet, nor the maturity to play in the Majors. We can get by just fine with Crawford, Ethier and Kemp, assuming they are healthy.
I have no trouble believing that Puig could do with some more experience, and some instruction, before he reaches his full potential, but if i’m the one picking the line-up for the Dodgers, then he’s going to be out there as long as he’s healthy, based on this year’s performance.
Puig played 104 games for the Dodgers this year, and his WAR was, depending on whose stats you prefer, either better than (Baseball Reference) or slightly worse than (Baseball Prospectus) the WAR of Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier combined. And those guys played 260 games between them.
This is beyond silly… Unless this is a Bill Plachkey parody in which case it’s still a bit over the top. Puig was one of the best offensive players on the Dodgers and, if you believe the metrics, the best defensive outfielder they had too. For every rookie mistake he makes he makes five brilliant plays. He had a bad night last night but he also had the highest OBP, Ops and batting average of any player on the team this post season. Had Ramirez not broken his ribs it would have been #2. Leave him alone to grow and be glad he’s on our team and not the Cubs, Rangers or the Rays.
While most baseball fans probably weren’t watching Parks and Recreation the other night (the ACLS was on), the show had an awesome easter-egg-style baseball reference.
One of the writers and producers on the show is a guy named Michael Schur, and Schur was one of the creators of the late (and sorely missed) website FireJoeMorgan.com, where he went by the name Ken Tremendous.
Anyway, this week’s episode introduced a law firm whose partner names will be familiar to anyone who followed FJM, or who is interested in Sabermetrics:[spoiler]BPVE
Law Offices of
Babip, Pecota, Vorp & Eckstein
Attorneys at Law[/spoiler]Deadspin has a screen grab. Awesome.
The Cardinals may have “minded” losing Pujols, but the key point is that no matter how much they did, they couldn’t and wouldn’t let themselves give him a contract like the Angels did.
St. Louis is a relatively small market. It’s not Milwaukee small.
The fact that the Cardinals have been exceptionally successful in building their support in that market doesn’t change that. They deserve full credit for having huge support in their market.
Boston is considered by most sources I can find as one of the ten largest sports markets in North America, and of course it only has one team, unlike some other larger markets.
