I grew up a Mets fans surrounded by Yankees fans. But since my childhood was in the 1980s, those Yankee fans weren’t nearly as loud about the greatness of their franchise at that time. Fast-forward to the 1990s and Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Joe Torre. Mix in a dash of unfulfilled promise, like the hope/hype of Generation K, and you get the foundation for a fan base convinced that the glass is half-empty.
The 1998 Yankees were wire-to-wire World Series Champions. They did trade for Paul O’Neill, Tino Martinez and Chuck Knoblauch and signed David Cone and David Wells. But the core of the team – Jeter, Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera – were acquired via either the amateur draft or amateur free agents.
They had the second-highest payroll in the league behind Baltimore, who finished fourth with 79 wins. Meanwhile the Amazin’s, who had the eighth-highest payroll, finished second in the NL East and missed the lone wild-card spot by two games.
The amateur acquisitions on that roster include Rey Ordonez, Edgardo Alfonzo and Butch Huskey. The core of that team – Mike Piazza, John Olerud, Al Leiter, Rick Reed, Brian McRae – all were free agents and/or traded for.
The point: It was a team that wasn’t built to last.
Fast forward nearly 20 years to today. The Yankees are still near the top of the payroll list, but the Mets are somewhere in the middle. Last year, small-market cities like Milwaukee, Colorado and Cincinnati all started with higher payrolls…
But please remind me who the defending National League champions are?
Truth be told, payroll didn’t amount to much as pointed out by Brian MacPherson in the Providence Journal. Of the eight teams that won 90 or more games last year, only one has an Opening Day payroll higher than $130 million.
History has shown it’s never been about who can spend the most or who “wins the Winter Meetings”. Baseball is a sport built on a foundation of longevity, by evidence of a 162-game season and a plethora of minor league players to supplement a 40-man roster. It’s always been about playing the proverbial Long Game, showcased by the fact that of the 30 best WAR players in baseball last season, only three joined their teams via free agency and 50 of the top 100 players were acquired via the draft of amateur free agency.
I’ve always thought that while Oman Minaya’s moves were flashy and seemingly designed to win the back page battle, he ensured it all by drafting and developing talent in the minors.
The foundation of this team – Lucas Duda, Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares, Ruben Tejada, Steven Matz, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Jeurys Familia – were all brought in by Minaya.
Sandy Alderson was wise enough not to move those aging pieces and shined in his own right by bringing in Travis d’Arnaud, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler and drafting Michael Conforto. While there’s some concern about how the team will keep all this talent, the fact of the matter is all this talent is here now.
Which goes back to the glass half-empty mentality. The trend of successful teams building from within the organization is seen today with the team that beat the Mets in October (Kansas City held onto Lorenzo Cain, Wade Davis and Mike Moustakas). It can be seen with the filthies, I mean Phillies’ team that won in 2008 (Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, J.A. Happ, Cole Hamels and Pat Burrell were all drafted).
MacPherson goes on to say cultivating amateur talent is how Tampa Bay won at least 90 games in five of six seasons. And while it might seem like something new, especially in an environment of mega-contracts being signed for more than the Gross Domestic Product of a few countries, this is the same formula that’s worked for years. Just ask the St. Louis Cardinals.
Which all leads to one question – Why are we, as a collective fan base, not satisfied with a moderate budget full of home-grown talent and versatile cost-effective free agent signings? Why should Sandy go out and break the bank on the much-quoted “square peg into a round hole”? Where does it say the team that spends the most will win?
