In other words, payroll is not a predictor of success.
No one has ever said it was.
But I bet if you go over the last 20 seasons, you will find most of the WS winners and playoff teams in the top 10 of payroll than the bottom 10.
As has already been stated it gives you a greater margin for error. Not spending money on the major league roster and relying mostly on the farm system leaves you no room for error. For it to be successful, you have to hit on a far greater percentage of success than what the law of averages historically shows you can expect from the farm system.
They have 19 out of 24 seasons above .500 since 1990. Pujols and Carpenter weren't even around for half that.
The point was that they won both their World Series with them.
Pujols played for the Cardinals for 11 seasons and they were above .500 for 10 of those 11 seasons. Over half their winnings seasons were with Pujols.
Before Pujols arrived, they did have a bunch of winning seasons but few playoff trips. The same winning seasons and missing the playoffs that people like you have said are dumb and hurt the building of a ball club cause you can't draft high enough.
It's not luck. It's smart development of players(Molina, Wainwright, Miller, Jay..etc), signing "flawed" players and turning them into good players(Penny, Lohse, Pinero...etc), and good trades(Holliday, Rolen, Edmonds, and McGwire). Very rarely do they spend heavily in FA from outside the organization. Since 2006 they have only spent more than $10 mil per year on one FA(Beltran). Holliday was re-signed not bought in as a FA. So simply stated yes, I want the cubs to follow the cards plan.
So you want the Cubs to draft the best hitter of the next generation in the 13th round and find an injured pitcher on the trash heap that turns into one of the top Aces of the last ten years?
Glad to see you have a fool proof plan.
And how is that not luck or the fact they signed 'flawed' players and have a far greater success rate with them than every other team?
Yes they have developed some nice players. Most every team has the last decade. There are plenty of teams who have developed as much talent as the Cardinals have but they didn't luck out on players like Pujols and Carpenter. Had the Cards not won the two WS, far less people would be gushing over them.
Hell take out Pujols and the Brewers have developed probably more talent than the Cards have the last decade or so in Braun, Fielder, Gallardo, Weeks, Hardy, Cory Hart, Ben Sheets, Geoff Jenkins etc.
And to not count Holiday as a FA is inaccurate and pushing an agenda. Yes he was on the Cardinals the year before but he was NOT resigned prior to becoming a free agent. He hit the free agent market as was available to negotiate and sign with any team he wanted to, just like if he had been on another team the prior year. That is 100% a free agent signing.
I don't know where you are getting that I'm against adding players via FA. I'm all for bringing in FA's if they are a value. However, I've been pretty clear that my problem was in 2012 it would have made no difference and as such spending lots of money was a waste. There are any number of other statistics other than WAR(including the 71 win season prior) that will say the same thing but you seem convinced otherwise for reasons that are beyond me.
The problem is that people like you rarely see 'value' in free agents and ignore the fact that you generally have to overpay for free agents.
Because you don't get production equal to every penny spent does that make it a bad thing.
This is not the NFL or NBA or even NHL where there is a salary cap and the production for dollar spent is far more important.
The biggest whining over Soriano is that he didn't produce every dollar he was played which totally ignores that his time with the Cubs was largely productive.
My problem is with the people who say the Cubs only won 71 games last year so it would be dumb to spend any money because there is no chance the Cubs could have made the playoffs the last two years.
That is a complete loser mentality.
To not even try because the task appears to be too hard to complete is a total loser mentality.
You never know what can happen if you try. Look at the Orioles and A's last year. No one would have said they had a chance of making the playoffs before the year began and yet they tried to field a quality team and were rewarded for it.
The Cubs havent even tried to field a quality team the last two years and therefore guaranteed themselves no chance of succeeding.
I would rather see the team try and fail.
You would rather see the team not even try and fail.
Honestly what bugs me is your complete unwillingness to admit anything the cubs have done was good.
Look at the standings and let me know what there is good to point to?
Signing Nate Schierholtz for $2,250,000 was arguably the best FA OF this off season but you don't seem to care. His 14/43/.265 is a significantly better value than B.J. Upton's($13,050,000) 8/20/.177, Josh Hamilton's($17,400,000) 16/51/.224, Angel Pagan's($8,250,000) 3/24/.262, Shane Victorino's($13,000,000) 2/33/.286, Michael Bourne's($7,000,000) 4/33/.284/16 SB, Melky Cabrera's($8,000,000) 3/30/.279, and Nick Swisher's($11,000,000) 11/33/.244. Maholm was one of the best FA SP signings putting up numbers similar to Mark Buehrle at 1/3 his cost. Scott Feldman was in a similar vein. They got Kevin Gregg for nothing and he's put up 22 saves with a 2.98 ERA. Lake is playing well as a replacement for Soriano despite many here lamenting the loss. Rizzo is on pace for something like a 25/85/.240 season as a 23 year old. Wood has a 3.05 ERA as a 27 year old lefty under team control for several seasons. All of these players have improve the major league team and did so at a cheap price
Schierholtz is not a long term solution. That is why I don't get all gushy over it.
He is a platoon 4th OF who has played decently. Not a long term solution.
You seem to think that signing average players for a good price is a better thing than above average players that you might overpay for. You seem to think there is some modifier added onto runs scored or driven in by players who make less money or at the end of the game they divide the number of runs scored by the payroll of the team on the field to determine the winner.
Yes the Braves overspent and arent getting great production from BJ Upton. Yet they are in first place.
Yes the Indians might not be getting the production they thought they would get from Swisher and Bourne, but they are in the midst of the playoff hunt.
The Red Sox aren't getting what they thought from Victorino, yet they are in the playoff hunt.
Answer this question.
What benefit as a fan do you get by the Cubs saving payroll the last couple seasons and losing all these games?
Are you getting a check from the Cubs based on their savings?
Or do you really think that money saved from these last two years will be added onto payroll in the future above what they budget for the year based on expected revenue? Using the money saved the last two years to operate at a loss in an upcoming season?
And even the big trades(Garza Dempster and Soriano) they did make for prospects weren't during the winter meetings. They were done after they had already failed to contend with 2 of the 3 being impending FA and Soriano blocking prospects from seeing playing time. So, if you can't or are unwilling to see that then I'm not sure what else there is to talk about.
The lack of moves in the offseason is what led to the big trades the last few years.
If you can't or are unwilling to see that, then I am not sure what else there is to talk about.
I'll happily talk about some of the legitimately bad moves the cubs have made such as signing Kyuji Fujikawa or trading for Stewart. But most of this crap is complaining they aren't winning fast enough as though it's simple to put together a good team that competes yearly in 2 years.
No one has ever said it would be simple to put together a good team the last two years. Not even once.
People have said it would probably be easy to put together a better team than what the Cubs have fielded the last two years.
People have also said they would have liked to see the Cubs at least try to field a competitive team or even just the appearance of trying to field a quality team instead of knowing already when spring training started that there was very, very, very little chance of even a .500 ball club.
Sorry that asking your team to try and at least be respectable while doing the build of the farm system is such a unreasonable expectation and makes someone a troll.
Guess what?? Probably that would make probably at least 90% of all baseball fans unreasonable and trolls.
