So the rich get richer, what else is new. How can lower payroll teams compete with these guys, this is why i don't watch baseball. THe Blue Jays don't have a chance in hell with the Red Sox and Yanks.
I hear this said all the time...but MLB has produced 9 different teams as champions over the last 10 seasons. The Rangers, Rockies, Astros, and Rays have all played in a WS for the first time over the course of the past 5 seasons. The Rangers, Rockies and Rays all had relatively low payrolls. The Red Sox failed to even make the playoffs this last season. Bottom line: this charge is so overstated. This is not the Yankees and Red Sox and then everyone else. That's simply not been the story of baseball over the past 10 years.
Are you saying that having a payroll that is substantially larger than most other teams is not a sizable advantage?
i'm not saying that...i'm saying the league isn't being dominated by the Yanks and Sox. i'm saying that year after year we see teams with far lesser payrolls winning the championship. again....9 different franchises have finished as champ over the past 10 seasons. in this very division we're talking about, the Rays have operated year-to-year over the past few seasons on a payroll that's less than or roughly equivalent to the Jays...they've gotten entirely different results. they kept the Red Sox out of the playoffs this last season.
It's a ****ty system either way even if lesser payroll teams managed to overcome that through good GMing (and the Rays are looking to lose Crawford, Pena, Soriano this offseason). On a related note, the Red Sox have this way of playing the comp system to gain extra picks in the draft and then just overslot said picks (hey another area where higher payroll teams can succeed), to continue having a deep farm system to get guys like Adrian Gonzalez or even retool on the fly.
I wouldn't have a problem with them adding a cap or some other creative option...no problem with that at all. But again...painting with a broad brush to suggest that the Yanks and Red Sox have simply had their way with the league is not evidenced in the results on the field. Hell, the Twins are in the playoffs constantly! The World Series just featured 2 teams whose collective payrolls were less than the Red Sox. I just don't see this all playing out in a way where teams with lesser payrolls can't win...can't beat out the other teams...and it's not a fluke when it happens, because it keeps happening over and over again. If the Red Sox and Yanks were dominating the league the way we see the Lakers dominating the NBA, I'd see the point. But they're not. Again, the team that's the subject of this thread wasn't even in the playoffs last season.
But what about Tampa they've done well in recent history and I'm going to guess they have a lower or similar payroll to the Blue Jays....
except that until last season, the Jays have had a substantially HIGHER payroll than the Rays: in 2010 the Rays had a $9 million higher payroll.... but in the 2009 season the Jays had a $27 million higher payroll than the Rays in 2008 the Rays had the 2nd lowest payroll in all of baseball...the Jays had the 12th highest. the Jays had a $98 million payroll....the Rays had a $43 million payroll. The Rays were the AL champs that season.
When was the last time the Jays or Orioles went to the playoffs? Baseball is extremely lopsided in AL East because of the payrolls. Just because 9 different teams have won the world series in the past 10 years doesn't change the fact that either the Yankees, Redsox, or both are nearly always in the playoffs EVERY SINGLE YEAR! I would love to see them both out of it for once. :grin:
I think you will agree that the Yanks and Red Sox have a better chance of making the playoffs EVERY year. They arn't going to make it each time, and neither are they going to win it all every year either. But to think that playing in a division with these two teams is not in some way more difficult than say playing in the Central/West is being delusional. The Red Sox did not make it because the Rays got lucky with their prospects turning out to be stars. How long do you think the Rays will compete with the big boys? I've got your answer, until their young stars sign onto one of the big market teams, then again they will have to rely on young players to develop.......and that buddy is 60% about luck. So essentially all the poor teams have to do is, hope they get lucky!! BTW I like how you point out that 9 out of the last 10 have been different teams......why don't you look at how many times the Red Sox and Yanks have been IN the playoffs and how many pennants they have won (9 of the last 15!!!!) The reason why there have been so many different winners, is that only really good teams make it to the championship series so everyone there has an equal chance. But that does not mean that the Yanks and Sox don't have an advantage because of the money they can spend. It's RIDICULOUS!
Yanks have won the pennant 3x in the last 10 seasons. The Red Sox have won the pennant 2x in the last 10 seasons. The Cardinals have won the pennant 2x in the last 10 seasons. Again...I'm not arguing with the notion of putting in a different system...just saying you can't paint baseball with a broad brush saying only the "haves" win...because we have 10 years of results that suggest otherwise...that's not a fluke.
Increase your sample size and I'm sure it'll tell you a different story. You seem to want to keep the Yankee domination period out to get the numbers to work in your favour. Haves do have an advantage, it's in the numbers, look it up, look beyond your 10 year time scale.
To chime in here, the main reason the Orioles haven't been able to get to the playoffs is terrible allocation of resources. They've spent good money on offensive free agents and nothing on pitchers. Their biggest free agent pitcher this decade is probably a washed up Kevin Millwood. They can't draft pitching very well either, so they suck. That's on management, not on baseball. As for the Jays, they've been a tough luck team. Injuries derail their pitching staff or offense seemingly every year. I do concede that the payroll argument does hold water though for Al East teams. Life is brutal in the AL East because the Yankees and Sox are almost guaranteed to be competitive year in and year out thanks to payroll. It doesn't impact the rest of baseball though.
If you want to add the 90s then you have to look at the Orioles "dominance" as they were the highest payroll team in baseball for several years. But why don't we include the last 30 years and factor in the 80s as well to view baseball through a "bigger sample size." Let's increase the sample size and all of a sudden the Orioles and Jays look better as well. Didn't the Jays win two world series in the 90s?
At that time they were spending big $$$ relative to everyone else, thanks for further proving my point.
