A funny thing happened on the way to the World Series and subsequent MLB CBA negotiations. The narrative was small market/low payroll teams can't compete with over-spending teams like the Dodgers, and not without evidence. 12 teams made the postseason. Per USA Today 10/15/2026, 8 of those 12 teams are in the top 10 in payroll. Except there are now three teams left in the postseason and the highest ranking team in payroll is the Milwaukee Brewers at #19. The Tampa Bay Rays are #25 and the Cleveland Guardians are dead last at #30 with a payroll of less than $100 M. The Chicago White Sox, a big market team with a low payroll, made the playoffs with a payroll under $100 M but were eliminated by the Guardians.
The highest payroll team, the Mets with a payroll almost 5 times the Guardians, did not make the playoffs at all. The Blue Jays at #5 did not get in. The Giants, who a large segment of their fanbase thinks do not spend enough on players rank 12'th in spending and since 3 higher spending teams did not get in, the Giants certainly spend enough to be a wild card team. Maybe that's a too-low aspiration but but they didn't even come close with the 4'th worst record in MLB.
So, at least for this season, the script is flipped. Yes, a high payroll increases a team's chances of making the postseason and since they can't win the World Series without being in the postseason it increases chances of winning it all. But payroll is not the sole determinant of winning. The Giants did not finish with the fourth worse record in MLB because of low payroll. They earned that underperformance with bad baseball decisions and maybe a little bad luck thrown in.
The other postseason thought is where do the the Dodgers turn after their complete collapse against the Brewers, a team with less than half their payroll? The Dodgers had the second highest payroll in MLB tied up in what appears to be a rapidly aging roster. In that regard, their situation is not completely unlike the Giants. Do they double down on spending and sign Tarik Skubal to a $500 M contract? Do they stand pat and hope for a big breakout from their prized prospect, Josue De Paula and other young players from their perennially highly ranked farm system? Some of that may depend on the outcome of the CBA negotiations in which the other owners adamantly want a hard payroll cap which now looks like it might not be necessary after all.
To press their case for a cap, the owners will need the support of politicians. The playoff results you discuss amount to a serious rhetorical blow in the court of public opinion. I suspect they will be told to back off a bit and compromise without a major standoff.
ReplyDeleteif 300,000 Giants fans put up $120 for twelve years, we can sign Skubal!
ReplyDeleteMark Walter, the Dodgers' owner, is being investigated for insurance fraud and he recently sold his shares of the Lakers and Chelsea. The Dodgers have been saying "business as usual" but its apparent that they are trying to convert assets to cash. If the bidding for Skubal gets to 10 years/ $500 million, I don't think the Dodgers will take that on, especially if the Mets and Yankees get involved. Skubal's agent Scott Boras will try to get top dollar for his client. If Skubal re-signs with the Dodgers, there will probably be multiple opt-outs or a shorter term deal with a very high AAV. Most pitchers will not pitch for the length of a ten year contract and it probably doesn't make sense for the Dodgers to sign him.
DeleteIn a perverse way, the Dodgers and lesser big spenders may win by losing.
ReplyDeletePerhaps there will be worse penalties for outrageous spending, but it will only be monetary, and buying the really good players will only cost more.
OTOH, perhaps the middle range of spending, #'s 11-20 where the Giants sort of fit, will learn a bit about contracts and evaluating talent, and be the winners
The penalty for spending is more than just the CBT, it also includes loss of draft picks and loss of available bonus pool money. Teams can weather one or two years of those but if teams cannot get themselves under the competitive balance threshold or continue to sign players who have been extended qualifying offers year after year, that can really affect the minor league pipeline. After losing picks and bonus pool for the signings of Adames and Snell, the Giants probably will sign generational talent free agent types going forward. This year, the only player who might fit that generational talent category is Skubal. As such, probably no blockbuster contracts for the Giants this off-season.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it logical that signing another team's free agent based on past performance is more suspect than working for years to instruct and grow your own talent? Hopefully, this playoff season has taken some of the shine off free agency. It should also help more MLB owners to realize that player development requires a highly specialized expertise with many years of hands-on experience in coaching and scouting at the minor league level. I kinda shuddered when Buster picked another ex-player with little experience in the development trenches to oversee the Giants' minor league system. Since then, he has also brought in ex-teammates like Javier Lopez and Curt Casali to help advise on front office matters. No doubt these guys know the game. The question is how long it's going to take them to become respected leaders in the player development field.
ReplyDeleteI think it has to be a balance. It generally takes too long to develop players and then too short of a time with contract control to build a championship team exclusively from the farm system, but it's also way too expensive and too risky to build solely through free agency. The core of the team should be home grown but filling in the gaps with reasonably priced free agents and trades.
DeleteThat's the ticket
DeleteIt's hard to develop your draftees when they are just plain bad.
DeleteSince 2009 (Belt) to 2023 (Eldridge) there have been few successes (Webb in 2014 and maybe Rogers) or you trade them off (Wheeler & Reynolds).
Roupp and Schmitt are the best other players they have now from the draft. Not a lot to build on.
With the singularity of 2021, the Giants have been unwatchable since 2016.
Have they turned that around? Only time will answer that.
When Luciano and Matos were signed, someone who worked in the lower levels of the organization commented that they had not seen such good talent at that level in a long time. It is hard to tell if it was rhetoric or not but there might have been developmental issues.
DeleteIt is still too soon to evaluate the Farhan draft era because of injuries (Birdsong, Whisenthunt) but a lot of the high picks from that era such as Bednar, Martin, Bishop, and R Crawford are having trouble finding traction. When the top picks do not pan out, it places a lot of pressure on the rest of the organization.
Ultimately, the metric for success is whether or not they help the big club. Its hard to pin it down on bad scouting, bad drafting, or poor development. The Giants have been working on this by beefing up their scouting, working their international relationships, modernizing their facilities at Papago and in the Dominican, and revamping their development under Randy Winn. These kinds of changes at the lower levels may take as much as 6-10 years to ripple up to the big league levels.
Baseball America has ranked the organization as a whole in the top 5 . After wallowing near the bottom for so long, we should take that as a positive sign that they are doing something right.
The present system as constructed has players first hitting free agency when they are in their late 20s or early 30s when the decline phase starts. Depending on past usage, it could be a steep descent. Poster children for that steep descent are players like Corbin Burnes or even Carlos Correa or Trea Turner. Fans might have wanted all of those players in the past when they hit free agency but the teams that paid for them are probably experiencing a severe dose of buyer's remorse. Going the free agent route is extremely risky, not only in terms of salary but also in terms of CBT hit, loss of draft picks, and loss of bonus pool money, It's okay to go after generational talent level free agents every so often but chasing second tier free agents who want to be paid like the generational stars is not a good strategy, especially if the qualifying offers are attached.
DeleteWhat stands out to me is Tampa, Cleveland, and the Brewers while being small market teams, seem to have very smart baseball people working in their organizations. When other orgs have job openings, people from those organizations always seem to be considered for front office and coaching openings. While FZ was a bad fit here, he did hire Scott Harris now Tigers GM and Pete Putilla now with the Braves. Gabe Kapler had good coaches working under him, most are still thriving in other orgs. It's too early to rate the Giabts org under Buster, I'm surprised they haven't made any FO or coaching changes though.
ReplyDeleteTwo things can be true at the same time . Player development of homegrown talent coupled with successful scouting is undeniably key to successful teams. However, the ability to bring in talent through free agency can also play a key role in a team’s success. Free agents played a big part for the Dodgers previous championships- Yamamoto, Ohtani…
ReplyDeleteThe Dodgers are a good example, they're good in player development also
DeleteThat's the Dodgers reputation but can you name the players on the current team they actually developed?
DeleteRight now, the Dodgers have developed Pages, dePaula, and Will Smith. The Dodgers do have a good reputation for drafting and development but they do not seem to lean into it. I keep hearing about all these young players in their pipeline but they keep on trotting out the same old guys like Kiki Hernandez and Max Muncy.
DeleteAbout a year ago, we were discussing the downside of buying a lot of free agents all at once. The discussion was whether to add another big name free agent to Chapman, Adames, and Devers and Dr B reminded us that the danger in doing so would be having four high salaried players on the same timeline declining at the same time. It will be interesting to see how the Dodgers deal with their current timeline because not only do they have Freeman-Betts-Ohtani but they also have Snell and Glasnow on the same timeline. I suspect they will continue to spend their way out of it. I'm not sure how all those deferrals affect things but it would seem that continual loss of draft picks and bonus pool money will bite them eventually. In fact, in 2025, they were forced to release their top international pledges because they spent all their international pool money on Sasaki. At the time, that looked like a good decision but it might not have been a good idea for the long term. Their solution is probably going to be a $600 million per year payroll.
Even if the Dodgers can buy their way out of a cohort of bad contracts, they still must deal with how to get those older star players off the roster or into lesser roles. Those types of players tend to not give up their starring roles easily.
DeleteIt depends on the player. A lot of Dodger fans were calling for Ohtani to be replaced by dePaula but Ohtani insisted he was healthy enough to play. In that case, it was understandable because dePaula is still a rookie. It's hard to tell if Ohtani would have been willing to sit if dePaula had more experience.
DeleteLast season it was obvious that Chapman and Adames were playing compromised, probably injured. They reached a level where they were hurting the team but only came out when they couldn't go on any longer. They may think its heroic but for one of them, the defense bottomed out to a unsustainable degree. I suspect they felt they could get away with it under a manger who did not have experience. Maybe a manager with a pedigree like Bob Melvin's might have been able to tell them to take care of their injuries.
Ohtani began his career in Hokkaido and developed into a pitcher and DH with strict scheduling. He tried to do it in 2026 and had to stop when his leg and knee injuries resurfaced. Ohtani has postulated that the knee injury was due to bad pitching mechanics. Apparently, Ohtani will try to do full time pitching and DH again next season in part because he wants to win a Cy Young Award. Bill Plaschke of the LA Times thinks he should stop trying to pitch because of the wear and tear of pitching hurting his availability and productivity as DH. Apparently, Ohtani was calling the shots in the NLCS when fans were asking that he be benched but he is also calling the shots for 2027 as a full time pitcher and
DeleteDH. Even Andrew Friedman has publicly gone along with Ohtani but I'm not sure if he truly wants to go along with it. The reality is that the big money players will play, even to the detriment of their teams.
My feeling is that Ohtani can go and try to win the MVP, Cy Young, the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Conn Smythe Trophy and more power to him. He's 32 years old now.
Any thoughts about trying to sign Robbie Ray to a three year deal? He pitched well in SF, and they need a solid starter until help arrives.
ReplyDeleteRobbie Ray did not do well after he was traded to the Padres. In 9 starts, 3 were quality but ERA was 5.02. He might have benefitted from a little BABIP luck when he was with us. If the deal is reasonable, it can work but I feel a three year deal might be too long for a 35 year old pitcher.
DeleteThis is an interesting playoff season since the usual large market teams are fading out. I'm guessing that the big market teams all have high priced free agents that are on the receding side of their careers, and they are vulnerable to teams who can field a number of well trained upstarts.
ReplyDeleteTo my eye, baseball is a fast reaction, high soft tissue injury, younger person's game. It's becoming faster with the hundos and high spin rates and technology (ABS) enhancements. The crafty aspects of pitch framing, bunting, and long starting pitchers are going out of style. But the controlled power pitcher or power batter who can adapt to the new system is a huge commodity. How do you stock your system with these types, or coach them through the farm system?
I think the dust will have to settle about the salary cap, but it's not the only issue. As long as it's more equitable about who can sign the competitive team, I'm in favor. Right now, there are a few teams who are bidding up the good players and I'd like to see the playing field be more even.