What almost every ownership group wants is obvious. They want to be the Tampa Bay Rays or possibly the Cleveland Indians. They want to be a team that wins constantly with a low payroll. That's the goal. What's more important out of the two? Sadly the low payroll, so if they don't win that's not the worst thing that can happen.
This differs from what the fans want which is simply to win. They want to see playoffs and championships. If the team doesn't win that IS the worst thing in the world. And that's where the conflict happens, or at least where it should happen. Now spending money is FAR from a guarantee of success, but the numbers are pretty clear that spending money is better than not spending money in regards to making that happen.
An ownership group has three options then (1) ignore the fans as they aren't the most crucial money driver unless you create a big fandom, (2) give in to the fans and spend some more money, or (3) convince the fans they are wrong and spending money is actually bad. Despite the multiple Dodgers titles and the Yankees and Phillies always in the playoffs, they've done a very good with (3). "We can put that money back into player development!" "Sure we could have an ok team now, but don't you want a GREAT team later?"
That's where the Nats are now... well sort of. What we know is the Nats have a do fun team now that could still make the playoffs and could have had a better shot if the Nats FO did something earlier. It wouldn't have been likely to really contend but with nothing certain for the future is it better to lean in when opportunities are presented to you? That's the philosophy question I suppose. What is increased chances at a long set of playoff runs and real title contention worth to you?
In theory that could be worth a lot, but I think fans tend to skew those chances, (and they aren't helped because that's what the owners are always selling you). In their minds it's like "sure we could go to a 66% chance of a WC spot for the next couple of years, but we can have like a 90% chance of a long playoff run starting in three years if we don't!" But the reality is more like "sure we could go to a 66% chance of a WC spot for the next couple of years, but the Nats have a 20% to have another long run starting in the next couple of years, we can up it to maybe 35%!" That's what you are throwing away pushes right in front of you for.
This is an all-time argument in baseball though and not one easily answered, because those long run results ARE so good and these short unexpected runs usually are just a couple of meaningless fun series. But it IS risk / reward. The payoff is high, sure you could be the Rays or Indians but the risk is real, you could also be the Athletics or Pirates or Rockies or Royals...
My question though is - do fans really want to be the Rays? The key to the Rays is the constant churn. Have a guy, he gets good, send him off for some young guys to replace him, rinse, repeat. There is no core set of players you are rooting for, only truly a set of laundry that guys fill aged 20-27 before heading off elsewhere. If you do it right occasionally that group comes together to matter, but when they don't you have a team that is bad that also engenders no loyalty. The Rays are consistently one of the lowest teams in attendance good or bad. These things are connected.
But maybe the Nats are already one of these teams? Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Trea Turner. All stars. All gone. What made the Nationals different was never a commitment to young players to age with the team but the willingness to go out and grab 1-2 big time FAs to be the final pieces. If the Nats don't keep CJ Abrams, that's nothing new, but simply the Nats being the Nats. Where things would be different is if after that happens they don't spend any money. There is no follow-up Scherzer or Corbin.
Really the most important thing here is we don't know what this Nats organization is going to be like. This isn't the Pirates or Rockies with decades of proof they don't know what they are doing and don't care. This Nats org could trade Abrams and use that saving to then bring in Skubal. So all these arguments about should the Nats have done more this year are sort of made in this great vacuum of knowledge. If the Nats are a team committed to winning that just want to set-up the best team possible when spending money then no they shouldn't do anything now (or really it was ok they didn't do anything earlier - it's a bit too late now). If the Nats are a team just hoping to "out-organization" to be the next cheap-o Rays or Pirates whatever the results may be then they should have gone for it. But we don't know.
As far as getting that knowledge the trade deadline will tell us something. The off-season will tell us more.
5 comments:
I believe that the Lerners want to sell the team -- but only for the right price. Until then, the Nationals are in a holding pattern, and ownership has little to no desire to spend money on players, especially free agents. Toboni was brought in to try to mirror the Rays approach -- talent evalution and metrics. But not everyone can do what the Rays do (see, e.g. Colorado, Pittsburgh), and as Harper notes, there isn't much to cheer about even when the Rays are good because the players keep changing. CJ Abrams and James Wood are the face of the Nationals, and they should be signed and paid accordingly. The Nats need to build an identify. And finally, just getting into the playoffs gives everyone a chance to win the World Series. The Nationals were a wild card team the year they won the World Series. As NL East leaders, they lost the first round of all of their other playoff series.
What I want as a Nationals fan is not "the Rays." I want Rays-caliber decision making along with a payroll commensurate with the value of the franchise. A team that gets to sell tickets in the Washington, DC region ought to have a higher payroll than a team that gets to sell tickets in Tampa Bay or Cleveland. Yes, the Rays often trade the excellent players they develop. All of those trades are, to some extent, because the Rays know they cannot afford to pay those excellent players what it would be necessary to stay. But some of those foregone extensions would be "good" extensions (i.e., the player is likely to be worth the money) and some would be "bad" extensions (i.e., the player won't settle for anything less than the top of the free agent auction, which means the signing team is in "winner's curse" territory). I don't expect the Nats to run a Dodgers/Mets/Yankees payroll (though I would like it if they did--I don't care if the rich Lerners are slightly less rich because they run a high payroll on their toy MLB franchise). But they should definitely be in the top-half of the league on average for the long-term, and should definitely be in the top-ten when the team is plausibly competing for a playoff spot. I have a lot of confidence the new regime makes good decisions and likely that confidence will extend to making extension/free agent offers to good players at appropriate amounts. The big unknown is what the "new" Lerners are thinking about the budget. So far, there have been somewhat reasonable explanations for the club operating a low payroll. Those reasonable explanations go away this offseason, in my opinion. Money must be spent. If it's not, we'll have a lot of clarity (and I grant that some of you may be ahead of me and think we ALREADY have a lot of clarity that the new Lerners won't spend; I disagree, but I don't think this is an unreasonable position to have).
I obviously agree with all this, Harper. But I want to throw in one adjacent thought.
I absolutely do not want to root for the Rays and the discontinuity issue is only part of it. I don't want to root for a maximally exploitative team. Maybe the Rays operate that way by necessity - maybe not, but it's plausible for them in a way that it would not be for the Lerners - but, in practice, what it boils down to is that they only seek talent that the structure of the sport mandates is paid far less than fair value. That's a distasteful enough part of baseball fandom even when it's just part of a team's overall strategy, and I don't think I could root for a team for whom it was the alpha and omega of their philosophy.
I understand that this is something that different fans will react to differently, and it's certainly not as evil as still doing the chop or rehabbing a pro-segregation statue, but I think I would find it unbearable to spend this much energy and time rooting for a team like the Rays.
Your mileage may vary.
Great observations Harper. I also completely agree with SMS. A clear and observable commitment to winning pennants is what motivates most fans. Money is momentary and transient, flags fly forever.
What we don’t know is what was told to Taboni before he accepted the job. If he believed the Nats were going to be sold and new ownership could head in a different direction, he wouldn’t have wanted the job. If he were told that payroll was going to be low, and/or that he needed owners approval on any transaction over a few million, I don’t think he would have wanted the job either. They must have given him some assurances that he’d have the flexibility and money to create a winning team. At least that’s my hope. That in order for the Lerner’s to hire him, they had to commit to something. But I think you are right that the off season will be the tell.
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