In 1977, Bill James released his Baseball Abstract, tearing down the house built on BA-HR-RBI and W-L records. He demonstrated empirically how inadequate those measures were in player evaluation, ushering in an era of discernible -- and exploitable -- market inefficiencies.
The exploding capabilities of the PC and the rise of the Internet multiplied the power of James's observations and allowed low-revenue baseball teams -- starting with the Oakland A's -- to compete with the big boys.
The Internet also paved the way for athletes to become famous wherever they played, allowing LeBron James in Cleveland, Stephen Curry in Oakland and Bryce Harper in Washington to emerge as global brands.
That significantly leveled the playing field and removed the nearly insurmountable advantage enjoyed in MLB by the Yankees, who had money, market and intangibles on their side in the 90s and 2000s. They won largely by throwing money at all the best players and managing them wisely.
Money Matters Again
That formula doesn't work anymore, but a new one does. The Yankees still have the largest market and the most money, as do the Dodgers and Cubs in the NL. Instead of investing in free agents, they have invested in the best baseball operations people, in player development and in the secret formula that small market teams were riding to success -- statistical analysis.
Forty years after Bill James threw a hand grenade into baseball's intelligentsia, his wisdom is finally received in total. The big market clubs are taking their reduced advantage in disposable income and leveraging it to raise the best young players.
Investing in Management Rather Than Labor
Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez Greg Bird, Luis Severino and Aaron Hicks are not an accident or serendipity. They are products of a well-capitalized player development plan. They teach Baby Bombers to play smart defense, become students of the game, learn patience at the plate, stay even-keeled when behind, and so on.
The fleecing of the White Sox to procure the services of Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson and Todd Frazier was not simply good fortune. Top dollar buys the best front office too. Brian Cashman has done this before in his career, such as when he stole Bobby Abreu from the Phillies for Cory Lidle in 2006. Abreu added 7 WAR to their playoff-run efforts in a little more than two seasons.
The Dodgers have used smart analytics and the power of the purse to build the deepest team in baseball, one that delivers quality well beyond the 25-man roster. So when L.A. suffered a string of injuries this season, a wily front office employed the disabled list to stash pitchers between starts to stretch the roster and then dipped into a pungent minor league system to promote MLB-ready replacements.
And so here we are, back to the 70s when NY and LA dominated the World Series.
It's Could Be Horrible for the Game
It could be horrible for the game that a few big market clubs make regular playoff visits because it's could be horrible for fans in Cleveland and Milwaukee and Minneapolis and, well, almost everywhere else. It was boring, frankly, to see the same teams win every year, unless you were fans of those teams.
Watching the Yankees ascend within a game of the World Series and knowing that they will soon sign Bryce Harper and a host of other young free agents and dominate the American League again makes me miserable. It should make you miserable too unless you happen to be a Yankee fan.
But it's the new reality. Now that the playing field has returned to level with respect to intelligence, money matters again.
The Baseball InterVerse is aflutter this week with doomsday discussion of the . . . Yankees. The questions being flitted about -- can their top prospects rescue the team, should they trade their veterans to restock the farm, are they the worst team in the American League -- have to be making Boss Steinbrenner spin furiously in his grave.
That's the New York Yankees we're talking about, lord overseers of the horsehide world. The franchise that has appeared in 40 World Series and won 27 of them, and earned playoff berths every season from 1995 to 2012.
It's the Evil Empire of baseball that flaunted the built-in advantages of the nation's largest market, its media capital and its massive financial power to bully its competitors.
The Drew Henson Case
Case in point: In 1998, the Yankees could afford to draft star Michigan quarterback and third baseman Drew Henson in the third round and sign him to first round money. Henson appeared headed to the NFL, but the opportunity to play for the flagship franchise enticed him to start in the minors.
After a year on the farm, the Yankees traded Henson to the Reds. He immediately packed his gear and announced his intention to attend Houston Texans training camp. Reluctantly, Cincinnati traded Henson back to the Yankees for pennies on the dollar and he immediately rescinded his departure.
That it all came to nothing in either sport -- he completed five NFL passes and had one big league hit -- is beside the point. The Yankees ruled the baseball world at every level not too long ago. Teams in "small" markets like, well, everywhere else, but certainly the likes of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Minneapolis and San Diego, could do little more than develop the players who would sign as free agents in the Bronx.
The World Is Upside Down
Today, all the Yankees' strength is reserved for holding up the AL East standings from the bottom. Their roster is decrepit, expensive and way past its expiration date. The promising pitchers like Nova, Tanaka and Severino don't seem to have panned out. The future is no longer now, or at least that's how it appears 40 games into 2016.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals are the World Champs and teams like the Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, cash-strapped Mets, and Pittsburgh Pirates were all playoff teams in 2015. Everyone has a chance to compete every year.
Your nose runs and your feet smell. The world is upside down.
Thank You, Bud
How did this happen? Hate the commissioner emeritus all you like, but this Bud's for us. Following the destructive lockout that cancelled the 1994 World Series, Selig was able to wrest some measure of control from the free-spending teams and institute brakes on franchise costs. The luxury tax, reinforced in subsequent negotiations, and the co-opting of revenue streams to MLB, like all the digital properties owned equally by the teams, has dramatically smoothed the revenue curves and negated much of the financial advantage that big market teams used to enjoy.
At the same time, the Internet has made it possible for top stars to shine from any home base. The entire slate of games is available to any American with the proper cable/satellite deal or with $150 for MLB-TV on their computer. Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Manny Machado can enjoy superstar brand status from DC, Anaheim and Baltimore just the same as if they were standing right on Madison Avenue.
More money is still a useful tool, but the game is awash in it, from Phoenix to Cleveland and St. Petersburg to Denver. Today, if your team perennially stinks, it's not the market's fault, it's management's, even if they blame the manager and fire him.
And if they're perennially contending, thank the people running the franchise, and Bud Selig too. Even if you hate him for cancelling the World Series.
