Why are good teams sitting out the off-season?

[fearthenoodle]

LINK

There?s always a team or two that tries to run away with the offseason, and this year is no different, except that this year is totally different. This year we?re seeing something that might be unprecedented in what I?ll call the MLBTradeRumors era, which stretches back a decade. This year, the teams that are buying are the teams that need the most help. The bad teams.

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There are some clear takeaways. One is that this offseason is in line to be the first since 2005-2006 in which losing teams signed more top free agents than winning teams. Another is that it?s in line to be the lowest percentage of free agents signed by winning teams in our timeframe. And, finally, it?s the lowest percentage signed by playoff teams ever?well under half the typical rate established from 2005 to 2012, and (barring the Dodgers/Scherzer/Shields scenario envisioned above) certainly, significantly lower than any year prior to 2013.

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So for the tougher question: Why aren?t good teams buying? Why have the Giants, Tigers, Nationals, Angels, Pirates, Cardinals, A?s and Orioles?eight of the 10 playoff teams?almost completely sat out this free-agent period? Why have the Dodgers limited themselves to one signing plus a handful of trades, subsidized by the salary dump of Matt Kemp? Why have the Royals only picked at the bottom of the top 40, instead of using their 2014 windfall to add a marquee free agent? Why is Oakland acting like a rebuilding team, why did the Angels trade their (arguably) second-best player for a prospect, and why are so many of the Nationals trade rumors about trading away a star instead of adding one?

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Let?s consider why teams would sign a player. Presumably, a team thinks that player will do one of three things:

1. Make a non-playoff team a better non-playoff team

2. Make a non-playoff team a better playoff team

3. Make a playoff team a better playoff team

As alluded to up there (control+f ?sweet spot?), the greatest gain of all is scenario two.

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But what about the difference between scenarios two and three? Ask the Yankees of the last decade how much an early exit from the postseason was worth. To them, not much. To them, getting deep into the postseason was what separated a successful season from an unsuccessful one.

And we saw what that meant. The Yankees were spending thrice as much as the median-payroll team was. They weren?t playing for 92 wins and a probable playoff berth. They were playing for 103 wins and the promise of postseason dominance. They were signing guys for scenario three.

But it turns out that the promise of postseason dominance was a big lie, bigger still today. With a fourth round of playoffs, making it to the postseason has never been further removed from winning a World Series.

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So to a very good team, there seems to be a) less incentive to try to be great (either way, the October crapshoot will get you) and b) less incentive to worry about being only pretty good (either way, you?ll be in a good position to make it to that crapshoot). So why bother being great? Why not just relax, save your prospects, save your draft picks, avoid the six-year contract, and try instead to settle in at 87 to 94 wins from here to eternity? That buys a lot of crapshoots.

Teams didn?t have to come to this conclusion?the benefits of a division crown overwhelm the benefits of a wild card spot, for instance, so we might have hypothesized that the second wild card would inspire more good teams to try to become great teams?but, thus far, the offseason activity suggests they have. These seem to be the incentives of Bug Selig?s Major League Baseball.

[PA724_Oriole]

Everyone has the same idea. Outside of the pitchers and Panda and Hanley, what players are really worth getting?

They are all waiting till next off season. Some might regret it.

[DrungoHazewood]

I haven't read the piece, but I think there are two primary drivers beyond the slightly larger playoff pool:

1) Everyone has adopted the 1990s Indians model and tries to sign their worthy young players to extensions before they get to free agency, or even arb. So the free agency pool is smaller.

2) All teams now use quasi-objective models with similar methodology as at least one input to their decision-making process. So there are fewer crazy reaches, fewer teams doing blatantly illogical stuff. We may never see another Ryan Howard deal, where it's $millions underwater the day it started paying.

But the author makes a good point, and it's some proof Bud's crazy scheme is working - it makes no sense for the Yanks to go sign all the players to try to lap the field when even a 100+ win team is maybe a 1-in-4, 1-in-5 chance to win the Series on day one of the playoffs. And there's a good chance the team with all the players and the $250M payroll implodes in a mess of injuries and age and never even gets to the playoffs.

[webbrick2010]

With more teams making the playoffs and the required winning % lower, the new approach is to wait until July and then rent the stud players that will either get you into the playoffs or set you up for a big run. Last year Lester, Price, and Andrew Miller were examples of how to approach building a playoff roster.

[Odenton O]

With more teams making the playoffs and the required winning % lower, the new approach is to wait until July and then rent the stud players that will either get you into the playoffs or set you up for a big run. Last year Lester, Price, and Andrew Miller were examples of how to approach building a playoff roster.

Sort of. How well did that work out for the Tigers and A's?

[weams]

Orioles had definite interest in acquiring Ben Zobrist from the Rays before he was dealt to Oakland. However, the Rays brought up names such as Dylan Bundy and Chance Sisco in talks, neither of whom GM Dan Duquette was willing to surrender.

MLBtraderumors.