Fangraphs: Competitive Windows - Rays Fourth Best?

[weams]

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-arrival-of-the-tampa-bay-rays/

Quote

 

[T]he Rays have been the third-best team in their division. And, according to BaseRuns, the Rays have been the fourth-best team in baseball.

 

Seriously — it’s right there in the link. The Rays have been worse than only the Astros, Red Sox, and Yankees, and they’ve been a hair better than the Dodgers. You don’t even need to go all the way to BaseRuns to make a case; since the Rays began a dreadful 3-12, they’ve had baseball’s fifth-best record, and seventh-best run differential. The Rays have been winning for a while. Not really while participating in the hunt, but that’s allowed them to be more or less off the radar.

What does it mean to have such a good BaseRuns record? Looking at the window from 2005 – 2017, I gathered all the teams with at least 90 estimated BaseRuns wins. The following season, they won an average of 87.5 games, with a median win total of 89. That’s a general, simple approach, but unsurprisingly, statistical success in one year indicates likely success the next year.

 

[Can_of_corn]

The guys out with TJ  should be back next year.

[sportsfan8703]

This is why we need to commit to a full rebuild. The Yanks and Sox are riding high right now and TB would be a be best team in a lot of other divisions. They are going to have their runs regardless but that just means we need to really invest in the international market. 

2021 looks like the earliest we might be back into anything. 

[now]

Two things stand out for me from the article:

Has there ever been a wider spread of regular standings in a division than this year's AL East?

And while it's comforting to see BAL middle if the pack in the 45 FV prospects, how depressing is it to see 0 at the 50 FV benchmark?

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, now said:

Two things stand out for me from the article:

Has there ever been a wider spread of regular standings in a division than this year's AL East?

And while it's comforting to see BAL middle if the pack in the 45 FV prospects, how depressing is it to see 0 at the 50 FV benchmark?

That's what #1 overall draft picks are for.

[UpstateNYfan]

16 hours ago, now said:

Two things stand out for me from the article:

Has there ever been a wider spread of regular standings in a division than this year's AL East?

And while it's comforting to see BAL middle if the pack in the 45 FV prospects, how depressing is it to see 0 at the 50 FV benchmark?

Like the AL East, the AL Central, has similar questions, has there ever been a division when the second place team is decidedly below .500 and the division as a whole so many games below .500.

The imbalance in baseball will continue to be a huge problem and 20 teams will continue to be "league fillers" for large market teams. You can say a number 1 pick will have impact, but that BS. 1) For the most part the choice is a crap shoot...2) Year(s) of development. 3) a position player only bats 1/9 of the times in a game; pitcher 1/5 games. 

In basketball a #1 is 1/5 of the starting team and will be on the court 80% of the game. In football, the player will be involved in nearly 50% of the snaps. In hockey a #1, a player will be on the ice 1/3 and has a better chance of making a larger impact on a team's record than a #1 in baseball.

The #1 only serves for PR and hope, little more. I would suggest a late round pick for a major market team has just as much impact for them as a #1 for a medium, small market team. They can draft for need...the #1 has too many needs to fill.

[Spy Fox]

Hey, by BaseRuns we're less than 40 GB!

[esmd]

I dunno if I buy 4th best team in baseball, but Tampa has put together a pretty nice season, especially considering they play NYY and Boston 38 times.  Oakland is also under the radar, putting up a very nice season in the West and pushing Houston.  The AL playoffs are loaded.

[NCRaven]

I don't know if TB, or any team, for that matter, will be able to replicate what they did with their pitching this year.  But, with their young starting talent, they may not have to do it the same way next year.

[atomic]

20 hours ago, now said:

Two things stand out for me from the article:

Has there ever been a wider spread of regular standings in a division than this year's AL East?

And while it's comforting to see BAL middle if the pack in the 45 FV prospects, how depressing is it to see 0 at the 50 FV benchmark?

Well I made the point that we have zero can't miss propsoects many a time. It is a shame that DD was in charge in the sell-off and we couldn't get a single one. 

[Camden_yardbird]

Tampa is a wonderfully run organization who understands what they are and carefully manicure their roster to be cheap and to be a .500 roster.  Then, if things go right, a few guys have career years, the take 81 wins and turn it into something closer to 90 and a shot at the playoffs.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 minutes ago, Camden_yardbird said:

Tampa is a wonderfully run organization who understands what they are and carefully manicure their roster to be cheap and to be a .500 roster.  Then, if things go right, a few guys have career years, the take 81 wins and turn it into something closer to 90 and a shot at the playoffs.

If only the Orioles operated this way except they have some money to spend on talent. 

[Finisher]

Would love to poach some of the guys drafting and developing talent down there. They have a seemingly unending stream of young talent.

[spiritof66]

4 hours ago, UpstateNYfan said:

Like the AL East, the AL Central, has similar questions, has there ever been a division when the second place team is decidedly below .500 and the division as a whole so many games below .500.

The imbalance in baseball will continue to be a huge problem and 20 teams will continue to be "league fillers" for large market teams. You can say a number 1 pick will have impact, but that BS. 1) For the most part the choice is a crap shoot...2) Year(s) of development. 3) a position player only bats 1/9 of the times in a game; pitcher 1/5 games. 

In basketball a #1 is 1/5 of the starting team and will be on the court 80% of the game. In football, the player will be involved in nearly 50% of the snaps. In hockey a #1, a player will be on the ice 1/3 and has a better chance of making a larger impact on a team's record than a #1 in baseball.

The #1 only serves for PR and hope, little more. I would suggest a late round pick for a major market team has just as much impact for them as a #1 for a medium, small market team. They can draft for need...the #1 has too many needs to fill.

I think the statement I bolded is partly right and partly wrong. I believe the imbalance in baseball is a problem that will increase. (I'm assuming that MLB views the significant and worsening competitive imbalance as a problem. That may be wrong; MLB and the owners, or many of them, may be happy with the shared TV revenues brought in by showdowns in the regular season and postseason that involve the NYYs, RS, Dodgers, Giants, Cubs and Cardinals playing each other or some upstarts.)

But it's not true that 20 teams are mere fillers. I believe each team's potential ability to compete for the postseason on a consistent basis depends, in large part, on its financial resources relative to those of those of their divisional rivals. I started last spring to do a division-by-division analysis of those situations, and I'll get back to it one of these days. It's no surprise that the teams in the weakest relative-resource position is the Rays, with the Orioles among those right behind them. In some divisions, though, the competitive situation is much healthier.

I admire the Rays' consistency in putting together quality teams, and I don't really know how they do it. (Joe Madden used to get a lot of credit, but that now seems overstated.) If I'm a Rays fan (wise-ass comment about how few of them there are omitted), I guess it's nice to see how highly ranked they are, but what I'd really like to see is some postseason baseball. The Rays have been around for 21 years (including 2018). They have won two division titles (in 2008 and 2010) and two wildcard spots (in 2011 and 2013). They have played in one World Series in almost a quarter-century.

So a team that consistently makes smart moves, gets good performances from low-payroll sources and, I think it's fair to say, frequently outperforms almost every team relative to its financial resources hasn't won the division for eight years. Its postseason appearances all came during a very good seven-year run that ended five years ago. It's all very commendable, and the Rays have been a fun team to watch at times since 2013, but once again this season it's not quite enough to keep up with the big guys. 

[Can_of_corn]

Why would MLB think it was a problem if the larger market teams won more often than the smaller market teams?