The other way to build a 1st place team

[weams]

1 hour ago, Redskins Rick said:

Cubs payroll for 2019 is up over 205 million.

Cardinals have 11 WS titles, two more than the Orioles have since 1983, with 2006 and 2011 and 6 NL Pennants since the Orioles and 1983.

Cardinals are not that tough. Orioles stink. Yankees don't stink Red Sox don't stink. Rays don't stink. Even those cheating Blue Jays don't stink a lot of times. 

[Redskins Rick]

4 minutes ago, weams said:

Cardinals are not that tough. Orioles stink. Yankees don't stink Red Sox don't stink. Rays don't stink. Even those cheating Blue Jays don't stink a lot of times. 

They might not be a dominating team, like they was, but their past 2 decades outshines the Orioles, so I find it hard to say negative things about them.

[wildbillhiccup]

1 minute ago, Redskins Rick said:

They might not be a dominating team, like they was, but their past 2 decades outshines the Orioles, so I find it hard to say negative things about them.

Agreed and like I said in another post the Cards have only had two sub .500 seasons in the last 20 years. They're a consistently GOOD franchise. The Rays have four sub .500 finishes just in the last 10 years for context. 

[Frobby]

54 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Agreed and like I said in another post the Cards have only had two sub .500 seasons in the last 20 years. They're a consistently GOOD franchise. The Rays have four sub .500 finishes just in the last 10 years for context. 

The Rays have very limited resources compared to the Cardinals.   They’re going to have their dry spells, no matter how well run they are.    

[wildbillhiccup]

59 minutes ago, Frobby said:

The Rays have very limited resources compared to the Cardinals.   They’re going to have their dry spells, no matter how well run they are.    

Agree completely, but you could say the same about the Red Sox and Yankees. Even more so. Both of those teams seem to try to stay within the $200M range whereas the Cards seem to cap their payroll around $150M. Again, I was just trying to make a point that the disparity between the AL East and NL Central might not be as big as we think it is. 

[hoosiers]

6 hours ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Agreed and like I said in another post the Cards have only had two sub .500 seasons in the last 20 years. They're a consistently GOOD franchise. The Rays have four sub .500 finishes just in the last 10 years for context. 

I posted something fairly definitive a few years ago - few teams in baseball have had an easier path to the post-season for about 25 years than the Cardinals.  With the exception of a couple of years for each team, the Cubs, Pirates, Brewers and Reds have been fairly mediocre for most of that time.  I think the Cardinals routinely played a strength-of-schedule in the bottom third of the league - which meant the wild card was usually within reach if one of the other teams were pretty good that year.  The Cards organization has done many things well over the years, but the bar to get to the post-season has been quite low for them.   Think of how easy it has been for most of the past five years for the Nats to get to the post-season given how mediocre the Phillies, Nats, Mets and Marlins have been - that's what it has been like for the Cards for a couple decades.  

That said, I believe the NL Central is more competitive today as a division than any time I can recall.  I don't think it boasts 3 of the top 10 teams in baseball like the AL East will, but the division winning in 2019 will be a quality team.