baseball's falling popularity and its affect on our hobby

[t206trader]

Originally Posted by itjclarke

Absolutely. Teams like the 2010 and 2012 WS champ Giants were definitely not built like major market (media market) powerhouses. They won mainly through pitching and defense (see Gregor Blanco and Brandon Crawford in 2012 WS), while having an only middle teir offense... but an offense with grit that got timely hitting and great execution (hit run, bunt, butcher play, etc). Some small market teams like the Rays, Reds, A's have consistently competed these past several years.. The A's almost embarrassingly so the last 2 years against the Angels who bought an All Star team... And some large market teams have consistently floundered like the Mets and Cubs.

Clearly major market teams have an advantage in that they can consistently sign big free agents (Hamilton/Pujols), take bigger risks (Tanaka), and have room to fail when those risks don't pan out. Whereas small market teams have much less margin for error and can be totally buried by a single mistake.. Very curious to see how M's do with Cano's contract. If he's a .280 / 15 HR hitter there, that team could be stuck for a long time.

Regardless, to me it's great watching the smaller market teams that can maneuver and make it work by drafting well and developing that talent... Then often locking that talent up eary and relatively cheap by signing extensions through arbitration and the first couple free agent years. I think baseball is actually more interesting for these inequities, and it also often gives the casual fan an easy underdog to root for come October. MLB and ESPN need to wake up and get on board now and work harder to promote great stories like the Pirates/A's/Rays.. Maybe this year the Royals, and ease up on their NY/Boston fetish.

Reds are actually a mid market team with a higher payroll than the Cubs or Mets (who actually have a rather small payroll). If we look at the 8 highest payrolls from last year we see that, in fact, larger payrolls do equal better and more likely championship teams.

N.Y. Yankees $230,401,445

Los Angeles Dodgers 214,830,909

Philadelphia 159,985,714

Boston 157,594,786

Detroit 150,471,844

Los Angeles Angels 141,896,250

San Francisco 138,042,111

Texas 128,714,475

None of the bottom 6 playoff teams in terms of payroll last season won a series past the wildcard. Parity isn't as good in baseball as some would like to think it is.