Schad wrote:And I don't think that we're so much planning to win in 2018 as we're planning to make a show of winning in 2018 to keep our revenues up. No one would actually look at this team, which has been the third-worst by expected record in the majors (below several teams that are making no effort to be good at baseball) and think there's 90 wins here. But Rogers doesn't care; they just want our money, and they -- perhaps correctly -- believe that a pantomime contender will still sell tickets.
It could also be that Shapiro realizes his assets have no value, making a mass selling spree completely pointless, and there is a reasonable chance some of his roster will improve next season, possibly making the 2018 team better and making existing assets more valuable to trade a year from now. If he was able to make a killing off Donaldson right now, I think he may have traded him.
Cano would be very hard to trade on account of being a Mariner, heh. As for most of their other vets, the reason is pretty simple: they had little to no trade value. Tanaka had a partial UCL tear and was going nowhere. Pineda, with his extensive injury history, had an ERA in the 5s when the deadline rolled around. There was talk that Sabathia might be on the market, but with $25m owed in 2017 and the fact that he was in the midst of a two-month implosion when the deadline hit, he wasn't exactly Grade-A beef. Gardner and Ellsbury are boat anchors, and they tried and failed to move Headley, who also has more contract than production.
But what they did, primarily, was recognize that they needed to get younger and resisted the temptation to do anything stupid. They were above .500 when the deadline rolled around, and in late July went on a lengthy winning streak that might have led another team to go in the opposite direction. Instead, they sold off what they could, and planned to wait for the kids to arrive and the vets to age out. Instead, they beat the schedule.
In 2013 the Yankees were 8 games out of first in the East and 3 games out of the 2nd Wild Card with three teams to pass on July 31 of that year. They kept Cano instead of trading him. I am sure they could have traded Tanaka and Pineda without any issue prior to this season if they felt they were a few years away. Gardner as well. They did not trade those guys for any combination of these three reasons : 1) wouldn’t get (enough) value back, 2) wanted to keep the big league team competitive, 3) did not have internal replacements. They traded McCann because they wanted to open CA up for Sanchez. Beltran was traded last deadline because he was a free agent and they wanted to open up right field for Judge. They let Jeter, Tex, and A-Rod retire on their team instead of dropping them earlier (all three were untradeable for various reasons). They had every opportunity to do what you want the Jays to do now but never did.
When they traded Chapman last deadline to signify that they were giving up, they were 51-48. They were 7.5 games out of 1st in the East, and 4.5 behind the 2nd wild card with three teams to pass.
Today, the Royals are 51-47, a half game better than the Yankees were when they gave up last year, but lead the 2nd wild card. The record doesn’t matter. It is where you are in the standings. If the Yankees were 51-48 in 2016 and holding down a playoff spot instead of five games out, you think they would have sold off Chapman, Miller, and Beltran?
Let’s be real here. Cashman was doing the exact same thing as Shapiro is doing now. What prospect has Toronto traded since Shapiro got here? Hansel Rodriguez? They’ve added more to the farm than subtracted and that was despite trying to win the last two years (successful in 2016, not so much in 2017). They have invested internationally. They have hoarded every asset they had, including Smoak who has turned into a star inexplicably. I don’t see how trying to win the last two years has impacted their ability to improve the farm. They haven’t gotten younger on the big league level because they inherited a system that had its best players very, very low in the minors. It will still take a year or two for players to start coming up but that doesn’t mean they have to scorch earth in the mean time.
Where the Yankees were able to transition gracefully is by making great trades. They got Chapman, Hicks, Castro, and Gregorious for basically nothing. That’s the one area Shapiro and Atkins need to work on. Smoak is a good start. No one expected that when he was extended, but they need more.
And no, we are not going to compete in 2019 and 2020 just by building on to what we have. We might be able to fake it a little longer, but by 2019 we'll be paying $90m+ to nine players: Martin, Tulo and Morales, who will not be at all good, plus Smoak, Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Pillar and Travis. Which sounds like an awful lot of money left over, until one considers exactly what you need to pay in free agency to get quality, and the fact that we may not have any good young talent arriving then unless Bichette and Vlad are major league ready by then. Instead, we'd just be repeating the mistakes of the past...letting players run down the contracts, thus severely reducing our leverage, in the vain hope that we can catch lightning in a bottle.
Like the Yankees did except for the Andrew Miller trade. It hasn’t seemed to hurt them.
This isn't the NBA. No need to tank to get a top draft pick. The Jays will have a top 10 system this winter despite never purposely taking a step back. I don't see how holding on to JD and Smoak for another year and seeing their market expand to maximize the trade return is symbolic of trying to pantomime a contender. It's probably the most logical way to go next season. If the 2018 season goes the same way as 2017, which is certainly possible, then trade JD and Smoak then. The difference in the return will probably be insignificant if JD bounces back.