Michael Bradley wrote:I actually prefer the baseball playoff format. Reward a team based on their success, not on their mediocrity. Since the Jays last made the playoffs (93) every team in the league has made the playoffs at least once except the Royals, Pirates, Expos/Nats, and Jays. Three of the worst run teams in pro sports + the Blue Jays. The only reason the Jays complain is because of the AL East, but the Rays of 2008 are always going to be the counter argument.
The problem with referencing the Rays is that the Yanks and BoSox were considerably worse than their standard performance.
The Yanks were about 7 wins lower than their standard performance over the decade last year, and the Rays made a big and surprising push to win the second-most games in the division.
Unfortunately, we haven't had the luxury of sucking ass-balls for years, so we haven't drafted like them. David Price? First overall in the first round. Evan Longoria? First overall in the third round. Delmon Young (who turned into Matt Garza)? First overall in the first round. BJ Upton? First overall in the second round. Hell, they drafted Josh Hamilton first overall but left him available in the Rule 5 draft.
James Shields was drafted 6th in the 16th round (won 14 games last year), Sonnanstine was drafted 4th in the 13th round and won 13 games.
The point is, year after year, they've nabbed significant players that formed their core from the top end of the draft. We have not had that luxury, and so we did not have a surprising season the way they did. There's no comparison with Toronto. We've been good enough to be competitive in other divisions, but we can't compete in this division. The Rays leapt forward after mediocrity from years of drafting at the top, which we haven't done, so they are a meaningless point of comparison.
The Jays had the best pitcher in baseball for seven years. They had ownership willing to spend money for three straight years (2006, 2007, 2008). That resulted in 87, 83, and 86 wins respectively. Good, but not good enough. However, if Ricciardi had made better moves, things might have been different. Just because the margin for error is miniscule doesn't mean it is impossible.
Consider though that we faced two in-division teams that averaged around 95 wins; what other division in the AL could say that? In the LEAGUE?
We'd be a lot better off financially if we weren't saddled with Godfrey's little-abortion-that-couldn't, Wells. Suddenly, that $80-85M payroll isn't so bad, because we could have two valuable players in place of one guy not worth his money and keeping us down, that's certainly true. And if we weren't paying Ryan to sit on his ass off of our roster, that's another $10M/season we could be using, so yeah, there are big mistakes that have been made that make our modest payroll worse than it could be.
Still, we're not in a position to replicate what the Rays did, and there's a reason that the Yanks and BoSox have consistently competed for a spot in the ALCS over the last decade.
