.
Whoever heard of lining up teams by their mascot names alphabetically ... grumble, grumble. And could swear this is the first time I ever saw James do that. The one time I cared. mumble, crumble.
.
James' method is to assign each year's team a "strength score," like this one he has on the Astros:
|
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
|
196-
|
|
|
7.21
|
6.56
|
5.97
|
5.37
|
5.29
|
5.01
|
4.96
|
6.51
|
|
197-
|
6.79
|
7.05
|
8.91
|
10.18
|
11.26
|
10.15
|
10.17
|
11.25
|
10.77
|
13.34
|
|
198-
|
15.90
|
17.87
|
17.00
|
17.73
|
17.07
|
17.67
|
20.08
|
18.94
|
19.30
|
19.90
|
|
199-
|
18.71
|
16.96
|
17.43
|
18.13
|
19.06
|
19.61
|
19.92
|
21.32
|
23.80
|
25.73
|
|
200-
|
23.81
|
25.47
|
25.38
|
25.49
|
26.93
|
29.04
|
29.49
|
27.31
|
27.22
|
25.30
|
|
201-
|
23.69
|
20.89
|
18.28
|
15.63
|
14.49
|
16.52
|
17.23
|
|
|
|
All of us -- and by "all of us" I mean SABRMatt, naturally -- could take a yellow pad and make a long list of + and - for this method. If you have your own laboratory, go to it. One of the strengths here is that with the gentle "Up cycle, Down cycle" turning points, you've got a lot of reliability. A lot of data and a macro point of view. After he has 30 teams, will James get to attaching things to each turning point -- a Top 50 SuperDuperStar or a change of owners or whatever -- those "Seismic Events" will correlate well with franchise health going forward.
Or so it seems to me.
.
HOUSTON ASTROS
They had some similarity to the M's:
- Juuuuuuust a bit more recent than, say, the Philadelphia A's
- Way, WAYYYYY underneath New York's radar scope (my own thought)
- A lot of failure after expansion
- Some epically poor GM'ing in their first 25 years - Cuellar to the O's for zip, Joe Morgan to the Reds for zip, "donated" John Mayberry to the Royals, etc etc
- A good taste of success for 10-15 years (late 80's thru early 00's) due to Stars & Scrubs ... Mike Scott, Nolan Ryan, Roy Oswalt, Bagwell and Biggio, etc
- Another (surprising) valley in 2007-14, being made fun of a lot for weird stuff because they were bad
- 2015-17 and forward Jose Altuve years
So it's a stimulating comparison to the M's. Using our own verbiage rather than pull quotes, since talking points themselves aren't copyright territory. We'll just continually remind you that $3/month isn't even subscription money unless you're putting yourself through college on a Denny's paycheck like some of us did. Let's take a glance at James' suggestions for the causes of the turning points:
.
| Era |
Result |
Possible Cause |
| 62-68 Colt .45s |
DOWN (from expansion level!) |
Terrible Scrubs |
| 69-86 |
UP |
(Despite catastrophic trades) XLNT farm system, and draws at scrap heap deck (Jose Cruz, Joaquin Andujar) |
| 87-91 |
DOWN |
Stars got old in Gillickian fashion |
| 92-06 |
UP |
Bagwell, Biggio, Oswalt, Berkman ... nimbly working talent market for 1-2 year players. But didn't come up with ENOUGH support impact players |
| 07-14 |
DOWN |
All the above players got old togther (see post-Gillick M's) |
| 15-18 and ff |
UP |
(BJOL doesn't say anything. Obviously farm system, and patience with K's, was a plus) |
.
At first glance we can compare Ken Griffey Jr's arrival in 1989-90 to any of the Astros' three UP cycles. In fact the 1995-2005 Astros remind us a whale of a lot of the 00's M's.
Cheers,
Dr D
