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TJM responded adroitly to my quip about the 86 wins two years ago:
. . . true, but even if we get normal injury luck this year rather than that tsunami of bad juju from last summer. Then we, what, reboud to 86 wins. The problem with that plan is the Astros, Yankees and Angeles, all ahead of us, all got better. So did Toronto behind us. So will Boston once Martinez signs. We're playing for the wild card, probably the second wild card, before the season even opens. That is such a narrow opening to success.
This looks like the US mission in Afghanistan. We keep doing the same thing and expect the outcome to be different because we hope something good happens. Hope is not a plan. Or at least not a very good one.
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About 15 degrees off this was a recent Hey Bill:
Bill, do you think the rule against trading draft picks (they can't, except compensatory picks) helps or hinders teams? It seems to me like a lame effort to protect idiots from themselves, but there are lots of other ways to make bad decisions.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 2/14/2018
I don't think it's an effort to protect idiots from themselves, no. The rule was adopted to prevent unintended consequences of the draft. The thinking of the time (mid-1960s) is that "we don't know what would happen" if we allowed the trading of these draft picks, so we just won't go down that road.
Well. . .let's assume that it WAS adopted as an effort to protect idiots from themselves. On THAT level, I would argue that it has been highly successful. You're not protecting idiots from themselves; you are protecting THE FRANCHISE from the idiot who happens to own it at the moment. You're limiting the ability of the owner to trade the future for the present. This seems to me like a prudent policy. It isn't baseball which has mishandled this; it is the other sports. If you allow people to trade the future for the present, you create a boom-and-bust cycle which destroys competitive balance. It isn't BASEBALL which has this problem; it is the NBA (and the NFL has had this problem in the past, before they adopted competitive balance policies to offset that.) Allowing the trading of draft picks is one of the things causing this problem.
But that still isn't why baseball adopted the policy; they just couldn't foresee all of the things that might happen if the trading of draft picks was allowed. At the time the draft was adopted there were advocates of the policy, resisters, and those who were on the fence. One of the things that concerned those who were on the fence was the unknowns. The advocates added the rules prohibiting the trading of draft picks in order to reduce the unknowns.
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The NFL decided long ago that it would much prefer not to have 126 OPS+ ballclubs (in possession of McCullers, Keuchel and Verlander) then add Gerrit Cole. Still less would it prefer to have two or three teams per conference in this juggernaut position while six or seven of its rivals waved the white flag during the pitchers' first bullpens.
Dr. D is old enough to remember the 1970's AFC with the Raiders, Dolphins and Steelers and you did not feel like you were going to go into the Orange Bowl and hold Larry Czonka to 23 yards rushing. Just the same, the Belichick-Brady Patriots could be the greatest dynasty of all time and they've got "only" 5 championships in 15 years.
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As SSI mentioned earlier, it's going to be a little different right now playing "spoiler" or "dark horse" and rooting for the deep playoffs that way. But maybe some Denizen will write us up a primer on the joys of taking big roundhouses at the undefeatable Apollo Creeds of the sport.
BABVA,
Dr D
