I do have one perspective to add on this... Isn't this the way to win in modern baseball?
Hear me out on this. I understand that baseball is a regular season sport, and (in my experience) it's much more fun as a fan to be good in the regular season, but let's pretend winning the World Series is the goal here okay?
Ever since MLB expanded the playoffs to ten teams in 2012, these are the pythWL ranks of the teams who made the World Series.
2012: 9 vs 12
2013: 1 vs 2
2014: 7 vs 11
2015: 6 vs 8
2016: 1 vs 4
2017: 2 vs 4
2018: 2 vs 3
2019: 1 vs 6
2020: 1 vs 3
2021: 4 vs 7
2022: 2 vs 10
2023: 4 vs 15
Of the 24 WS participants since this expansion, ten of them are outside the top five, which I would describe as 'good, but not a contender.' If a team's stated goal is to be good, but not a contender, and it's the truth that they will hold to it (which is the problem with Seattle), I wouldn't mind it all that much as a fan, especially in a market like Seattle where the big ticket players aren't going to go, whether the money is there or not.
In fact, for a small market team, this may be a better strategy to win a World Series than actually trying to be a contender at any point. Another team whose goal is to be perpetually good, but never great, is the Milwaukee Brewers. I don't know if anybody is talking about boycotting them, because they're at least keeping their promise of always being at least good.
Once again, I would love a 100 win team more than I would love winning a World Series, because I've accepted that baseball is about the regular season for me, but if the goal is to win the World Series, I can actually get behind the never even trying to be a contender strategy. Shoot for 87 wins and the sixth playoff spot, keep retooling at every deadline, never go all-in at any point, and attempt to ride the variance all the way to the championship. It's not fun, but it might be the optimal way to win for small market teams these days.
So I'm not sure there are grounds to be angry at this 'always competitive' approach. Now, in Seattle's case there's grounds to be mad because they're bad at it, but the approach shouldn't be a reason for the boycott. The poor quality of the people involved should be. The Seattle market ought to bring in somebody who can land them 87 wins every year, because I'm not sure Seattle would have much luck trying to be a contender anyway.
As to the pythag breakdown, yup, this has been my assumption and I appreciate you breaking it down like that. The way 75% of the league seems to have coalesced around this strategy of "sustainable" winning makes me think there's some official memo in each org concluding that being slightly above average and gambling on the randomness of pythag and the more extreme randomness of the playoffs is the best way to win a World Series--a coin flip every year, versus going "all in" for however long. Whether that's "winning" is its own conversation (the 2010s Royals aren't winners to me, though flags fly forever).
While I think "sustainability" might have been a fine strategy for the Mariners at the outset of their tank/rebuild, it seems more difficult to win the "marginal value shuffle" when everyone is now trying to do the same thing and competing for the same handful of fringe players. And frankly, as I've been researching the visual effects of T-Mobile Park, it seems the Mariners have higher variance for incoming players than probably any other team. So I'm not sure the calculus works in their favor, and they might not have the same ceiling for randomness that others do. The best way to combat that, perhaps, is to spend through the uncertainty. (I suppose they could also try to solve the visual effect, which is what Dipoto made it sound like would be the plan in his media scrum--though he touched on it only briefly and I certainly wasn't there, so just my speculation).
I guess it's a matter of how you compel teams to spend and prioritize excellence. As a government type, of course, my first instinct would be increasing the minimum wage for players on the 40 man and force teams off their $/win formulas that tell them to prioritize uncertainty over established quality. But that's probably a fraught stance to hold in MLBPA, and would certainly be unpopular among owners. I don't know what the answer is.
The 2010s Royals aren't winners to you... but are the 2010s Giants? They were never a top five team in MLB either, but they were there, which continuously gave them the chance to take advantage of the league falling apart in front of them. They were the 9 vs the 12 in 2010. They were the 7 vs 11 in 2014. There is no obligation to be good if you continuously run into teams worse than you.
Baseball wants this by the way. MLB are clearly HUGE fans of this mediocrity everywhere, because every decision they take seems to support this style of roster building, starting from expanding the playoffs, continuing with throwing their bodies in front of implementing a salary floor, and continuing straight on down. Is this good for baseball? No. Is it good for the fans? No, but it's what they want because it's good for the pocket books. We've seen with the Oakland saga that baseball doesn't care what's good for baseball. Let the Dodgers and Padres spend all the money to lose to the randomness. Everybody else will spend $100M to lose to it.
As far as the increased randomness in Seattle, you know better than me, but wouldn't that be construed as a reason not to spend on big name players if they're more likely to lose their abilities there? I'm not sure what the budget situation is in Seattle. The big stars won't go there anyway, because it's so far from everything else, but even if they would, would the Seattle ownership open the books for it?
I know this situation very well, being a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays. The payroll is unlimited, but nobody will come play here, and at that point what can we do? Give $30M AAV to Matt Chapman? That's silly, so we inevitably go through the purgatory of being 'in' on every big name, but always finishing second or third in the sweepstakes. It's not ownership's fault. It's just life in Toronto. Is Seattle similar?
What I'm asking is do they even have the ability to spend through the uncertainty? Even if they can from a money standpoint, can they from a 'convince people to commit ten years to living in Seattle' standpoint? Nothing at all against Seattle, but Toronto's beautiful too, and we can't convince players to play here either.
Onto the last paragraph. For once, a sport has an issue that is not simply answered with 'stricter anti-tanking measures.' Quite frankly, the best way to solve this problem would be to contract the playoffs back to eight teams. Baseball is not a sport built for 12 playoff teams. It's not like the NBA, where you could put all 30 teams in the playoffs and still likely end up with the same champion.
Without any reward in the current system for winning the division, this was a very predictable outcome. There is no functional difference between sixth place and third place, so why would you ever get 95 wins and third place when you could get 87 and sixth place?
That's the real problem here. Baseball has created an environment where it's more preferable to finish sixth than third, because the jump to 95 wins and a third place finish is a very tough (and expensive) jump to make. 87 is much cheaper and easier. That's why every team in every league other than the Dodgers, Padres, Phillies, and Yankees is trying to finish sixth. Unless you can jump all the way to second place, there's just no purpose.
The easy fix is contracting the playoffs, but since that's exceedingly unlikely to happen, some reward for winning the division (but not achieving the bye) should be conceived, to create some difference between finishing third and sixth. I'm not sure what that'd be. Maybe you'd have some ideas, but if nothing is done to create separation between sixth and third teams will continue going out of their way to finish sixth, and not third, which as a sports league should be (but seemingly isn't) the opposite of what you want.
Ironically, if every team was incentivized and willing to spend unlimitedly and try as hard as they can every year, I assume there’d still be a mediocrity problem. But as you say, that’s not really the issue right now.
So I don’t know. I guess it’s all just a matter of how you want the sport to look and feel. Baseball will always fail to meet our expectations it seems.
I just try to enjoy the things I enjoy and leave the rest.
It really feels like the current crop of MLB owners are failsons or guys that made their money in hedge funds or tech or human trafficking and just want a sports team as a toy. I'm a Tigers fan (GRITTY TIGS!) and while there are plenty of negative things you can can about Mike Ilitch, the previous owner, you can't deny he loved the Tigers and wanted them to win, especially toward the end of his life. His son, Chris, is the CEO and chairman of the Tigers. Does he care? I think the jury is still out. If the owners don't actually care, why should we? Of course, I'm sucked back right into the Tigers playoff run. The owners know we're suckers.
I do have one perspective to add on this... Isn't this the way to win in modern baseball?
Hear me out on this. I understand that baseball is a regular season sport, and (in my experience) it's much more fun as a fan to be good in the regular season, but let's pretend winning the World Series is the goal here okay?
Ever since MLB expanded the playoffs to ten teams in 2012, these are the pythWL ranks of the teams who made the World Series.
2012: 9 vs 12
2013: 1 vs 2
2014: 7 vs 11
2015: 6 vs 8
2016: 1 vs 4
2017: 2 vs 4
2018: 2 vs 3
2019: 1 vs 6
2020: 1 vs 3
2021: 4 vs 7
2022: 2 vs 10
2023: 4 vs 15
Of the 24 WS participants since this expansion, ten of them are outside the top five, which I would describe as 'good, but not a contender.' If a team's stated goal is to be good, but not a contender, and it's the truth that they will hold to it (which is the problem with Seattle), I wouldn't mind it all that much as a fan, especially in a market like Seattle where the big ticket players aren't going to go, whether the money is there or not.
In fact, for a small market team, this may be a better strategy to win a World Series than actually trying to be a contender at any point. Another team whose goal is to be perpetually good, but never great, is the Milwaukee Brewers. I don't know if anybody is talking about boycotting them, because they're at least keeping their promise of always being at least good.
Once again, I would love a 100 win team more than I would love winning a World Series, because I've accepted that baseball is about the regular season for me, but if the goal is to win the World Series, I can actually get behind the never even trying to be a contender strategy. Shoot for 87 wins and the sixth playoff spot, keep retooling at every deadline, never go all-in at any point, and attempt to ride the variance all the way to the championship. It's not fun, but it might be the optimal way to win for small market teams these days.
So I'm not sure there are grounds to be angry at this 'always competitive' approach. Now, in Seattle's case there's grounds to be mad because they're bad at it, but the approach shouldn't be a reason for the boycott. The poor quality of the people involved should be. The Seattle market ought to bring in somebody who can land them 87 wins every year, because I'm not sure Seattle would have much luck trying to be a contender anyway.
As to the pythag breakdown, yup, this has been my assumption and I appreciate you breaking it down like that. The way 75% of the league seems to have coalesced around this strategy of "sustainable" winning makes me think there's some official memo in each org concluding that being slightly above average and gambling on the randomness of pythag and the more extreme randomness of the playoffs is the best way to win a World Series--a coin flip every year, versus going "all in" for however long. Whether that's "winning" is its own conversation (the 2010s Royals aren't winners to me, though flags fly forever).
While I think "sustainability" might have been a fine strategy for the Mariners at the outset of their tank/rebuild, it seems more difficult to win the "marginal value shuffle" when everyone is now trying to do the same thing and competing for the same handful of fringe players. And frankly, as I've been researching the visual effects of T-Mobile Park, it seems the Mariners have higher variance for incoming players than probably any other team. So I'm not sure the calculus works in their favor, and they might not have the same ceiling for randomness that others do. The best way to combat that, perhaps, is to spend through the uncertainty. (I suppose they could also try to solve the visual effect, which is what Dipoto made it sound like would be the plan in his media scrum--though he touched on it only briefly and I certainly wasn't there, so just my speculation).
I guess it's a matter of how you compel teams to spend and prioritize excellence. As a government type, of course, my first instinct would be increasing the minimum wage for players on the 40 man and force teams off their $/win formulas that tell them to prioritize uncertainty over established quality. But that's probably a fraught stance to hold in MLBPA, and would certainly be unpopular among owners. I don't know what the answer is.
The 2010s Royals aren't winners to you... but are the 2010s Giants? They were never a top five team in MLB either, but they were there, which continuously gave them the chance to take advantage of the league falling apart in front of them. They were the 9 vs the 12 in 2010. They were the 7 vs 11 in 2014. There is no obligation to be good if you continuously run into teams worse than you.
Baseball wants this by the way. MLB are clearly HUGE fans of this mediocrity everywhere, because every decision they take seems to support this style of roster building, starting from expanding the playoffs, continuing with throwing their bodies in front of implementing a salary floor, and continuing straight on down. Is this good for baseball? No. Is it good for the fans? No, but it's what they want because it's good for the pocket books. We've seen with the Oakland saga that baseball doesn't care what's good for baseball. Let the Dodgers and Padres spend all the money to lose to the randomness. Everybody else will spend $100M to lose to it.
As far as the increased randomness in Seattle, you know better than me, but wouldn't that be construed as a reason not to spend on big name players if they're more likely to lose their abilities there? I'm not sure what the budget situation is in Seattle. The big stars won't go there anyway, because it's so far from everything else, but even if they would, would the Seattle ownership open the books for it?
I know this situation very well, being a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays. The payroll is unlimited, but nobody will come play here, and at that point what can we do? Give $30M AAV to Matt Chapman? That's silly, so we inevitably go through the purgatory of being 'in' on every big name, but always finishing second or third in the sweepstakes. It's not ownership's fault. It's just life in Toronto. Is Seattle similar?
What I'm asking is do they even have the ability to spend through the uncertainty? Even if they can from a money standpoint, can they from a 'convince people to commit ten years to living in Seattle' standpoint? Nothing at all against Seattle, but Toronto's beautiful too, and we can't convince players to play here either.
Onto the last paragraph. For once, a sport has an issue that is not simply answered with 'stricter anti-tanking measures.' Quite frankly, the best way to solve this problem would be to contract the playoffs back to eight teams. Baseball is not a sport built for 12 playoff teams. It's not like the NBA, where you could put all 30 teams in the playoffs and still likely end up with the same champion.
Without any reward in the current system for winning the division, this was a very predictable outcome. There is no functional difference between sixth place and third place, so why would you ever get 95 wins and third place when you could get 87 and sixth place?
That's the real problem here. Baseball has created an environment where it's more preferable to finish sixth than third, because the jump to 95 wins and a third place finish is a very tough (and expensive) jump to make. 87 is much cheaper and easier. That's why every team in every league other than the Dodgers, Padres, Phillies, and Yankees is trying to finish sixth. Unless you can jump all the way to second place, there's just no purpose.
The easy fix is contracting the playoffs, but since that's exceedingly unlikely to happen, some reward for winning the division (but not achieving the bye) should be conceived, to create some difference between finishing third and sixth. I'm not sure what that'd be. Maybe you'd have some ideas, but if nothing is done to create separation between sixth and third teams will continue going out of their way to finish sixth, and not third, which as a sports league should be (but seemingly isn't) the opposite of what you want.
Ironically, if every team was incentivized and willing to spend unlimitedly and try as hard as they can every year, I assume there’d still be a mediocrity problem. But as you say, that’s not really the issue right now.
So I don’t know. I guess it’s all just a matter of how you want the sport to look and feel. Baseball will always fail to meet our expectations it seems.
I just try to enjoy the things I enjoy and leave the rest.
You’ve nailed it on the head. As long as we continue to support the Mariners there is no financial motivation to win.
It really feels like the current crop of MLB owners are failsons or guys that made their money in hedge funds or tech or human trafficking and just want a sports team as a toy. I'm a Tigers fan (GRITTY TIGS!) and while there are plenty of negative things you can can about Mike Ilitch, the previous owner, you can't deny he loved the Tigers and wanted them to win, especially toward the end of his life. His son, Chris, is the CEO and chairman of the Tigers. Does he care? I think the jury is still out. If the owners don't actually care, why should we? Of course, I'm sucked back right into the Tigers playoff run. The owners know we're suckers.