Accepting the Mean

With 30 Major League Baseball teams playing 162 games a year, there is a total of 2430 games played each season. That means there are 1215 wins and 1215 losses; the league average team goes 81-81 and scores as many runs as it allows. Simple enough, but if you listen to the optimism surrounding teams making changes in November, you’d think that everyone was destined to win at least 90 games. In reality, not every new manager will create a winning environment for the team. Not every general manager is a transaction wizard who will simultaneously rejuvenate a depleted farm system and bolster the roster of the big club. Not every twilight-of-his-career pitcher will find a Clemensian resurgence.

Take Tampa Bay as an example. After the unceremonious exit of Lou Piniella and the long-overdue dismissal of GM Chuck Lamar, the new ownership was ready to make its mark on the front office. Promoting Andrew Friedman and bringing in Gerry Hunsicker is supposed to give them a two-headed GM with a balance of scouty grit and staty high-mindedness. Joe Maddon got the enthusiastic nod as Sweet Lou’s successor on the bench. Maddon has spent his baseball career in the Angels organization, gaining the respect of Tim McCarver types by paying his dues and cutting his teeth in three interim managerial stints with the team. He seems like a great guy; he’s dedicated to player development and he’s known for using complex statistics to influence his decisions. It all sounds fantastic, and I have no problem with the hire.

The GM duo, too, seems like a pretty smart move. Friedman is supposed to be St. Pete’s Theo Epstein, a young baseball outsider with the Jewish-sounding name to match. Hunsicker knows what he’s doing, most recently laying the groundwork for the Houston team Tim Purpura brought to the World Series. Friedman can more or less lead the way while taking hints from the wily veteran in order to maximize output from an already strong farm system.

With help on the way from Delmon Young, B.J. Upton and others, the future looks bright in Tampa. So bright, in fact, that everyone seemed to be ready to burst at the press conference announcing Maddon’s hiring. "I like the way this organization is coming together," Maddon said, “the nucleus we have is great.” He also compared the organization to the Angels or the Twins, ready to make a run at the division for several years in a row.

But let’s step back for a minute. The Devil Rays have never come close to having a winning record. They have had highly touted prospects for years and have not turned them into major league winners (although admittedly not on the level of Upton or Young). They play in a warehouse just south of a glorified retirement community, not the best place to recruit free agents. Their best prospect has denounced the franchise, and Lamar held onto their best trading assets well past their peak value (Huff and Baez). They even had one of the best managers of his generation (Piniella), and drove him away because he thought these conditions made it impossible to win. What makes Maddon better than Piniella? Odds are: nothing. But for them to have a winning record, they will have to succeed within the division against teams from much bigger markets. Even if they fully develop all of their prospects, it will be difficult for them to keep up with Boston, New York, Baltimore and Toronto, all of whom have managers, coaches, or general managers who were supposed to be saviors for the franchise- Riccardi in Toronto was lauded as the genius behind Billy Beane; Leo Mazzone just came to Baltimore to great fanfare; Boston’s next GM will certainly see similar celebrations, even if it is Jim Bowden.

I don’t mean to pick on Tampa Bay. Maybe the will be successful, but the bottom line is, somebody has to lose. One-hundred win success stories necessitate massive failures on the other end. Elmer Dessens and Mark Grudzielanek will not make Kansas City competitive, and it gets a little tiresome hearing every new acquisition touted as the franchise’s next big thing. PR aside, I’ll go ahead and call restraint the better part of valor.