Mythbusters: Offseason Acquisitions

February isn’t a particularly exciting time for baseball fans as the vast majority of off-season trades and signings have already occurred and things are beginning to wind down in preparation for Spring Training. As pitchers and catchers prepare to report, much is written around the baseball blogosphere about a particular player claiming to be in the best shape of his life or whether a player will perform to expectations. This is also a time for baseball fans to analyze and critique their team’s off-season moves, an activity many Tribe fans have used as an opportunity to bash Antonetti and Shapiro for not spending big money to sign the Scherzers and Lesters of the free agent market. After reading a particularly grouchy Tribe fans’ comment on a blog article asking why Antonetti still had a job after spending another off-season not going after the big names in the free agent market, I decided it was time once and for all to put to bed the myth that a team needs to be busy every Winter, acquiring big name players in order to be successful in the upcoming year.

Being a fan of a small market baseball team is one of the most trying tasks any sports fan can undertake. Unlike football and basketball where a salary cap puts each team on a (theoretically) even playing field, small market baseball fans have to live with the fact that their favorite team is unlikely to be in the running for the prized off-season target every year. As a result of the lower revenue stream that comes with small markets, these teams tend to only be competitive during short spans of time, often featuring times of high level competition followed by a few years of regression and rebuilding. This requires teams to be great at identifying and developing talented younger players, since this is the cheapest and most cost efficient means to build a ball club.

The Indians are an example of such a team. The current Indians roster has been under construction since 2008, approximately around the time C.C. Sabathia was traded to Milwaukee in the deal that netted the Tribe Michael Brantley, officially beginning the team’s reconstruction into the contender they have been since 2013. The majority of the Tribe’s best players were either drafted (like Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall and Cody Allen) or were traded for (like Carlos Santana, Michael Brantley, Yan Gomes, Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco), with the majority of those trades involving aging veterans whose contracts were set to expire being sent to teams hoping to utilize their experience for a playoff run. Thus, the core of the Tribe’s recent success was built primarily on the backs of developing the team’s own talent and recognizing talent in other systems and acquiring it for relatively cheap.

But is this enough for teams to be successful in today’s era, which is becoming evermore defined by its nine figure payouts or are big time free agent signings and blockbuster trades the only way you can compete at an elite level in this league? Hint: the answer is no. (Obviously, or else there wouldn’t be much point in this article.) To best showcase why this is so, we need not look any further than last year’s World Series participants.

The Kansas City Royals are a team that is very similar to the Cleveland Indians. Both are small market teams built on homegrown talent. The 2013 Kansas City Royals went 86-76, finishing third in the AL Central and 5 games back of the second wild car spot. In the off-season going into 2014, the Royals were fairly quiet. They signed Omar Infante to a four year deal, traded for Nori Aoki, and signed Jason Vargas to replace Ervin Santana, who left via free agency. Other than the addition of these three players, the 2014 Royals are no different than the 2013 Royals. All three of these players are very solid and played very well this past season, but by no means would anyone consider them to be anything but good, not great acquisitions. On the backs of a young core led by Alex Gordon, James Shields, Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer, Greg Holland, Kelvin Herrera, and Wade Davis, the Royals swept their way to the World Series.

The 2013 San Francisco Giants were just coming off of a four game sweep of the Tigers in the 2012 World Series and had high expectations that they miserably failed to meet, going 76-86 and missing the playoffs completely. That off-season, the Giants made one major move by signing Tim Hudson, and it was a risky one at that considering that the 38 year old was just coming back from a season ending ankle injury. But this would be all they would need, relying on their own homegrown core and Madison Bumgarner‘s arm, the Giants took the Series in seven games.

For more examples of why teams don’t need to go after big name free agent every off-season see the 2007 to 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, the 2006 and 2007 Indians, 2006 to 2007 Rockies and the 2011 through 2012 Orioles.

So for the fan clamoring for Antonetti’s head, understand that you don’t need to be a major player in the free agent market every year when you are a small market team consisting primarily of young players nearing the prime of their careers. Player development is how you make the biggest strides in team growth, for it is essentially the same as adding a new player. For example, in 2012 and 2013, Michael Brantley was a solid, but not spectacular young player that looked like he wasn’t going to get much better than he already was. But in 2014, as well all know, Brantley exploded into the national spotlight with an MVP caliber season. Brantley’s growth from 2013 to 2014 was no different than the Indians going out and signing an MVP caliber left fielder in the off-season, except that it cost the Indians a fraction of what an MVP caliber left fielder would cost. This is the exact model the Indians are again aiming for in 2015 with many other young players on their roster. The Tribe are going to be looking for players like Trevor Bauer, Danny Salazar, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Jason Kipnis to make the jump from average/above-average players to great players. Obviously not all of these players will make that jump and for some it won’t be as dramatic, but remember that the Indians are a young team whose core is getting better everyday, and that should make for an exciting 2015.