Rebuilding has always been a thing for sports teams. It has become a way of life for some franchises in the last decade. Now, it seems the characteristics of a rebuild have spread to teams who are not so much in the rebuild phase anymore.
The Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros endured numerous seasons of preposterous losing to stock pile draft picks; both reaped the benefits with a World Series title and have been competitive since. An all-in approach to signing big free agents and trading for big names with big contracts has proven to backfire (see 2015 San Diego Padres). It has always been imperative for a team to win, but now it must be done with a budget. Not every team has the resources of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, but most teams also are not the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays.
The Padres went all out in 2015 only to have mediocre results
General managers have to make a decision of whether to concede the current and sometimes subsequent seasons in order to set up a team for future success. Few GMs inherit a job that puts them in a ‘win now’ situation. This means they have a little bit of time to hire the staff they want and begin to acquire players who will make an impact later, but not too much later.
Any team that loses 100 games is considered to be bad, but some teams simply have one poor season as opposed to actually not being good. These poor seasons lead to high draft picks, and that is where the seeds are planted for the future success of a franchise. The problem with this, at least in baseball, is that draft picks take time to develop and reach the Major Leagues.
There is a paradox with draft picks and prospects in a given team’s farm system: the team wants them but does not want them to play in the Majors. This has to do with a player’s clock for service time and reaching free agency. The faster a player reaches the Majors, the faster he reaches free agency. Service time is what led the Cubs to not call up Kris Bryant at the start of 2015 and the Braves with Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2018.
Sometimes, a rebuild includes more than just a roster overhaul. There can be coaching changes, stadium redesigns, new uniforms, enhanced marketing tactics, and even a team name change (see 2008 Tampa Bay Rays). Fans can see the superficial changes right away, but the wins column in the standings is what they really want to see change.
Why are free agents struggling to find homes and multi-year contracts? Teams have relegated themselves to making money over being as competitive as possible. They want value for what they are paying versus the best overall output. Sometimes, it makes sense, but fans want teams to spend a few extra cents for the bigger name players.
Big spenders
It can be difficult for lesser talented teams to compete year and year out with the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, and teams willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and endure a luxury tax hit. Thus, they resort to the rebuilding tactics even if the team isn’t rebuilding. No longer is being average or the middle of the pack acceptable. Because that implies wasting money on players when a team could save money and sacrifice wins today for wins in the future. The idea of competitive sport has been impacted by its treatment as a moneymaking entity. Here’s an idea every fan can get behind: win a championship to sell more tickets and merchandise.
It is scary when a big spender utilizes the rebuilding process while still buying free agents
Winning a championship is easier said than done. Just because a team tries to buy a championship does not guarantee success. But when the number of wins doesn’t match the high payroll, teams either slash the payroll to match the wins or try to increase the wins to match the payroll. The one-year contenders are easy to spot because they go all in and then fold their hand when something doesn’t work out. And the process starts all over again.
If you don’t know which teams to look for in the rebuilding and ‘process’, they are not hard to find. They trade away high salary veterans, fill their roster with minimum salary players who have yet to reach free agency, and trade for the best prospects they can.
Then they wait. And wait. And wait to see if what they did is panning out; if it is they continue forward until they can no longer afford the younger players who are inevitably getting older. This was the case with the Pirates and the Royals in the mid 10s. They couldn’t pay the prospects that had become free agents and went back to their rebuild tactics.
Rebuilding and early expectations
As fans of a given team, you have to have certain expectations. Fans of the big spenders can expect to have headline breaking news every year with transactions and roster movement. Fans that cheer for the penny pinchers know they won’t be abuzz during free agency, but prospects are always right around the corner ready to turn things for the better. The middle of the pack can lean either direction in a given year. There are teams who try to make a splash in free agency or trade for an all-star. This is either a short-term attempt to spike fans’ interest or a legitimate attempt to make the team better as a whole.
It is difficult to predict who will win the World Series before the season starts. But it has become more predictable based on the teams that essentially concede before the season even starts. They have a target season to be competitive and the seasons before are irrelevant. There will not be multi-year contracts offered to free agents. Top prospects will not be called up. Veteran players with little interest will be signed to minor league contracts with the hopes of making the big league roster, only to be traded mid-season to a contending team in exchange for younger prospects.
One or two teams imploring this strategy is not a concern in a given year. The problem is that a handful of teams are trying to run their teams this way every year. It may be a little more or less discreet from team to team, but there are not enough teams trying to seriously compete for a World Series on a yearly basis. Unless Rob Manfred changes the way teams are ‘rewarded’ for consistently losing, the never-ending rebuilding seems to be becoming the way of running teams.
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