we can’t afford to buy our team at FA prices every year

2008 tampa bay rays are a prime example of why you build up a good farm system. they went to the series with a payroll around $40MM. considering that pujols will be likely making at least half that (and i’m being conservative) in a few years. we need to be saving money. all these top free agents were once cheap cost controlled rookies at one point. we need to get them then and lock them up. ie: rasmus, wallace, mateo, etc

Rays past records

2007 66-96 Last
2006 61-101 Last
2005 67-95 Last
2004 70-91 Second to Last
2003 63-99 Last
2002 55-106 Last
2001 62-100 Last
2000 69-92 Last
1999 69-93 Last
1998 63-99 Last

Think Cardinals fans would do well through that?

1. Texas – 1.5 games out of first despite having a payroll $50mn lower than LAA.

2. Rays – in the World Series last year, and won the toughest division in baseball, with a very small payroll.

3. Oakland – been in the playoffs 5 times in the 2000s despite low payrolls.

4. Atlanta – um, made the playoffs 14 years in a row; contending while rebuilding.

5. Cleveland – a couple of outs away from the WS in 2007; made the playoffs thrice in the past decade.

6. Cardinals – won the World Series two years ago; the farm system has just moved into the top 10 for the first time this season so it’s too soon to judge; most successful NL team of the past decade.

7. Boston – best-run franchise in baseball; helps to have a big payroll, but team is full of homegrown players.

8. Florida – pays their whole team less than Steinbrenner pays A-Rod; still contend and have won two WS in the past 12 years.

9. SanFran – hasn’t historically had a great farm system; worst GM in baseball; still made the playoffs three times in the past decade.

10. Baltimore – worst owner in MLB; toughest division in MLB; hasn’t had a great farm system until now.

i’d say those teams have been pretty successful as a rule, and most of them have relatively small payrolls.

1. Are we going to judge them on 1 year
2. See comments above
3. Billy Bean could be a genius
4. I get it 14 division titles, but only 1 ring. Thought the Yankees weren’t bad during that run.
5. You really would put stock in Cleveland? Cleveland?
6. Won the WS with a terrible farm system and went to the WS (2004) with a terrible farm system
7. Cannot disagree with you
8. A tip of the cap to that business man
9. Barry gone – Good farm system – will get better
10. Orioles will be good soon, but can they compete with the free agent/trade hogs Red Sox and Yankees?

Between having a handful of guys like Rasmus, Wallace, Jones in the lineup, along with a few effective homegrown kids in the rotation/bullpen, and being able to sign Pujols. Or maybe the way to put it is to be able to sign Pujols while still competing for championships.

Whether we like it or not, we’re going to be around 10th in payroll year to year. And if you are giving Pujols 25 million or so, you’re going to have to get some guys whose production far exceeds their salary. It’s a lot easier to get that from your own organization than it is from other teams. I don’t think the Cardinals have to be the A’s here. The payroll is going to be high enough that you can pay a few people, but they have be careful how much they are paying, and they have to supplement it with some farm talent.

I’d imagine that if you asked 1,000 Cardinal fans if they’d like to pay Matt Holliday, as an example, 15 million for the next 4 years you’d probably get 60-70% of them to say “Yeah, go for it!” If you asked those same 1,000 fans if they’d still want to do that if it cut the chances of signing Pujols in half, then I’d guess probably less than 10% would approve. I think reality is probably much closer to the latter than the former, so I think this is one of those “be careful what you ask for” situations.

…except to say that a team cannot survive without young, cheap, cost-controlled talent unless they have the budget of the Yankees, which is to say they have no real budget.

The use of the Orioles as an example is crap. That is a pretty extreme case of cherry-picking as their farm is ranked only somewhat highly (10th is above average but substantially worse than 6) based on the sell-off of a lot of talent in the majors and the decent drafts of several terrible years from the big league club (plus one very good draft). To say their big league club isn’t performing well is to state the patently obvious as though it was evidence that the results of losing (i.e. good drafts and draft picks) are the cause of losing (i.e. putting priority on the draft over FA talent).

The St. Louis Cardinals – we see how this is working out? Isn’t the majority of our roster either a result of FAT or undervalued acquisitions or farm development? Considering the catastrophic results of some of the trades of minors talent for majors talent (Today you couldn’t trade all of the Big Three on minimum deals for one Dan Haren), I think you’re experiencing confirmation bias. The Cubs sold off their minor league and spent big in the FA market; How’s that working out for them? Similarly, the Mariners sold the farm and signed a few free agents to make a run and ended up terrible in a terrible division.

Opening day payrolls for the past couple of years (well, since Lou arrived):

2007: $99.67M
2008: $118.345M
2009: $134.809M

One could argue this team has actually gotten worse every year while they continue to spend more and more money every year bringing in a high priced talent to fill a void (sometimes the same void……ahem…..Fukudome and Bradley). Now, with all of the escalating contracts on board, guess what their payroll already is for 2010…….$119.958M.

Keep in mind, they’ll be losing Rich Harden, Kevin Gregg, Reed Johnson, Aaron Heilman, Carlos Marmol, Geovanny Soto, Ryan Theriot, Koyie Hill, Sean Marshall, Mike Fontenot, Micah Hoffpauir, Jose Ascanio, Randy Wells, and a handful of others.

Now you might look at that list and notice that some of those guys either aren’t necessarily stars or are under team control. But you have to add whatever it is they’ll make (or what their replacement will make) to the already committed 119.958 Million dollars.

And taking another look at that list and you’ll see that it includes two starting pitchers, both catchers, their best centerfielder, their starting middle infield (when ARam’s not hurt), their closer and the setup man.

You have to either retain or replace every one of those guys and that’s gonna cost money. So, once again, their payroll will go up. And they’re not getting any better but their payroll keeps increasing.

You arent going to get solid players at each position if you follow this logic. THis is pretty much what Walt Jocketty tried to do for the Cardinals throughout his reign. He would get the big name players at the expense of the farm system, and recently it has shown that you really cant do this.

we could be getting cy young production out of danny haren right now if we hadn’t traded him for a “proven major league talent”.

What you need to be looking at is how home-grown talent has contributed to a club’s success on the field. Looking at the last fifteen years of a club’s winniner or losing has no bearing whatsoever on how the quality of their system in 2009. I don’t have time for an extensive analysis, so here’s a quick list off the top of my head:

1. 1990s Yankees. Homegrown contributors: Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Petite, Mariano Rivera. What’s more, having these cheap, cost-controlled players allowed them go out and buy Mussina, Clemens, Paul O’Neil, and Tino Martinez.

2. 1990s Braves. Homegrown contributors: Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Rafael Furcal, Javy Lopez.

3. 2000s Boston Red Sox. Homegrown contributors: Pedroia, Ellsbury, Papelbon, Lester. Plus, their prospects enabled them to trade for Jason Bay, Mike Lowell, and Josh Beckett. (Hanley Ramirez was one of those prospects.)

4. Tampa Rays. Homegrown contributors: Crawford, Upton, Longoria. Their farm system surplus allowed them to trade for Matt Garza, too.

5. L.A. Dodgers. Homegrown contributors: Chad Billingsly, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, James Loney, Jonathan Broxton, Russell Martin. Their prospects also allowed them to acquire Casey Blake and Manny Ramirez.

6. 2000s St. Louis Cardinals. Homegrown contributors: Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Matt Morris. What’s more, Placido Polanco allowed us to acquire Scott Rolen and Adam Kennedy allowed for us to acquire Jim Edmonds. Albert Pujols’s cheap production allowed for us to extend Scott Rolen and solidify the MV3.

7. 2000s Philadelphia Phillies. Homegrown contributors: Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino (I think), Cole Hamels, Pat Burrell, Ryan Madson, and Brett Myers.

came from our farm system. Think another organization might have asked about him if we wanted to trade for a “proven veteran?”

The other point is that you can’t compare today’s best farm systems to today’s records or even the records of the past as the players in the farm system are just that — in the minor leagues.

BTW, the best team in the NL right now is the Dodgers and all of their major contributors (except Casey Blake) this year are home-grown talents. They’re getting nothing from “vets” like Furcal and Matt Kemp is one of the best OFs in the NL. Martin’s one of the best catchers in the NL. Billingsley, Broxton, and Kershaw are some of the best pitchers in the NL. The Dodgers are a perfect example of why you put so much stock in the minor leagues.

Besides, if you have no farm system, there’s no one to trade for the “proven vets” that you so admire!

As other people here have been saying, it’s all about having enough cheap guys making 400k to allow the payroll flexibility to go out and sign an impact player.

Having guys like Rasmus making league minimum makes it possible to imagine affording to re-sign Pujols for 20M a year when the time comes, whereas if we had to go out and get some veterans center fielder for 6-8M a year, it would eat into the money available to keep Pujols or sign another impact player from the free agent market.

Now, looking back to 2006, how many players did we have that were from our farm system AND making less than 400k? And what impact did those players have?

Yadier Molina 400,000
129 games caught at catcher that year. Hit the big home run in the NLCS Game 7

Randy Flores 350,000
41 innings pitched (although not terribly well that year, as his ERA was over 5)

Hector Luna 340,000
245 plate appearances and a .772 OPS off the bench. Was also used as a trade piece to acquire Ronnie Belliard, who, while not as stellar of a pickup as many of us probably hoped, was still huge in the NLDS that year with an OPS over 1.000

Brad Thompson 334,000
3.34 ERA in 56.2 innings

John Rodriguez 332,000
212 plate appearances and an OPS of .806 off the bench.

Skip Schumaker 329,000
Only 60 plate appearances for Skippy this year, not a huge impact.

Chris Duncan 327,000
Monster year for Duncan who put up 22 homers in 90 games and had an OPS of .952

Tyler Johnson 327,000
4.95 ERA during the regular season, but was a key part of the bullpen dominance in the postseason.

Josh Kinney 327,000
The right-handed side of the 7th/8th inning bullpen dominance during the postseason with TJ. 3.24 ERA in 25 innings during the regular season

Anthony Reyes 327,000
Much maligned and had a poor regular season with an ERA just over 5 and a record of 5-8, but he was also the World Series Game 1 winner, as we all surely remember

Adam Wainwright 327,000
The two notable saves in the clinching games when he froze Beltran with an absolutely filthy curveball and then saved Game 5 of the WS. Threw a total of 75 innings during the regular season as well for an ERA of 3.12.

There are a few more guys that were of no real consequence, but this is 11 guys who had some impact either on the 2006 season or since then (Skip had little impact on that season, but I included him since he had become a significant part of the team in 08 and 09). I found that the average salary that year was around 1.9M, so sign 11 guys at league average for the season and you’re talking a difference of 3.85M (approximately, I didn’t add up all those numbers, but instead just made it 350k x 11) vs. 20.9M for 11 players at league average.

I found Baseball America’s 2005 rankings, although it’s premium content, so I could only see the top 3 teams, but they were:
1) Angels
2) Dodgers
3) Brewers

Players in the farm in 2005 are most likely contributing by now if they are GOING to contribute. Notice the top 3 teams from 2005 all are good teams this year and all rely heavily on the contributions of players from their farm.