For the past few years, there has been a growing discussion about the development and arrival of so called “Super Teams.” This is not a new concept in sports. Super Teams have existed for years in the NBA. However, basketball and baseball are two inherently different games. It is true, they are both team games, but they differ drastically in the makeup and significance of a single team functioning as a unit.
Very, very rarely in baseball does a single player take over a game. The same cannot be said for basketball, where star players seemingly dominate for a period of time in each game they play. Still, it appears that franchises in the MLB have finally caught up to NBA franchises in crafting the Super Team.
The first Super Team arrived last year with the 2016 Cubs winning the World Series. Essentially, the blue print for a super team is elite pre-arbitration talent supplemented with significant free-agent signings. A few weeks ago, Travis Sawchik of Fangraphs wrote this article about the possible era of the Super Team. He notes that the Cubs are a big-market team that used strategy, but also its financial means to win a championship.
Today, the Dodgers and the Astros are in the middle of a fight to win it all. Both teams are made up of top of the line, cost-controlled talent. Even the Yankees fall in line here. Surely, this is not a new concept. Teams have always sought the highest level of production for the lowest cost—a tale as old as time. But it is the idea of becoming really bad to become really good that separates dominant franchises in professional sports from successful businesses.
It is the potential for the accumulation of talent throughout the numerous rounds of the MLB draft that is responsible for the difference in the building of an MLB Super Team and a Super Team in the NBA. MLB teams can acquire top talent and pay them the league minimum for years, until the players reach arbitration. NBA teams pay for talent right away, making it financially difficult to acquire several elite young players at the same time.
The Nationals are a prime example of collecting young and elite players, which would be very difficult in the NBA. The Nationals were the Astros before the Astros, as Sawchik points out. They drafted Strasburg and Harper, then signed Scherzer to a large contract. As we know, the Dodgers, Astros, Yankees, and Nationals were all in the playoffs this year.
Sawchik also points out that 2017 is the first year in this century where 6 teams achieved a run-differential of 140+ in the regular season. The Cardinals, in comparison, posted a run-differential of 56 on their way to winning 83 games. In 2015, when they won 100 games, their run differential was still only 122.
While that does suggest that a large run differential is not the only way to be a dominant team, it alludes to the fact that the Cardinals have been consistently good, but not dominant. I would posit that the font office’s strategy might soon be outdated, especially with the beginning of the Super Team era.
Only one year in to such an era, it might be too early to call into question the Cardinals’s front office strategy. It is a recurring theme, within this front office, to develop and maintain a system where “the next guy up” can be productive. This has resulted in a conglomeration of AAAA players. Again, this has brought the Cardinals success, but it was success in an age of baseball parity.
Craig Edwards suggests here, that the age of parity is over. In highlighting the increasing correlation between payroll dollars and wins, he points to the end of parity and perhaps to the start of the era of the Super Team—an age that will require, not the excess of spending, but the supplementation of elite, pre-arbitration talent with significant free-agent signings.
The Cardinals do not need to go out and buy four all-star players to be able to compete. They do, however, need to adjust. They have a proven ability to develop talent. Now, if they are to compete with Super Teams, they must supplement that talent with an elite free agent. One might argue that Dexter Fowler was that signing last year. Others would argue that the Fowler signing fits perfectly with the Cardinals’s strategy of building a high floor.
Despite the strong desire to compete right away, this years free agent class may not be the time to pull the trigger. Especially with the historic class scheduled for the 2018-2019 offseason. Questions certainly exist regarding whether or not building a Super Team is a feasible strategy for the Cardinals. Will they spend like the Nationals did for Scherzer or like the Yankees did for Chapman? If not, the team may be out of luck, but time will tell.