Love the story of the vastly underrated Guardians. I remember watching the MLB Network when Cleveland shipped Lindor to New York and the crew acted as if the Cleveland front office should be charged with fraud and incarcerated. I wasn't so sure.
Lindor seemed to be declining a touch and wanted a king's ransom. His defense was slipping too - a worrisome sign. It felt like they made a solid business decision. A business decision - too often, sports media ignores the business side of transactions as if they don't exist. Economics is a large part of destiny and understanding the power of transactions and future valuations is critical.
It felt like an overreaction from a collection of ex-players.
While that trade has been analyzed and debated, what is not discussed enough is Cleveland's courage to do it and avoid what Bill James called the Whirlpool Principle - where teams are drawn to a common level of mediocrity. Good teams are paralyzed by their success and wait too long to make changes. Bad teams make tons of changes - some of which work - and are lifted upward.
A mediocre middle.
For the Guardians (and the Braves too), it's hard to make changes in the face of success. Yet, that's what they both have done with Lindor, Bauer, Freeman, Swanson and others. Their relatively long run of sustained success this century is admirable and reflects in large part their elite business acumen.
Love the story of the vastly underrated Guardians. I remember watching the MLB Network when Cleveland shipped Lindor to New York and the crew acted as if the Cleveland front office should be charged with fraud and incarcerated. I wasn't so sure.
Lindor seemed to be declining a touch and wanted a king's ransom. His defense was slipping too - a worrisome sign. It felt like they made a solid business decision. A business decision - too often, sports media ignores the business side of transactions as if they don't exist. Economics is a large part of destiny and understanding the power of transactions and future valuations is critical.
It felt like an overreaction from a collection of ex-players.
While that trade has been analyzed and debated, what is not discussed enough is Cleveland's courage to do it and avoid what Bill James called the Whirlpool Principle - where teams are drawn to a common level of mediocrity. Good teams are paralyzed by their success and wait too long to make changes. Bad teams make tons of changes - some of which work - and are lifted upward.
A mediocre middle.
For the Guardians (and the Braves too), it's hard to make changes in the face of success. Yet, that's what they both have done with Lindor, Bauer, Freeman, Swanson and others. Their relatively long run of sustained success this century is admirable and reflects in large part their elite business acumen.