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[cashman]

But that equalizer usually burns out much quicker than the teams that can just continuously funnel in players by virtue of just having more money than everybody else.

Hell if you have the money you can just buy a farm system, the Yankees do it all the time.

Teams are regularly locking up their best players and it shows when you look at upcoming free agent classes. If a team tries to load up on FA's they're gonna get a bunch of 30+ year old guys on bloated contracts.

Also, overspending on International FA's isn't exaclty "buying a farm system"

 

[Tragicomedy]

I think it's smarter GMs and managers who all have access to advanced stats and analytics. Teams with more money to spend will still tend toward the top. Teams like my Royals really only do well when the stars align with young talent coming up the farm system.

 

[OuterLimits]

One thing that bothers me about baseball is that the difference between the best winning percentage and lowest winning percentage is not really that far apart.

In the NBA last season, The Warriors won 81.7% of their games. Minnesota only won 19.5% of their games.

in MLB, however the best team, the Cardinals who have 100 wins only have 62.5% winning percentage and the worst team, the Phillies win 38.5% of their games.

Even if you check in on MLB standings when they are at around 82 games played (the number played by the NBA) you'll see something along these lines.

I can't really put my finger on why that bothers me but it just makes me less excited about baseball. If the Cardinals lose a game to a scrub team, it's not's a big deal because they lose over a 3rd of their games anyways.

To be fair though, basketball regular season seems a bit excessive since so many teams make the playoffs.

30 teams and 16 of them make the playoffs. Fucking ridiculous. It really kills the excitement of the regular season for me when half the teams make the playoffs.

Basketball would be better in my opinion if only 5 teams from each conference made the playoffs. Let the number 1 seed get a bye the first round.

 

[TheSecondSpitter]

If you want to be technical, like 7 million of the Mets' payroll is on retaining fees for Bonilla, Beltran, and other players.

If you want to be technical, Bonilla's annuity payments are not on the current Mets Payroll. And Beltran? wtf

To be fair though, basketball regular season seems a bit excessive since so many teams make the playoffs.

30 teams and 16 of them make the playoffs. Fucking ridiculous. It really kills the excitement of the regular season for me when half the teams make the playoffs.

Basketball would be better in my opinion if only 5 teams from each conference made the playoffs. Let the number 1 seed get a bye the first round.

Not to mention that sub-500 NBA teams routinely make the playoffs.

 

[EdReedFan20]

I went a head and made a list of the last time each MLB team made the post-season.

2001- Seattle Mariners
2003- Miami Marlins
2006- San Diego Padres
2008- Chicago White Sox
2009- Colorodo Rockies
2010- Minnesota Twins
2011- Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Arizona Diamondbacks
2013- Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Cincinatti Reds, Atlanta Braves
2014- Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals, San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics
2015- Kansas City Royals, Toronto Blue Jays, Texas Rangers, New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, Saint Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets

It's crazy that since 2011, 24 of the 30 MLB franchises have made the playoffs at least once. I'd say that's pretty cool.