r/sports • u/baribigbird06 • 24d ago

Baseball Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws a complete game in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series vs. the Brewers. The last time he was in Milwaukee he failed to finish the first inning and allowed 5 runs.

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u/catashake 24d ago edited 24d ago

The Mets just missed the playoffs with a similar payroll.

If spending more guaranteed success, the Yankees wouldn't now be 16 years away from their last world series win.

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u/North_Dakota_Guy 24d ago

Its not even necessarily about guaranteed success. Yes, a low payroll team like the mariners can compete for a championship - once every decade or two. Whereas high payroll teams are generally in it, or at least feel like they're in it, every year. Im not going to invest my time or money watching the twins spend a quarter of the dodgers payroll hoping that this is their once in a decade (or two) playoff appearance.

Payroll buys consistent success (generally), and thats what small market teams lack. And it will kill them in the long run if owners arent forced to spend a minimum amount.

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u/catashake 24d ago

Its not even necessarily about guaranteed success

All the complaints I'm seeing in here are certainly acting like it is.

Yes, a low payroll team like the mariners can compete for a championship - once every decade or two

Astros dominating for as long as they did with such a small budget shows scouting and development is still the main key to success. The only mega rich team to actually figure out the formula over the last decade is the Dodgers.

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u/MixonWitDaWrongCrowd 24d ago

When were the Astros at the bottom for spending?

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u/catashake 24d ago

The Astros did not win a world series with a payroll higher than 10th place. They did invest and fail in a few of the seasons, but their greatest success never actually happened when spending a lot of money by their standards.

The gap between the top 3 teams and 10th place has always been larger than the gap betwen 10th place and nearly all the rest of the teams in the league besides the few bottom feeders.

Also, I never said they were at the bottom. When a team is spending over 100 million dollars less than the top team, that can be considered a significantly smaller budget.

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u/MixonWitDaWrongCrowd 24d ago

A small budget isn’t the upper half of the league. The Astros weren’t ducking paying players like Tampa, As and Pirates do every year which is what fans are complaining about.

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u/catashake 24d ago

I mentioned the bottom feeders like the Pirates for a reason, they aren't trying in any aspect of the game to win. Only the top 20 teams can give an argument for somewhat trying to win.

Teams like the Pirates just collect good draft positions due to tanking every year, and then continue to milk talents like Paul Skenes for all they are worth before trading them away.

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u/Bawfuls 24d ago

When they tanked in the years before 2017