Power: It's An Arms Race Thing

Baseball's salaries are insane. There's no other way around it. The Yankees have spent $978,129,386 since making the Mets ride the subway in 2000. That accounted for 592 wins over the past six seasons.

If you work those numbers out to a per season basis, you're looking at about 99 wins per year, and a cool $163M out of your chequing account. I guess it's not a big thing to ask of someone who pulls in closer to the seven digit annuals us mortals can only dream of, but still, it’s enough to make any non-World Series winning owner cringe.

What I want to know is why are all of these GMs spending their money so poorly. If I was given the pay rolls that most pro baseball executives are handed, the first thing you've got to assess is how deep your team is. The strength of an organization is found deep within the infrastructure built by the men in charge. Expecting to be competitive, and stay competitive, lies in your minor league programs. It's in the mind's of the minor league directors, the directors of scouting, and the scouts themselves. They are the people who subsequently shape the future of organizations, well; most organizations (damn those Yankees).

Right now some of the teams who are building themselves the right way, and by the right way I mean with strong young arms, and lots of them, includes; Detroit, ChiW, LAA, Min, LAD and a few others in smaller doses.

Now by no means is it a new concept to baseball enthusiasts that pitching and defense wins championships, but what I'm proposing, is for all of these slugger happy, over-spending franchises to go a new route. One that has been followed before, is being followed now, but for some reason, doesn't attract more attention.

Sign for pitching. Trade for pitching. Draft pitching. Hire smart, diligent, proven pitching coaches. Build around a centre-piece with strong, young arms.

It may not be feasible to completely change the landscape of a team in the immediate future, either because of contractual restraints or the logistic inability of dealing with other teams, but by dealing the everyday position players that teams have come to love, you will be putting yourself in a much better position to win, both now and in the future.

Within the past couple of years, we've seen power shift from those who have money, to those who have pitching.

In recent memory, teams such as the Tigers and White Sox have made huge strides in their respective power rankings, much aligned with the fact that they possess very deep and talented pitching rotations. The Houston Astros have been annual post season threats, and this is with a team batting average over the past three years around the .250 mark, not spectacular at all. What the Astros have had has been pitching and top-notch pitching at that. With the likes of Clemens, Pettite and Oswalt anchoring your staff and Brad Lidge coming in and closing things down at the end, you can see why they've had success.

This is a path that's been traveled before, just ask the Atlanta Braves’ teams of the 90's who were synonymous with being known for having a stable of young arms up and down the organization and the men in charge who knew how to use them.

When the next major contract is handed out to a position player, ask yourself if you think the addition of a couple extra runs will really be the difference maker. As history tells us; power and winning, well, it's an arms race thing.

- JW