Two things usually happen once a team wins a championship.
First, there is celebration. This is to be expected. Especially when a team over-performs the way the Red Sox did to win the World Series in 2013.
Secondly, there is expectation. The looking forward to the new season. Expectation of the successes and new faces that may be seen in Fenway in 2014.
The first one is harmless and enjoyable. The second is perilous and even deadly to a franchise.
One thing needs to be remembered. Needs to be acknowledged. Needs to said over and over again:
Teams normally do not win titles year after year after year. Especially when they over-performed to do it in the first place.
Chris Carlson/AP
The last team to win back-to-back World Series titles? The Yankees did a three-peat from 1998-2000, a run tainted by the steroid scandal. Before that? Toronto in 1992-93. And they haven't been the same since. In the modern era, where a name player commands an excessive amount of money (in free agency) or too much young talent (in trade), pursuing even middle-tier names in a quest to win year after year after year will only put your team in a deep, deep hole. Which is why Anaheim will pay Albert Pujols $23M next year and will still be paying him six years later at the age of 40 while winning nothing. Which is why the Yankees finished in fourth place and have a fading farm system and expensive aging veterans. Which is why the Dodgers are on the hook for $197.8M in 2014 with a team that was lucky to win the NLDS.
The goal of any team, in my opinion, shouldn't be to win the title every year. That isn't rational. It should be to be competitive every year so that you are in position to win a title if players catch fire and/or you get a few breaks along the way. And that means building a team that is flexible in players and in spending. It means building your farm system and not trading away the best youngsters to pursue a "name" player that may not even pay off.
And that brings us to the off-season and Boston.
I wrote already about the possibility of Tim Hudson coming to Boston and the dangers with that idea. There is buzz about the Sox passing on trying to re-sign Salty and instead shelling out $10M per year for Carlos Ruiz. Because who doesn't want to spend $10M a year on a 35-year-old catcher who served a suspension for amphetamine use?
But the latest one that really bugs me is the rumor highlighted by Chad Finn at Boston.com about Angels OF/1B/3B Mark Trumbo.
As you can probably tell, it drives me nuts when someone on my radio or in my inbox suggests the Sox should pursue Giancarlo Stanton or Trumbo, which is like saying you'll pay the same amount for a classic Corvette or your weird aunt's '82 Chevette.
I mean, I heard one radio host say this week that the Red Sox should offer the Angels Middlebrooks and lefthander Felix Doubront for Trumbo. Said it seriously, too, completely unaware that Middlebrooks straight up for Trumbo would essentially be a wash without including the cost-effective 26-year-old lefthander who strikes out a batter per inning and just played an enormous if unheralded role in helping win the World Series.
Read the whole thing. Finn points out that Trumbo's numbers are not that much better than Will Middlebrooks, and that he is three years older and costs a hell of a lot more. Which are very important things to keep in mind.
But it is the last part of that blockqoute that really irks me. The idea that Doubront should be added in.
