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Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Rays: acquire pieces, flip them, don’t go for free agency
The motto of all small-market teams, pushed to the extreme and with success as evidenced in this article.
Free agents are, as a rule, over-priced. Terribly over-priced. Unless you can get a free agent at a discount (or go after a player whose skillset is terribly underpriced like Placido Polanco), just avoid that free agency market, and keep the machine churning. Expos, Twins, A’s, Rays, Pirates, Marlins (with one glaring exception) pretty much did this all the time. The current market allows a small-market team to do this because of the inefficiences built into the system. Pre-arb players are severely underpriced, arb players are underpriced, and free agents are overpriced. You let the Yanks and Redsox and Cubs and Dodgers overspend on the free agents, and you focus on value elsewhere.
If you are on the cusp, then you can (possibly) overspend for free agents. Otherwise, the small market teams, with their hands tied, have to be more creative and efficient.
But, signing Evan Longoria to the most team-friendly contract ever sure helps.
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