That was an excellent post, so thank you.

I don't think it's fair that teams like Oakland have to keep reloading. If they knew they could keep that core they had, they could have focused on improving in other areas and might have actually been a legitimate contender. Remember, the A's haven't won the World Series since 1990.

The Colts defense is another great example. They hardly ever re-sign their defensive free agents. Look at all the guys they let walk, and they just try to keep developing young guys to put in there. And they just won the Super Bowl.

The Royals better win sometime in the next few years. Because if they aren't why wouldn't those young players want to play for a team that gives them a chance.

Yeah, but they've been in the playoffs several times. Everybody can't win every year. You could always find a team like the Eagles, A's, Suns. It's just one of those things, they still have a fighting chance.

But in the NFL every team has a choice -- you can develop young talent or you can sign quality free agents. The NFL salary cap forces teams to make tough choices and occasionally cut very good players. Most MLB teams don't have the option of signing very good players. The Royals, for example, got lucky on Gil Meche. I'm sure that if bigger teams had thought he would have been this successful, his price would have gone up considerably.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. But I've always thought free agency isn't that great of a thing. There aren't too many teams that win championships through signing the most free agents. The Patriots are going to be a good test of that this year. The Yankees won when they had that first core of team players... Jeter, O'Neill, Bernie Williams, etc. The last few years paying for an All-Star team has won them one playoff series in the last 4 years. The Redskins never win anything. It can definitely help, but those big market teams have to get lucky doing some of the same things small market teams have to do. Just like how the Cards got Pujols way too late in the draft, or the Red Sox acquired David Ortiz, the Pats drafted Tom Brady in the 6th round, etc. It's a pretty constant theme throughout sports that if you draft well, you'll win. Just like how the Cards drafted Pujols, the Spurs drafted Duncan, the Colts drafted Manning... if you draft well you'll always give yourself a chance.

Right, and I think we agree about quite a bit, however if there was a hard cap in baseball, teams would be forced to make difficult cuts, and all teams would have a shot at quality players. Neither free agency nor the draft alone is the answer in most sports. The cap makes what the Redskins try to do -- stockpile big free agent signings -- impossible to work, because it means that they will have to take a less talented or inexperienced player at other positions.

I like free agency in football, it ensures that if you are a bad team you can get good quickly, sure it's harder to maintain that way, but that's the price you pay for a quick fix. But like Petro was saying the other day, for the Royals it's maybe if everything falls into place they might compete in two years at the earliest.

But for how long? The window has to be awfully small, you know? These decent players won't stay. So, what, the Royals have a shot at being a .500 team in two years, but after that, bets are off?

No, that misses the whole point... you have to keep drafting and acquiring talent. No team can keep every player all the time. I'm sure we'll be able to sign some guys... but the idea is to develop enough talent you don't have room for it all. Dayton came from the Braves, and look what they've done... they keep winning, and winning, because they never stop drafting well and developing talent. So if the time comes and we can't re-sign someone, we have someone ready to take his place, or enough talent to trade for someone who can. It's a process that never ends.

I think you are describing a dream, Mr. Tk13. The Braves do re-sign talent. You make it sound like drafting well is a guarantee that is not so tough. The draft is a complete crap shoot, as I always like to say. To keep reloading without keeping a core of excellent players that you have developed is not a recipe for success.

What evidence do you have that the Royals will be willing to sign excellent players they develop? We've spent the past 15 years watching them get rid of everyone except for Sweeney.

A dream? How is that a dream? Oakland does it every single year. The Braves weren't able to sign Sheffield, or Furcal, and they might not retain Andruw Jones. We might not be able to spend quite as much money as the Braves, but they have a great program in place. If you have good scouts, and a program to develop players the right way, you can develop talent. Dayton has gotten us to spend more money, and more importantly, started working on all the problems in our development system.

Reason # 1 why we havent won much in 10+ years. Mainly the lack to develop any pitching.

Doesn't help that our pitchers either sucked or were crappily coached or blew out their arms.

Braves keep 1 or 2 players and build around them the rest. Chipper and Smoltz is basically what they built that franchise around. I guess throw in Andruw Jones as well.