Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
I talked about this briefly yesterday, but the plan for the next five years pretty much has to be:
1) Lock up and build around Witt, Pasquantino, and Melendez
2) Hope you get one more really good everyday starter out of Nick Loftin, Maikel Garcia, Michael Massey, and Nick Pratto.
3) Get Brady Singer back on track and extend him. Get a pair of credible MLB starters out of Keller, Lynch, Alex Marsh, Kris Bubic
4) Do a better job of development in the minors and start accelerating good pieces into the majors off the backs of that.
No easy chore.
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Yeah - it's not an easy needle to thread to be sure.
But again - it never is for mid/small market teams. And ultimately they just kinda have to do what KC did last time: Keep your powder dry and push in your chips when you think you have a window opening.
But what that means is that you can't just target meandering mediocrity because you'll be stuck there. And hell, maybe that's what some fans want KC to do - it would mean more quality baseball games on balance. There's some logic to the approach (though I hate it; it's essentially what STL does).
But I think your ceiling is substantially lower, especially if you're looking to maintain a $140 million payroll year over year under that approach rather than a $170 million payroll.
I look at the Rays this year and see a team that should probably look to make a major move. The AL seems more wide open than its been in a long time and if they can be the team that adds that top of the rotation starter in July, there's no reason to believe they can't make some major noise in October.