Now that the 2015 World Series is (mercifully) over, let's get to the important issue at hand: our Oakland A's. We all have been yearning to taste that elusive October glory, and regardless of our attitudes toward the Royals, Kansas City consistently played the best baseball all year, and at the very least deserve some analysis in how they were constructed. While the sabermetric world argues whether contact hitting, defense, & baserunning are the new market inefficiencies, there's a more obvious, tried & true strategy contributed to the Royals hardware: long-term tank-drafting.
The Royals are a team that found success out of nowhere, and while the media focuses on the "success," I want to focus on the "nowhere." Here are the Royals season records from 2004-2012:
2004: 58-104
2005: 56-106
2006: 62-100
2007: 69-93
2008: 75-87
2009: 65-97
2010: 67-95
2011: 71-91
2012: 72-90
I could've gone back farther, but 2004 seemed an appropriate starting place because that year led to the #2 pick in the 2005 draft. The Royals selection: Alex Gordon.
Starting in 2005, here are the key players that made major contributions to the 2015 Royals, along with their draft #:
2005: #2 Alex Gordon
2006: #1 Luke Hochevar
2007: #2 Mike Moustakas, #306 Greg Holland
2008: #3 Eric Hosmer
2009: #91 Wil Myers (traded for Wade Davis)
2010: #4 Christian Colon
2013: #34 Sean Manea (traded for Ben Zobrist)
Even if we argue that Colon was not a major contributor, that's still five position players, & three major bullpen pieces. While not all these players aren't necessarily cheap (In 2015 Gordon earned $12.5 million, Hochevar $5 million, Homser $5.65 million), as a whole the Royals are getting a production that outweighs their market rates.
Of course, the big question is: Should Billy Beane follow in their footsteps? While Beane is famous for escrewing tradition to find creative ways of winning, purposefully losing is not one of them. Beane has accepted the playoffs as a crapshoot, and that his only job is to get his team there. Unfortunately, Beane's accomplishments have been limited to exactly that: other than one ALDS victory, all of Beane's A's playoff appearances have led to an early exit.
Some also say that the tank-draft strategy is not viable because the A's can't afford a prolonged losing stretch. The A's attendance is weak as is; a series of 90/100 loss seasons could wipe out what few fans the A's have left. I haven't gone into the attendance numbers of the A's losing seasons, but I wonder if the downside is as bad as the naysayers say it is. Would a string of tanking seasons be worth a legitmate shot at a world title? Could Beane even make such a strategy work? What do you think?
