Morrissey Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3902573 Most improved teams: American League 1. New York Yankees 2. Oakland Athletics 3. Cleveland Indians If you spend $441 million on free agents, you'd better rank No. 1 on our most improved list. But the Yankees didn't just sign the best free-agent starter on the market (CC). They also added the second-best (Burnett) -- to a rotation that pitched fewer innings last year than any AL rotation except those motley crews in Baltimore and Texas. And that, friends, is what you call a serious upgrade. On the other side of the ball, you can question the price tag and length of Teixeira's deal. But he's still a fine fit for the middle of this order -- not to mention a major leatherworking improvement on Jason Giambi. Any time the Yankees write checks this large, you can cue the violas, as owners everywhere whine about this money machine. But with $88 million coming off their books and a new ballpark opening, what did the other 29 teams expect the Yankees to do -- sign John Wasdin, Mark Redman and D'Angelo Jimenez? FUN POLL FACT: Of the seven teams who got votes, three of them play in the AL East -- the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays. Most improved teams: National League 1. New York Mets 2. Atlanta Braves 3. San Francisco Giants We've already discussed the bullpen renovation that helped the Mets run away with this voting. So let's raise a larger issue: Has there been a more disastrous winter in the National League in years? As one AL executive observed, "the AL/NL discrepancy has been remarkable the last few years. [it] probably got even worse this year." Here's one sign of that: The Mets, Braves and Giants were the only three teams that got a vote in this poll. And with good reason. You can argue that six NL clubs (the Cardinals, Pirates, Astros, Reds, Padres and Marlins) didn't add a single impact player. And the players lost by the other 10 teams included Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Kerry Wood, Derek Lowe, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, Takashi Saito, Brad Penny, Jeff Kent, Adam Dunn and Pat Burrell -- and we haven't even figured out where Manny fits. So have the Mets bettered themselves on paper? Absolutely. But the standard for most improved team in this league has never been lower. FUN POLL FACT: One of our distinguished panelists cast his most improved vote for "Padres ownership." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 A reasonable assessment. The upgrades to the Yanks' roatation and the Mets' pen are huge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonEJet Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Wait......Steve Phillips has the Sawx with the best offseason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jbro22 Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Wait......Steve Phillips has the Sawx with the best offseason Steve Phillips is a clown shoe.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thai Jet Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Steve Phillips is a clown shoe.... I was thinking assclown but whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFSIKH Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Wait......Steve Phillips has the Sawx with the best offseason Compared to Jayson Stark being on the Yankees payroll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neckdemon Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 it's a shame that so many NL teams didn't try to do anything to improve their teams. baseball needs a payroll floor just as much as it needs a ceiling. the lack of a reaosnable salary cap as well as a salary floor are ruining the game, imo. i mean i'll always watch......but this is one of the bi9gger reasons why football has surpassed baseball ans the national pasttime now. alot of people just don't have anything to really root for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GimmeShelter Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 it's a shame that so many NL teams didn't try to do anything to improve their teams. baseball needs a payroll floor just as much as it needs a ceiling. the lack of a reaosnable salary cap as well as a salary floor are ruining the game, imo. i mean i'll always watch......but this is one of the bi9gger reasons why football has surpassed baseball ans the national pasttime now. alot of people just don't have anything to really root for. Yet the NL is home to the defending World Champs. Beside's a salary floor will never happen as long as teams like the Marlins continue winning a couple of WS's every decade. What the Rays have done via the farm is another example. The Twins are perennial Division contenders and checkboook Baseball has produced nothing in NY the past 8 years for either team Championship wise. It would make the off season much more interesting though while also stopping immediately eliminating teams like the Pirates, and Nat's from post season contention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neckdemon Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Yet the NL is home to the defending World Champs. Beside's a salary floor will never happen as long as teams like the Marlins continue winning a couple of WS's every decade. What the Rays have done via the farm is another example. The Twins are perennial Division contenders and checkboook Baseball has produced nothing in NY the past 8 years for either team Championship wise. It would make the off season much more interesting though while also stopping immediately eliminating teams like the Pirates, and Nat's from post season contention. yeah but the phillies have a payroll around 100 million......so they're not considered a cheap team, imo. 70 million floor 140 million ceiling. something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdropOFvenom Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 yeah but the phillies have a payroll around 100 million......so they're not considered a cheap team, imo. 70 million floor 140 million ceiling. something like that. Phillies have actually thrown around quite a bit of money this offseason, mainly paying their own arbitration guys though. I haven't seen the numbers, but their payroll has gotta be around 120 million. Easy. Edit: Google works wonders. Estimated to be around 131.5 million http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090210&content_id=3815766&vkey=news_phi&fext=.jsp&c_id=phi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyCarl40 Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Yup, those teams sure have improved this offseason. Will it translate to improvement in the standings in the regular season? That is TBD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFSIKH Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Yet the NL is home to the defending World Champs. Beside's a salary floor will never happen as long as teams like the Marlins continue winning a couple of WS's every decade. What the Rays have done via the farm is another example. The Twins are perennial Division contenders and checkboook Baseball has produced nothing in NY the past 8 years for either team Championship wise. It would make the off season much more interesting though while also stopping immediately eliminating teams like the Pirates, and Nat's from post season contention. +1 And 2 of 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.