Can’t Buy Me Love

Most of the big name free agents this off season migrated toward the American League Danny Knobler  pointed out a few days ago. The signing of Albert Pujols by the Angels and Prince Fielder by the Tigers, coupled with Yu Darvish landing in Texas signals a shift of power to the AL. But is it a real shift of power, or just a shift of money. And what exactly has money bought lately?

Baseball Reference.com currently lists the standings from last year with payroll rather than wins. At first glance it is clear that the aggregate wealth the Yankees and Phillies brought to bear on the season purchased the most wins in the two leagues in 2011. Both teams outspent everyone else and the results seem predictable. But the long and winding road of the 162-game season led them not to a championship, but to first-round elimination. So what does money buy?

There is another correlation that is rarely mentioned. Money follows not only certain markets, but it also reflects the age of established, big-money names. So the Yankees put together a team of established stars, but the mean age of their starting lineup was 31.7. The Phillies, determined to keep their winning club together, spent almost as much money but were even older with an average age of 32.4

With the playoffs raging last October, Phil Van Horn and Mark Patrick opined on Seamheads Friday that the Yankees and Phillies were too old to play through the incredible grind of the season and still have anything left for the post-season. Their wisdom was belied by the relatively older Cardinals when they bested the youthful Rangers behind Lance Berkman, Pujols and Freese. But their maxim held for much of the playoffs and emphasizes the point that money buys established, older stars who tend to be at the back end of their prime playing years (28-32) or worse.

So how much of a shift of real power is there towards the AL? The heart of the Angels lineup will be Albert Pujols–32, Vernon Wells–33 and Tori Hunter–36. The rest of the team is young  and their star-studded rotation is in its prime. They are more like the Cardinals than the Yankees. Place them next to the Texas Rangers who are as young and talented as anyone for the past two seasons, and you have an AL West that has to be seen as one of the strongest divisions in the game.

What does the NL have to compare with THAT? For one thing the NL can claim the two most recent World Championships–just saying. And the AL was represented in the Championship for the past two years not by its wealthiest team, but by its youngest and hungriest–the Texas Rangers.

The formula that Texas is following is most closely being emulated by the Cincinnati Reds. With Jay Bruce, Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips, the Reds have a lineup that reminds one of Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler. And Matt Latos, Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake and Aroldis Chapman are as young and talented a group as anything in the AL, reminiscent certainly of Lincecum, Cain and the Giants group that gelled in 2010.

And then the NL has the Miami Marlins who brought in Mark Buerhle to go with Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez; Jose Reyes to go with Mike Stanton.  The Nationals are the consummate young and hungry team who will have Stephen Strasburg back to go with Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmermann.

What escapes notice so often is the team nature of baseball. Putting together the most expensive group of veteran talent makes good copy and good teams, but it does not win championships consistently. What the Texas Rangers had for the past two seasons was the most talented nine players on the diamond at the close of the season, the team that most wanted to win and still had the legs to do so in October.

Payroll is just one yardstick for weighing talent. There is no denying the correlation between payroll and winning percentage. But there is another measure that is gaining currency–so to speak.  Youth, talent and desire come together is ways that often age, wisdom and complacency do not.