Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 15, 2007
Fish Story

6-4-2 Blames the 1997 Marlins for the demise of the Dodgers. I'd say it's more like the Dodgers not understanding the insignificance of a small sample size. If the Indians won that series (and it was just a bit of luck that they didn't), would everyone have adopted long term contracts for young players and building from within? Could one misplayed ground ball really make that much of a difference?

I was watching the Marlins game last night, and they kept bringing players from the 1997 team into the booth. The theme was that this was one of the great World Series of all time, but because it was Cleveland and Florida, no one noticed. Game seven was certainly exciting, but game three was the only other one that served any late excitement, and even that one dragged on too long as the Marlins scored seven in the top of the ninth to break a 7-7 tie, and the Indians came back in the bottom of the inning to score four. Compare that to the 2001 series, in which you had three dramatic endings, including the final at bat of game seven.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:41 AM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

To answer your question, yes, it could. The Dodgers even then were pretty hungry, having failed to advance past the first round for almost a decade at that point, and having made some crucial mistakes (Pedro Martinez for Delino DeShields?), were about to make more (Paul Konerko for Jeff Shaw?), and had generally lost their way. Big contracts for established stars were, in theory, a faster way to get to the top. Building a farm system and waiting for the kids to develop required patience, something Peter O'Malley did not have, for four reasons:

1) The Dodgers were spending (not on payroll, but internally) like the Yankees but didn't have the same level of operating income.
2) The O'Malley heirs had no interest in continuing to own the Dodgers, an illiquid asset.
3) Potential additional income streams from a possible NFL stadium to be located on the expansive Dodger campus got axed when then-mayor Richard Riordan declined to pursue it further. (Imagine the reverse of the situation obtaining with the Fish and their lease at Dolphins Stadium, in which the Dodgers got large portions of the football season parking revenue.)
4) O'Malley's declining influence under commissioner Bud Selig, who favored moves to increase the power of the smaller-market teams.

Yes, the 1997 series was exciting, and maybe it was coincidental that it started an era of ballooning budgets, but my inclination is to think it wasn't a coincidence.

Posted by: Rob McMillin at June 15, 2007 02:13 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?