With Major League Baseball's first decade of the 21st century complete, the time has come to crown one team as the "Team of the Decade." There are many candidates to choose from, to be sure. While only two teams have won multiple titles heading into this offseason (Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees), several others started the postseason in position to join that list: St. Louis, L.A. (of Anaheim), and of course the Phillies, who started the '09 playoffs with hopes of repeating as champ in back-to-back seasons.
With bookend titles in the decade, the resume cannot be ignored for the Yankees. They lead the world in regular season wins this decade (over 950), lead in playoff appearances (9), and have earned multiple rings. One would think their status as "Team of the Decade" is a slam-dunk, and while I would love to disprove this (I've never tried to hide my distaste for Pinstripers), I cannot, so were this to be an article on identifying the most deserving all-decade team, my work here would be done.
Alas, our esteemed site editor would never accept a two paragraph article, so let's shift gears a bit and go in a totally different direction. Who is the "Anti-Team of the Decade?" Ah, this is a question that bears much more research and the all-important subjective viewpoint of a biased sports blogger like myself; much more my style!
The Rules
This is the easy part. The team in question must be bad — not just run-of-the-mill wins/losses bad, but terrible on a more philosophical level. A team worthy of such distinction as "Anti-Team" should not only possess the obligatory poor management/underachieving player combination, but must also exhibit an uncanny ability to alienate its own fan base. Obviously, such a team cannot have won a World Series title this decade and it is strongly recommended that a candidate team not have hoisted any pennant whatsoever, though this isn't a firm requirement as long as such pennants are few and far between and were accompanied with supremely high expectations. Oh, and to those of you that want to throw out semantics and insist that the decade runs from 2001-2010, sit down and shut up. Please.
The Candidates
There are 22 qualified teams if you eliminate the title winners of this decade (Phillies, BoSox, Cards, ChiSox, Marlins, Angels, Diamondbacks, Yankees). Further, Atlanta (6 division titles), Oakland (4), Minnesota (4), and the Cubs (3) are discounted, as is Houston, who combined their three postseason trips with a World Series loss. This leaves us with 17 realistic eligible teams that are in the running — or "also-running," if you will: Dodgers, Giants, Mariners, Indians, Mets, Blue Jays, Rangers, Rockies, Padres, Reds, Brewers, Tigers, Nationals/Expos, Orioles, Rays, Pirates, Royals.
The Contest
The Dodgers have won 865 games this decade, good for seventh on the decade list. They've also brought home two division titles and a wild card berth. Most importantly, they haven't ostracized their fan-base or created any undue stress among the general baseball-watching population, so they are our first team to be cut from contention. San Francisco also gets lopped off this list of contenders with their three postseason appearances and five-year stretch to start the decade where they averaged just under 95 wins per season.
The Rockies are the next team to be discounted, which may surprise a few as there are obviously higher profile teams still on the list that may have had more success this decade. However, Colorado is a team that has consistently outperformed their payroll, bringing unexpected joy to their loyal fans sporadically, which is completely contrary to the sort of effect we want our "Anti-Team" to have on its fan base. Likewise, the Seattle Mariners are booted due to their propensity to perform at or just above expectation levels (even if those expectations are that of a non-contending also-ran) factored in with the startling fact that they own the record for single season wins (116), which they achieved early this decade. Four down, 13 left standing.
Next off our list are the Kansas City Royals. File this one under "What the hell do you expect?" Yes, they trade away their young stars just before they become young superstars. True, their fan base is long suffering and does have "glory years" against which to measure today's gory years. But the ownership is very cognizant of playing the money card with that fan base and the "baseball experience" at Kauffman Stadium is one that has few peers. The ownership doesn't overcharge for their sorry product and doesn't insult its fans by making them feel like they are actually trying to compete in the name of selling a few more tickets. For this, I cannot punish a group of sadomasochistic (minus the sexual overtones) fans.
The Texas Rangers are the next group that is least like the others. Though the decade hasn't been particularly fruitful for the Rangers or their fans, the team hasn't lost less than 71 games since the turn of the century and Texas typically trots out an entertaining lineup that scores lots of runs and gives up just as many. If anything, their only real failing is identifying a reliable closer and throwing a few extra bucks at a starter here or a starter there. The Cleveland Indians also get a pass, as they consistently march out a middle-priced group of middle-of-the-road professional players with a star mixed in every now and then. Granted, there have been some front-office botch-jobs turned in with this franchise, but these failings pale in comparison to those of some of the others on the list.
Toronto and Milwaukee are both going to be left off the short list, as well. Toronto has been relatively consistent if not maddeningly average over the balance of the decade and they do play in the same division as two of the all-decade greats, so they get the benefit of the doubt. The Brew Crew is an up-and-coming bunch that has done more with less, particularly in the latter stages of the decade, and they too are faced with a consistently stout set of division rivals. The Rays saved themselves with their last two seasons, though their early-decade ineptitude nearly kept them as legit contenders even with their recent resurgence.
The final two to not make the cut are the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds. In the case of the Reds, this team is bad and has been grossly mismanaged, but they do put a decent team on the field that has been known to play well early and have proven to be tough outs for contenders late in the season. The Padres have had their moments this decade, but the wheels have fallen off and there doesn't seem to be a reprieve in sight. However, due to their run of success that ended suddenly with a crushing "play-in game" loss to Colorado in 2007, San Diego doesn't quite qualify as one of the worst five teams of the decade.
And then, there were five. The remaining five teams are each equally flawed, but for very different reasons. There are your unmitigated disasters, your maddeningly inconsistent personnel groupings as well as your real head-scratchers. Each should be given some recognition for their unmatched futility, but there must be only one left standing, so below is a blow-by-blow breakdown for each of the finalists, in no particular order:
Pittsburgh Pirates — Oh boy. I mean OOOOOHHHH BBBOOOOYYY!!! Only the aforementioned Royals have lost more this decade, and the Pirates dry spell runs closer to two decades nowadays. No good players — I mean zero — even the marginally talented get shipped out by the annual trading deadline. They screw up their draft signings, they overcharge for tickets, they have stale, uninteresting uniforms ... there isn't much else to say beyond yes, this is a legit contender for "Anti-Team of the Decade."
Detroit Tigers — Their one playoff appearance this decade (2006) was a wildcard berth that they "earned" by losing their last five games to get passed in the standings by a red-hot Twins team on the season's last day. Sound familiar? Detroit is a franchise that has the best of intentions, but they enter each season with expectations that go unfulfilled; when they are expected to be awful, they compete, and when they are expected to compete, they underachieve. Worse, in those seasons where they are missing one key piece to solidify their chances (like in 2009), they fail to identify that missing piece and don't work to address it through midseason trade. If you are a Tiger fan, I feel for you, and I am a Cub fan, so think about that irony for a minute!
Washington Nationals (aka Montreal Expos) — Though they have been laughingly pathetic for quite some time, this franchise nearly gets a free pass from me as they have been abused by the system. When in Montreal, more should have been done to rescue the franchise, but instead, the league issued its death sentence on the Expos, hung them out to dry (and lose all its fan base) and forced them to move to the Nation's Capitol, which has as much interest in baseball as I do politics. It will take several more years for the franchise to fully recover, though they did start to show signs in 2009, remarkably winning their last seven games against playoff-caliber opposition. But they did still win only 59 games, so that free pass wouldn't be warranted.
Baltimore Orioles — If there were a photo of baseball mismanagement, it would certainly include the Oriole logo. Poor financial decisions (Sammy Sosa? Really?) abound in B-More and the team hasn't been even relatively competitive in years. No 80-win seasons to hang their hat on, a bloated payroll, a litany of injury issues, no stability in the front office — the future is bleak and the past is something of nightmares for anyone that fancies themselves an Oriole die-hard. I'll put it this way, when you are concerned that moving the Nationals to your neighborhood may cut into your bottom line, you have done a piss-poor job marketing yourself and establishing a presence among your fans.
New York Mets — What the?! Seriously, the Mets on this list? Afraid so. Yes, I know they played in the decade-opening World Series against the Yankees, and they've even mixed in a division title this decade, but let's reassess the facts. Fact No. 1: the Mets have had one of the top five highest payrolls in baseball through each year this decade. Fact No. 2: during the decade, the Mets finished last twice and more than 20-games out of first on the season's last day four times. Fact No. 3: not including the two playoff seasons ('00 and '06), in the three seasons that New York entered the final week of the season in first or within striking distance of first (three or less games back) this decade, the Mets won four and lost six in their last 10 games in each of those seasons. Fact No. 4: the Mets blew division leads of greater than three games during the season's last two weeks twice in the decade. The only other team this decade to accomplish the same feat while missing playoffs entirely was Detroit this season.
The Verdict
After careful consideration of the facts, for me it comes down to two very different franchises when determining the ultimate loser in this contest. As I mentioned, the Nationals are bad, but more of an unfortunate bad than an insultingly ineffective bad. The Orioles are a cautionary tale of how not to spend your money, but in the grand scheme of things, they have been victimized by a litany of steroid-pumping vets (Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmeiro, Sosa, et al) that fell over the hill as they settled in for Baltimore, which makes them more of a wrong place-wrong time team than an unmitigated failure.
And the Tigers, while surely a head-scratching conundrum of a situation, have never really headed into a season capturing the hearts and minds of the masses who anticipate a deep championship run, so their failings are not totally unexpected early in the decade (though the more recent collapses due give them far more credence as our "Anti-Team" than they should have).
Who's left? One is a team that never can seem to get it right and doesn't seem to want to either admit defeat ("Oh, we'll be better this season, just watch!") or commit to iterative progress ("Yes, we traded our best young talent away ... again ... for nothing!"). The other is a team that annually goes for the gusto with big, bold, pricey moves, but doesn't understand the importance of moderation, role players, or strong, stable management. Which is worse? You tell me. But for my money, and for theirs I would suspect, those New York Mets have brought frustration, unmet (or is it un-"Met") expectations, overpaid underachievement, and terrifically bad judgment to its fan base in never-before-seen doses. For this reason, there is no other logical verdict.
Congratulations to the New York Mets, this decades "Anti-Team." How about that? The best and the worst off this decade summed up by one simple musical refrain; Frank Sinatra, eat your heart out!
New York, New York indeed!
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