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Old 10-22-2007, 07:17 PM   #267
Young Drachma
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Join Date: Apr 2001
My goal with this team is really to get through this first generation of players, have a legacy of whatever the legacy that's left by them. Whether it's titles and hard-fought battles with the Colonials or if it's coming close to winning and pulling what the Royals do -- make the playoffs and lose at some point year in and year out -- I want to assume whatever the mantle is, then come back and look at the team again and see what the next generation of players will be faced with.

At this point, this team has nothing like my past teams have had. In both Boston and in Providence, I had a farm system to speak of or at least, kids that I knew would eventually be able to come up and contribute.

On this team, our prospects are basically near-done or done kids that are going to try to force my hand and make me figure out where to play them as time goes on and eventually, I'll have to deal them for established players or for pennies on the dollar.

So right now, I see this team a lot more like what the Yankees of the 1990s looked like, than anything like my past teams have and so, the real issue will be whether we'll find success in this window or not.

I do think it's important for an upstart team in a new city to establish a legacy early. The reason expansion teams in some cities fail to penetrate the market to where it's a true baseball city early on, is because the team's do a poor job of creating a culture of winning early. Spending money sucks, sure...but when you're the envy of the league, you do that by winning and creating a methodology for the way your organization does business and then, if you do that for a decade on the outset, it's a lot easier when you've created that to get fans to stick with your team after that in the lean years if they come.

But expansion teams in the modern era start out bad and expand fans to support them through it and while die-hard fans always will, in a sport like baseball that's become increasingly regional, if you're in a transplant city -- we're not, but go with it -- you're going to find yourself having a difficult time attracting the sorts of fans whose kids grow up with fond memories of going to Quakers games as a kid.

PLAYOFF DROUGHTS UPDATE
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Here are the teams still in MLB (e.g. some teams with MLB tenure have droughts and have since been relegated). Teams that made the playoffs in '09 are listed with number of consecutive appearances.
Code:
Arizona (2008) Atlanta (5) Baltimore (2001) Boston (2007) Brooklyn (2008) Chi. Cubs (2006) Cincinnati (1) Colorado (1998) Columbus (2000) Detroit (1) Florida (2008) Houston (1991) Kansas City (2) LA Dodgers (2004) LA Angels (2003) Milwaukee (promoted in 2009, never) Nevada (promoted in 2008, never) NY Mets (2004) NY Rens (promoted in 2005, never) Pennsylvania (5) Philadelphia (2) Pittsburgh (2001) San Antonio (2003) San Diego (2005) San Francisco (2001) San Jose (2007) Seattle (3) St. Louis (2006) Texas (2006) Toronto (1997) Washington (2004)
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