Stop Whining, Scott

Scott Boras has a problem with the way baseball teams do business.  Now, everything Scott Boras says should be taken with a grain of salt since, as an agent, how much he makes is entirely dependent on how much his clients are paid, and he's lost a good amount of money over the past few years because of baseball's changing economics.  But his comments have definitely sparked some intense debate, both within the game and outside of it.

Specifically, Boras has an issue with tanking.  He claimed that less than half of MLB's 30 teams will actually be trying to win the World Series in 2022.  He's probably right about that point, which I'll get to, but he also unfairly took a shot at the World Series champion Braves, claiming their championship was nothing more than a result of that "competitive cancer," which couldn't be further from the truth.

Now, to be fair, I've never seen a trade deadline with as much movement as I saw this year.  The Cubs and Nationals traded away every player on either of their rosters that anybody has ever heard of.  But, the 2021 trade deadline was also unlike any other ever before because there were additional economic factors that came into play.  Owners made no ticket revenue in 2020 and we're staring at a lockout next month.  Who knows how long that's gonna last?  So, yes, more teams than usual felt the need to cut payroll facing an uncertain economic situation.

But to criticize the Braves for making their team better at the trade deadline is simply a low blow.  After all, the entire point of the trade deadline is for good teams to make themselves better.  And the Braves didn't just make themselves better, they turned themselves from a .500 team into World Series champions!

That seems to be the biggest issue Boras has with Atlanta.  His exact quote was: "We have seen the championship in 60 days.  (*Sidebar: In 2020, the ENTIRE SEASON was 67 days!)  The rules allow them to be a less than .500 team at Aug. 1 and add four, five players from teams that no longer wanted to compete and for very little cost change the entirety of their team and season.  And we saw this unfold to the detriment of teams that won over 100 games.  In doing this, we have now created an understanding that a fan would not know who the true team is until, frankly, the trade deadline."

My response: "So what?"  Who said baseball was supposed to be fair?  The 107-win Giants had to play the 106-win Dodgers in the Division Series, and the 106-win Dodgers didn't have home field in the NLCS.  The Braves might've had the fewest wins of any team that made the playoffs, but they were the only team to win 11 in the playoffs.  And, as a result, they're the champions.

It's also worth noting that this isn't the first time the "best" team didn't win.  And it certainly won't be the last!  Likewise, what does their record on August 1 have to do with anything?  It's your record at the end of the season that matters.  The 2019 Nationals were 19-31 after 50 games and I don't see Boras complaining about their World Series title!  Or that of the 2006 Cardinals, who won only 83 games, giving them the lowest winning percentage ever for a World Series champion.

I also don't see why August 1 is suddenly the problem.  This season, in fact, was the first one that only had one trade deadline.  Until 2019, teams could add players until September 1 as long as they cleared waivers.  So, yeah, the Braves only had the players for their championship run together for the season's final two months, but that's better than one month!

The Braves aren't the first team to win a World Series with a bunch of short-term rentals, either.  Remember when Aroldis Chapman was traded from the Yankees to the Cubs in 2016, won a World Series ring, then went right back to the Yankees as a free agent?  Does that make Chicago's only championship in the last 112 years any less legitimate?

There's another factor at play here, too.  The Braves only got an entirely new outfield at the trade deadline because they had to.  It's not like they just went out and got guys because they wanted to.  They were planning on having Ronald Acuna, Jr., and Marcell Ozuna be big parts of their team all season.  But Acuna's injury and Ozuna's off-the-field problems meant Atlanta GM Alex Anthopolous, knowing that the NL East was still winnable (another important point worth mentioning) would be busy working to improve his team.  So, yes, he took advantage of the system that currently exists.

Instead of criticizing him for it, though, Anthopolous should be praised for his shrewd moves.  Atlanta was the clear winner of the trade deadline.  The Braves don't win the World Series without Jorge Soler, Adam Duvall, Eddie Rosario or Joc Pederson.  They might not even make the playoffs.

Plenty of other teams did the exact same thing.  The Dodgers got Max Scherzer and Trea Turner.  The Red Sox got Kyle Schwarber.  The Giants got Kris Bryant.  The Rays got Nelson Cruz.  The Yankees got Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo.  The difference is it worked for Atlanta, while all of those others did not win the World Series.  So, again, Anthopolous deserves a lot of credit for turning his team from a .500 ballclub into World Series champions.  Because all of those other teams' GMs had the same goal, but they didn't achieve it!

Atlanta's World Series championship isn't the root of the problem, though.  It's simply the result of it.  Boras is right about tanking.  Far too many teams choose to simply not make any attempt to be competitive.  They either intentionally maintain low payrolls or, in the case of teams with pending free agents they know they won't be able to re-sign, stockpile draft picks by trading away their best players at the deadline. 

While tanking isn't a new concept, we've seen more and more teams do it in recent years.  Why?  Because it worked for the Cubs and it for the Astros.  It's easy to forget now, but Houston was terrible in the early 2010s.  The Astros lost 106, 107 and 111 games in three consecutive seasons from 2011-13.  We all know what's happened since.  They used the resulting high draft picks to build the core of the team that has played in five straight ALCS, been to three of the last five World Series, and "won" the title in 2017.  Suddenly the thinking became, "If it worked in Houston, why couldn't it work here?"

Tanking is a serious problem Major League Baseball needs to address.  A lockout seems inevitable once the current CBA expires in three weeks, and teams tanking is one of the many issues that will be dealt with during CBA negotiations that promise to be contentious.  Whether they come up with a solution or not, that's where you address it.  (Again, the solution is a salary floor.  What's so hard about that?)

Simply put, to delegitimize the Braves' championship as the product of "competitive cancer" is a very disingenuous low blow.  Everything the Braves at the trade deadline did was within the rules.  It's not their fault you don't like the rules.  Rules that may very well be changed soon, anyway.