ANGEL VS DEVIL – WHO’S WHO?

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Remember the old point-counter point skit on SNL? Well, move over Jane and Dan because Holly and Kurt are taking over!

The off-season offers a good opportunity to relax a little and have some fun, but this segment might scare you a little depending on the topic. Expect to get more for your entertainment dollar, maybe even a little more, than you bargained for.

Don’t take it too seriously though … it’s all in good fun.

Feel free to share your response to the question and have some fun with it. We sure did.

After a very competitive AL and NL Championship round, we are set for the 2020 World Series or whatever you choose to call it.

So who you got? Well, this week’s resident Angel has ‘you know who’ and our distasteful Devil has that other team.

Let’s see what they have to say.

HOLLY (Angel)

Let it be said that Tampa Bay offers a “Ray” of hope for small and mid-market teams that winning can be done on a tight budget. The Rays have one of MLB’s lowest payrolls while their World Series counterpart ranks #2.

This team is the little engine that could by routinely having the lowest or one of the lowest salaries and ever since Stuart Sternberg bought the team, TB has finished around .500 or higher 9 times in 15 years. They have been in the playoffs 6 of those years and in the World Series twice. That’s a better record than the Detroit Tigers had during that same time period – and for $150+ million/year less!

They are proof that leadership and top talent makes for a winning combination. All of their top executives have been lured away by other teams looking to win and in turn, they have made their new teams winners as well.

But it’s not just about rooting for the underdogs, it’s about cheering for organizations that do it better than anyone else.

And whether or not Tampa Bay wins the World Series, we can only hope that a lightbulb goes off over Chris Ilitch’s head that, with the right new talent in the Front Office, he can have his cake and eat it, too, by creating a winning environment, a winning team and saving big payroll bucks.

KURT (Devil)

Who wasn’t rooting for the ultimate World Series this year? What
would have brought the most interest and made everyone happy, including Major League Baseball?

Well, the Yankees and the Dodgers, of course! But no – out of the American League comes the most no-draw team they could have provided.

If you thought because of the 60-game season that there just wouldn’t be any interest in the World Series, well, now that the Rays are in, anyone not sure if they were going to watch, certainly won’t now.

Fans want stars and the Dodgers have done their part to provide half of the dream matchup, while the Yanks came up, well, short.

So, all hail the Dodgers! We went from potentially not being able to see Mookie Betts in a Dodger uniform to getting to see him in the Fall Classic looking to finally bring another World Series title to Los Angeles.

Betts, Kershaw, Bellinger – these are the big names we want to see in the Series. And the Rays? They are hanging their hat on some guy no one had ever heard of until this year. Some guy named after the old basketball arena at Central Michigan (Rose Arena).

The choice is easy, isn’t it? On the big stage we want the big spenders with the big names, not some low-budget team full of no names who draw a few hundred blue hairs to their poor excuse for a ballpark.

The Rays have been a cute story, but how fun would it be to see both the Lakers and Dodgers win championships in the same year?

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25 thoughts on “ANGEL VS DEVIL – WHO’S WHO?”

  1. Tampa Bay deserves even more kudos than what they get. Tampa is not a baseball city, Tropicana Field is considered the worst stadium in MLB. The Rays have a small fan base, small market base, one of the smallest payrolls and even considering splitting their games between Montreal and Tampa. It seems everything and everyone is against them; just goes to show that Tampa has brilliant administration talent and when that talent leaves, it is replaced by more baseball minded people.

    Liked by 5 people

  3. Hidden inside a secret vault within the Tampa Bay organization, written on a napkin, is the one-sentence secret of their success. What is says is simple and obvious: “In all things, don’t do what Detroit does.” 😉

    Liked by 3 people

  4. I know i “should” like and want the rays, being the underdogs etc and all of the reasons holly stated etc..but for some reason i dont like them at all…i dont like how they play the game or how cash manages (OVERmanages). dont like their shifts and their way over reliance on analytics…Dodgers are the dodgers so definitely not a team to root for so im sort of stuck…lebron and mookie? how about stamkos and adamas! (and who knows maybe brady!!)

    Liked by 1 person

  7. The cool thing with both of these teams is the Andrew Friedman connection and his ability to build an organization that produces loads of young, home grown talent. For all of the Dodgers ability to basically print money, the vast majority of their star power came up through the system. Mookie was a luxury they could afford for sure, but I feel like in many ways both of these teams did it the right way.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. I posted last week that Money didn’t win in the playoffs until it came to the World Series, where it seems Money wins most of the time. So even though I will root for TB, my prediction is it is going to be the Dodgers who will take the WS Championship this year.

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  10. Kurt – we also like to see underdogs beat the supposed top dog. And the Dodgers have hardly shown themselves grea performers in the recent post-seasons.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Who wasn’t rooting for the Yankees and the Dodgers? Me. I spent far too much time in NY contending with the stupefying arrogance of Yankee fans, and I have loathed the Dodgers ever since they crossed the picket line to stay in a Marriott hotel during the 2018 World Series. Go Rays!

    Liked by 2 people

    • Me, too. I’m always glad to see the Yankees lose. 2 of my favorite non-Tiger world series’ are 2001 and 2003. As far as the la-de-Dodgers, meh. Go, Rays.

      Liked by 2 people

  12. How to decide? Favor a team that overspends or one that’s too cheap? Here’s a thought: owners put up the same amount of pool money that is invested and, in return, all are given the same operating budget. Players agree to (generous) salary caps.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. I read a column by a Boston writer yesterday who was writing that the Rays have no stars, play by spreadsheet, sob, whimper, pout. I love rooting for the underdog. But I am thinking the only lesson C.I. will learn is that it is possible to get to the World Series on the cheap.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Boston knows all about sobbing, whimpering, and pouting. The Red Sox have been very good at it. Btw, Chris will learn nothing because the real lesson from Tampa is that to get away with being cheap requires having top notch, competent management. Sadly, that’s not currently happening in Detroit.

      Liked by 5 people

      • Good point! If done wisely, it costs less to build an organization that can develop a steady stream of young talent – rather than one that just signs a few superstars. A hundred million dollars a year would go a long way if spent on outstanding coaches, trainers, facilities, and the like.

        Liked by 4 people

  14. So Kurt, the Rays are bad because they develop their team AND organization through need and results. The Dodgers are “good” because along with a highly over-rated farm system, they have plenty of money to “fill” holes. There’s a reason that they have not won since 1988 – heart. Can’t be measured, cannot be “valued”. The Dodgers are the Tigers with a bit more success, as long as you don’t discount the playoffs. Too many years where they are the only team in their division.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. Big payrolls with big stars exist for one reason: to win a WS. The Dodgers got cheated out of the WS win last year, so it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they win. Personally, I don’t need stars to watch great baseball. Tampa doesn’t buy stars. They develop them.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Dear Mr Devil,
    Thinking it’d be cool if the Dodgers and Lakers both won? Lakers have one of the most disliked players in the game and the NBA playoff rating were off 35%.The Dodgers overspend and under archive.

    Go Rays!

    Liked by 2 people

  19. After reading a couple of comments here “picking” on Kurt for his post today, it seems they don’t get what is happening here. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed to me that Kurt was left with having to pick the Dodgers and he gave it a half-hearted go of it. Today’s blog is similar to when Mitch A and another freep writer would annually have an article where they would each pick a team involved in a championship and tell us why that team was going to win. Sometimes it was tongue in cheek when Mitch didn’t believe in who he has to “pick”.

    Liked by 1 person

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