And the Braves won their division in 2018, yes, but that followed seasons of 67-95, 68-94 and 72-90. A wee bit of a tank job there, too.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
What's the excuse for the high-spending Dodgers being tied for 5th with the most top 100 prospects?
I know none are above #35, but they went to the WS AND have a strong farm and several recent grads.
Sure, let's moan and groan about not being the Dodgers or the Braves. Even though their last championships were 1988 and 1995, respectively.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
There is simply put not one single blueprint that leads to success. It is extremely narrow minded to think that there is. We have a great organization in Boston. I'll support any direction they happen to go in. I'm not quite ready to change the word on my fan card from Boston to Tampa just yet.
Hey, we had 3 last place finishes in 4 years. One could call that a "tank", although it wasn't.
Yes, there are exceptions, but the fact remains, 3 of the top 8 farms saw their ML club win the division. One won the WS 2 years ago and another made it to the WS last year.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
You look at MLB's team rankings (which weights prospect quality)
The ten playoff teams rank:
Cubs (29), Red Sox (28), Yankees (24), Brewers (23), Indians (19), Rockies (18), Dodgers (11), A's (9), Astros (5), Braves (2)
So 6 teams in the bottom half of prospect rankings, 4 in the top half. So the correlation of this year's prospect rankings aren't that useful.
Some teams have tanked in order to build their strong farm system.
We did not have to do that in order to build our strong farm system. We had a strong farm in place, along with a strong core of MLB ready players. It was not necessary to destroy the farm in order to build a championship team.
We did not "tank" to build our farm to where it was before DD got a hold of it, but we were helped by getting higher draft picks during our 3 last place seasons and a system that rewarded richer teams, at times, with comp picks and loose restrictions on international splurging.
We got Michael Kopech as a comp pick for losing Ellsbury, which was an addition by subtraction to begin with.''
We got Beni with the 8th pick in 2015 due to doing so poorly in 2014.
We got Groome, Dalbec, Shawaryn and Chatham in 2016 thanks to higher picks due to 2015's poor showing.
Moncada, Devers, Espinoza, Margot and several others were snatched from the international market during the years leading up to our high farm ranking under Ben.