The Texas Rangers spent nearly a billion dollars in free agency over the last two winters, hired one of the most successful managers in the history of baseball to guide them, and fell head over feet into a free tentpole slugger in the middle of their lineup.
The blueprint for other teams to follow couldn’t be any more obvious.
Assuming that most teams will be unwilling or unable to be quite so bold or quite so lucky, there are still lessons to be gleaned from the Rangers’ first World Series win in franchise history. For the Cardinals, who undoubtedly sat at home Wednesday night looking askance at the mass of their former compatriots who were on the field celebrating, there are some direct data points that stick out as obvious discrepancies.
Free agency opens Monday. Only the weekend remains for last minute studying.
1. Truly, there is no such thing as too much pitching
As far back as the dwindling days of July ahead of the trade deadline, the public plan for the Cardinals has been to acquire three starting pitchers and then fill in the roster around them. The mechanics of baseball mandate that a team’s pitching staff somehow gather up at least
27 outs in order to secure a win, and the…
