Crafting a Winner

I’ve just won the lottery, $300 million. Enough to purchase the lowly Florida Marlins perhaps.

If I were to buy a Major League franchise, here’s what I would do. First off, I would be the owner/general manager ala Jerry Jones with the Dallas Cowboys.

We’ll use the Marlins for this example since they have the lowest payroll at the moment and have just agreed upon a new deal with the city of Miami for a new stadium.

I’d make sure I had a say in the ballpark development. The recent post-steroid era power outage in baseball has drastically changed the way the game is played. No longer is the best logic to sit around and wait for the 3-run homer to give you the lead. Instead, small ball and manufacturing runs have come back into style.

The new ballpark would be enormous in terms of field size. The fence in center would be at least 440 ft. Down the line in right field would be 350 ft and the left field line would be close to 375 ft. The gaps in left and right center would be a minimum of 400 ft.

It sounds insane but let’s not forget that the original dimensions of Yankee Stadium before its renovation in the ‘70s was 457 to left center, 461 to dead center and 407 to right center. These were the dimensions of the yard that Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Lou Gehrig and all the great Yankees hitters launched balls out of.

I would grow the infield grass high and slope the dirt toward the grass so all bunted balls remained fair.

My first goal to compiling my roster would be to get the two best catchers money could buy. Do you think it’s a coincidence that virtually every big league manager is an ex-catcher? Joe Torre, Joe Girardi, Mike Scioscia, Eric Wedge, and Jim Leyland were all backstops during their playing careers.

I firmly believe that a team is only as strong as it’s back-up catcher. The position is so brutal that you need to give your starter plenty of days off in order to keep him healthy and sane. So get the best two you can and teach them both to play first base. That way when one’s behind the dish you can DH the other or put him at first to spell him but still keep his bat in the line-up.

The rest of my positional players will all be guys who can handle the bat and hustle hard through every play. My dream line-up would consist of nothing but No. 2 hitters. In a ballpark as big as the one I’m proposing, concede the fact that you won’t be a home run hitting team and instead sign guys who can go the other way with two strikes, beat out infield singles, and sacrifice runners to the next base.

Derek Jeter and Placido Polanco are two guys who come to mind when it comes to doing whatever it takes to get on base or drive in a runner. They may not be the most gifted athletes, but they maximize what God gave them and have turned it into exceptional careers.

I want speed in the outfield as they will need to cover much more ground than your typical outfielder. Adam Dunn isn’t going to cut it in this ballpark; I don’t care if he can hit the ball a mile. Ideally, I would put three center fielders in my outfield and rotate them weekly at each position.

The size of the field wouldn’t limit my pitching staff to one specific type of pitcher. I would love to have a handful of sinker-ball pitchers as they tend to induce more ground balls and double plays. Another favorable aspect about sinker ball pitchers is they tend to work quickly. They don’t waste much time between pitches. They develop a rhythm that the infielders are fond of.

It’s a new era in Major League Baseball and General Managers across the league should take note of the changes. It’s my prediction that pure home run hitters will not receive as lucrative contracts as the players who can hit for average. Hanley Ramirez is arguably the best player in baseball and he hasn’t even peeked yet. On the open market it was predicted he would command around $200 million. Instead, he extended his contract with Florida for only $70 million and Hanley isn’t just a home run hitter.

You wait and see, the World Series champion this year will be a team that does the little things and it will change the course of baseball for the next decade.