One of the worst arguments I hear from folks who advocate going all in at the expense of long term success is the notion that "we aren't guaranteed to be good in the future"... Well, obviously. But that doesn't mean that you can't make educated projections about where the team is likely to end up in the next 2-5 years. Anyone with half a brain can look at this team and see that it is set up for long term success if managed correctly. Is it guaranteed? No. Especially if you gut the farm system like SJ is advocating. And for those who are desperate for a championship, you actually have BETTER odds of a championship by playing the long game, instead of selling out for one season. Here's why:
Before that, we have to accept a common premise: No matter how good a team is or how much they go all in, a team is never going to have better than a 25-26% chance of winning the world series at the end of the trade deadline. Since 2014, there have been three teams with a greater than 20% chance of winning the WS on August 1st: The 2015 Dodgers (20.2%), The 2018 Astros (22.8%), and the 2019 Astros (25.6%). Funnily enough, neither of those first two teams ended up winning the world series. We'll see how this year's Astros team does.
So, if we've accepted that, let's get into the hypotheticals. Let's use the 2016 Cubs as an example. On July 24th, one day before the Chapman trade, they had a 17.1% chance of making the world series. By July 26th, that had bumped up to 19.2%. So they essentially bought 2.1%.
Now let's fast forward a year to the Quintana trade. On July 13th, they had an 8.2% chance of winning the world series. On July 15th, they had bumped that up to 9.7%, buying essentially another 1.5% chance.
Its impossible to know just how much that collective 3.6% chance cost them, but we can certainly speculate. Even if we are being conservative, I think its safe to say that Eloy, Gleyber, and Cease would collectively add at least 1% in 2018, all from Gleyber. They would add another 1.5% this year. Then from 2020-2024 at least another 2% this year, with the upside for more depending on how Eloy and Cease develop.
If you had the choice between these three options, which one would you pick?
1. Go all in and guarantee yourself these odds:
Year 1 - 25%
Year 2 - 15%
Year 3 - 5%
Year 4 - 1%
Year 5 - 1%
Don't go all in and keep your best prospects, while maybe trading from your depth for small, but significant upgrades:
Year 1 - 12%
Year 2 - 10%
Year 3 - 10%
Year 4 - 10%
Year 5 - 10%
To me, its pretty obvious which one is the preferred option here. Note that these numbers are purely hypothetical and way cleaner than real life tends to be, but the point still remains. Guaranteeing more years at a lower percentage gives you a better chance at eventually winning a world series than selling out for a 1-2 year window at a higher percentage.