Welcome to Snyder’s Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it’s free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you’ll get smarter, though. That’s a money-back guarantee. Let’s get to it.
I’ve long tried to say that fans are allowed to fan — I love using it as a verb! — however they want. I believe that. I also reserve the right to be annoyed and/or confused by some fan behavior as well. Right? That is to say, you have the right to do something annoying but I also have the right to say it’s annoying.
You know what is annoying? Watching fans actively root for their teams to get worse on purpose when they’re on the periphery of the playoff race.
There’s something deeply embedded in there which is ultimately, probably, my biggest pet peeve in sports and that would be focusing so much on what might happen in the future instead of just enjoying the moment. Obsessing over recruiting boards for college sports, paying more attention to the draft in any professional sport than the actual games and all the hyping up of prospects when the big-league team is actually good all are examples of this annoyance for me.
These things are important, of course. And hey, doing a good job at things like recruiting and the draft and developing prospects is great, obviously, for the success of teams. I just don’t think fans sitting around convincing themselves they are experts on how recruits/draftees/prospects will pan out and getting worked up over it is productive.
I can’t tell you how much more fun being a fan is when I just get to watch the games instead of spending the entire summer reading Indiana recruiting updates. When people ask me what I think about the Bears’ second-round pick, it’s so satisfying to just say, “I don’t know.”
When it comes to baseball, though, I do get worked up seeing so many fans on social media hoping their team that is, let’s say, four games out of a playoff spot actively wanting their team to lose and become sellers in front of the trade deadline. Man, that’s close enough, you just never know.
The 2021 Braves were six games out on July 26 and won the World Series. On July 26 the next season, the Phillies were 10 games out of first place and only three games over .500 and ended up in the World Series. Now, they were only a half-game out of a playoff spot on that date, but it’s important to point this out because all too often the argument you hear is something along the lines of, “do we really want to risk the future for one three-game series against a better team?”
Sure, there’s always risk involved in a deal because you might end up trading Pete Crow-Armstrong for a half-season of Javier Báez, but moves like that nowadays are pretty rare. A lot times, you’ll see stuff like another move the Cubs made that summer, which was trading Kris Bryant to the Giants for Alexander Canario and Caleb Kilian.
I’d much prefer to just go for it when close to the playoff picture instead of hugging prospects and hoping they pan out.
Remember the 2014 Royals at this point in the season? That’s a big one for me. They were a dismal franchise for years before that season. They hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1985. The fan base had endured losing seasons in 18 of the previous 20 years. They had made an aggressive move for James Shields and Wade Davis before the 2013 season — met with a lot of the typical kicking and screaming because they gave up top prospect Wil Myers — but through July 21, 2014, the Royals were 48-50. They were 4½ games out of a playoff spot. And there was a big movement to sell Shields, a free agent after the season, in front of the deadline. Yes, become sellers. Again.
Instead, the Royals front office trusted its team. They won 24 of their next 30 and ended up in Game 7 of the World Series. They won the World Series the next season. Had the front office given up on the 2014 Royals and instead pointed, again, toward the future by dealing Shields, what happens in that clubhouse? We’ll never know. What we do know is after that July 21 loss, the Royals gave their fans one of the greatest rides of their fandom for about 16 months.
What if they did gut the team? What does that do to the fan base long-term? We might even be talking about them leaving Kansas City by now. Instead, Royals fans will forever talk about those two playoff runs.
To me, that is exponentially more fun than constantly kicking the can down the street and dreaming on the future.
Last season, I came down hard on the Rays for being in a similar position (they were actually only three games out) and pulling the plug on the season in favor of the future and, frankly, just saving money. They traded Isaac Paredes, Zach Eflin, Randy Arozarena and Jason Adam in three days. It still remains to be seen how the nine minor-league players they got back will pan out, but the current major-league players they got back were Hunter Bigge and Christopher Morel. Bigge looks like a quality reliever while Morel has been one of the worst position players in the majors this year.
Adam is an All-Star reliever (better than Bigge). Arozarena has 3.8 WAR and a 136 OPS+ right now with 20 homers and 19 steals. Paredes sits at 2.7 WAR with a 130 OPS+ and 19 home runs.
A few Rays fans, one loud one in particular, went bonkers on me for how short-sighted I was and how I just didn’t understand how those moves were actually great for the Rays. I seem to never get it with this franchise. The Rays have zero World Series titles. The AL was wide open last year and, hell, it probably is this year, too. The 2024 Rays were better without those trades and the 2025 Rays would be as well. Just look at their roster right now after undoing those trades. They are 2½ games out of a wild card spot right now and would very likely be in playoff position with those guys.
Why are you rooting for your team to constantly get marginally worse at the big-league level just for the hope or something happening down the road?
Remember Herm Edwards’ famous, “you play to win the game!” tirade? It sure seems like too many fans don’t watch the game to see their team win and instead just focus far too much on the future at the expense of the present.
On a baseball level, that the Cubs in 2016 traded top prospect Gleyber Torres as part of a deal for closer Aroldis Chapman never bothered me one bit, even when it looked the next season like Torres would become a superstar. Why? Because the Cubs won the World Series. As the saying goes, flags fly forever. Any question at the time about any season in the future, for me, was met with “who cares? Just win the World Series right now.” And they did. It was the No. 1 moment of my sports fan life and will never be supplanted.
As a big “to each their own” guy, I don’t begrudge anyone who would rather play virtual GM than see their favorite team win the World Series, but it’s pretty confusing to me. Isn’t the whole point of being a fan wanting to see your team win the championship instead of fretting over how it got there? Why in the world would I care about “the process” as long as I get to experience the confetti dropping from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse roof when my Pacers won the East in Game 6 over the Knicks two months ago?
I didn’t worry about anything that had come before at all. My favorite team won a conference championship, and I was elated. As a bonus, I never made myself angry about any draft picks or trades or anything else along the way. I just got to experience the highs. What a novel concept, huh?
So, sure, fan however you want. I’m just saying it’s a lot more fun to avoid getting worked up about things when you aren’t sure about the actual outcome and gimme the team that tries to win a million times over the teams giving up while still in the race.
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