Column: MLB's rich always win

Cinderella stories always capture the hearts of a nation.

From George Mason basketball in 2006 to the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, Cinderella stories are inspiring to those who feel like they need to overcome major obstacles to achieve something special.

Last year, the MLB had a few of those teams: the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals shocked everybody by making the playoffs.

Unfortunately, none of them finished off their Cinderella campaign with a World Series title.

That’s just the way it goes in baseball. The richest teams win.

This year, Washington still has a good-looking club that didn’t experience much turnover in the offseason.

While the same can be said for Oakland and Baltimore, don’t expect them to repeat this season with a playoff appearance.

The unfortunate fact is that low payroll teams have a difficult time keeping up with the likes of the Yankees, Phillies and Tigers.

With the Angels and Dodgers spending more money than we all knew they had this off-season to pick up some of the best names in baseball, it’s even more unlikely that we will see a Cinderella story.

Thinking back to the 2008 Rays, their story was so shocking considering they had never finished a season over .500 before making the World Series that year.

But that was also a year we saw the Yankees miss the playoffs, a rarity for them.

So the next year, the Yankees swept the free agent market and picked up Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

They won the World Series that year.

So every Cinderella story usually comes back the next year and isn’t such a powerhouse. The Rays missed the playoffs in 2009.

Eventually, the lack of superstars will catch up to teams like the Rays.

During the last four years, the Rays have lost most of their starters from the 2008 team, simply because they couldn’t afford them.

That becomes the problem for all small market teams. Oakland saw great success in the early 2000s, but they never made a World Series and saw all their best talents leave.

It seems as though the only way to succeed as a small market is to draft well and raise your farm system well.

Then you need the right manager and hope all the talent your organization has bred for years comes to fruition at the right time.

The current Baltimore team may have found a solid manager in Buck Showalter, but its window of opportunity may have already passed.

The Yankees are still the kings of the division, the Rays have stayed successful and the Blue Jays must have broken into Canada’s central bank to nab a bunch of all-stars in trades that cost them virtually nothing.

And you can’t be a small market team gone big.

The Miami Marlins tried by getting a ton of talent in the offseason a year ago to help fill their new, very expensive stadium.

After finishing behind the Mets for a last place finish in their division, they shipped all their talent out.

Now, they have to expect 100 losses for a few consecutive seasons.

And we have to expect that the Angels and Dodgers will come back this year to make the playoffs, potentially knocking out Baltimore or Washington from the playoff picture.

If anyone is going to be a Cinderella this year, it’s either the Royals or the
Pirates.

But even then, there are five better teams in each league that will likely put their Cinderella campaigns to an end.

That’s the way of the MLB, and it isn’t going to change any time soon.

­— zstavis@indiana.edu