What would small market teams look like if they kept their players?

[BCWWF]

I was just thinking about the Twins, and this lineup would be absolutely sick. What are some others?

(And obviously you can't include players that came in a trade for one of these players. Like the Twins couldn't count Bartlett and Garza AS WELL as Delmon Young.)

C Joe Mauer
1B Justin Morneau
2B Luis Castillo
SS Jason Bartlett
3B meh
RF Michael Cuddyer
LF Denard Span
CF Torii Hunter
DH Jason Kubel

SP Johan Santana
SP Matt Garza
SP Scott Baker
SP Kevin Slowey
SP Nick Blackburn

CP Joe Nathan

[Dragon]

Does trading away Garza and Bartlett really have anything to do with being a small market team though? Its not like they were heading for big contracts anytime soon I don't think. BTW, its crazy how terrible that trade was looking back at it.

Seems like Santana and Hunter were the only two guys that are gone because of money.

[Hanso Amore]

Not to mention they traded for Castillo and gave up prospects trying to make a run at the playoffs, which was hardly a small market move. And castillo was a rental anyways.

Expos/Nationals would have won a title with Pedro, Larry Walker, Vlad, Orlando Cabrera, etc

[Emperor Smeat]

Yeah if there was 1 negative effect of no World Series in 1994 was how much that hurt the Expos since they were #1 in MLB for record by the time the season was called off and strong enough to be a potential World Series champion. Post-1994, team unable to afford to keep its players, fans slowly stop showing to games, and basically became a farm-style team to rest of MLB.

[Emperor Smeat]

Pittsburgh Pirates could also have been a good team had they not cleared house every year.

[Gertner]

lol the Indians could have potnetially two former starters starting game one in the World Series: Cliff Lee and C.C

[McLegend]

Cy Young award winners.

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

I think that every team in baseball could do this though, small market teams aren't the only 1's who lose big time prospects - they just lose them for different reasons than the big market teams.

[BCWWF]

To address the questions, not all were lost because of small market, per se. But just lost in general.

The only Twins players who were traded for straight up current value were Garza and Bartlett. Santana, Hunter, Castillo were definitely traded because they couldn't be afforded.

And yeah, you could do this with every team, but most wouldn't be very impressive.

If the Royals are able to keep Carlos Beltran and Mike Sweeney, they're still not very good. And there is a good handful of teams that has never had to trade a player because it couldn't afford him (NYY, NYM, BOS, LAD, LAA, to some extent lately you could say PHI too).

Another good example would be the Texas Rangers. A-Rod, Tiexiera, Gary Matthew's Junior all left for better contracts. (You could argue for A-Rod, but he left because he was too big for that small market team, no doubt).

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

I don't have all specifics but the Red Sox roster would still be pretty impressive I think. The top 3 guys in their order are out of their farm system and they traded away their top prospect a few years ago for Josh Beckett who ended up becoming probably the best shortstop in baseball (Hanley Ramirez)

[Triple Naitch]

I saw this on a website a few weeks back. It had every team with their original players and ranked them. Seattle was fucking sick.

[Jeritron]

You gotta take into account some of those players being acquired through draft picks that were earned as a result of the team dumping talent and being consistently shitty.
If they were keeping some of those players, they wouldn't be getting draft picks in return, or for that matter losing tons of games. That'd change everything

[Jeritron]

I saw this on a website a few weeks back. It had every team with their original players and ranked them. Seattle was fucking sick.

Whenever I think of Seattle Mariners general management, I think of the Heathcliff Slocumb for Derek Lowe/Jason Varitek deal.
One of the greatest trades in Red Sox history

[Triple Naitch]

Found it.

http://ballhype.com/story/restoring-the-rosters-no-1-seattle/

[Skippord]

Lineup
2B Chone Figgins
1B Todd Helton
LF Matt Holliday
SS Troy Tulowitzki
RF Brad Hawpe
C Chris Iannetta
3B Ian Stewart
CF Dexter Fowler
Bench
OF Juan Pierre
INF Garrett Atkins
INF Craig Counsell
OF Ryan Spilborghs
C Josh Bard
Rotation
Aaron Cook
Ubaldo Jimenez
Jeff Francis
Jake Westbrook
Franklin Morales
Bullpen
Manuel Corpas
Mark DiFelice
Jamey Wright
Jason Jennings
Sean Green
Matt Daley
Jhoulys Chacin

[Skippord]

nice

[Evil Vito]

<font color=goldenrod><b>Lineup</b>
SS Jose Reyes
3B David Wright
RF Nelson Cruz
1B Mike Jacobs
C Jesus Flores
2B Kaz Matsui
CF Carlos Gomez
LF Daniel Murphy

<b>Bench</b>
INF Ty Wigginton
OF Angel Pagan
OF Jay Payton
OF Lastings Milledge
C Raul Casanova

<b>Rotation</b>
A.J. Burnett
Scott Kazmir
Brian Bannister
Mike Pelfrey
Jon Niese

<b>Bullpen</b>
Heath Bell
Octavio Dotel
Matt Lindstrom
Bobby Parnell
Aaron Heilman
Guillermo Mota
Joe Smith

---

CHRIST that sucks. Money 4tw.</font> :o

[RatedGSuperstar]

The Brewers have been doing pretty well with keeping their players for the past few years, but that's because they're still cheap. They'll have some tough decisions to make in the next year or two as guys start to get expensive, but imagine this lineup:

SS Alcides Escobar
2B Rickie Weeks
RF Ryan Braun
1B Prince Fielder
LF Carlos Lee
3B Felipe Lopez (I'd like to see him stay, but it's probably Gamel's job next year)
CF Mike Cameron
C Anyone but Jason Kendall

That lineup is money. The rotation would need more work, though. A fantasy rotation:

LHP CC Sabathia
RHP Healthy Ben Sheets
RHP Yovani Gallardo
LHP Jorge de la Rosa (in reality, there's no chance he would've been a good pitcher for the Brewers...they traded him to KC because he still stunk and was out of options, and even the Royals gave up on him)
RHP Healthy Dave Bush

[BCWWF]

Mets are clearly better for the trades they made.

[Hanso Amore]

http://bases.nbcsports.com/2009/09/restoring-the-rosters-no-6---montrealwashington.html.php

Wow, Expos.

[Triple Naitch]

Fuckin sick lineup.

[Emperor Smeat]

Soo much power in that potential Expos lineup. Still upset how bad MLB mismanaged that team when they took over (sort of made sense since they couldn't show too much favoritism at expense of rest of league).

[Supreme Olajuwon]

Not just power but speed too. Sizemore, Guerrero, and Phillips are all 30-30 guys.