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A little money, brains, and management. The three things you need, to run a successful baseball team.
As many have pointed out, the Twins are a good example of this. Gardy knows how to manage his team. If he can find the master plan to beat the yankees each season, he'd probably have a world series ring by now. Joe Mauer has been secured for the long haul and you can easily build around him for not much money, throw in the cheap new stadium, they're going places fast.
Marlins had something going for a few years now. But Jeff Loria must be one hell of a basketcase. Joe Girardi got a manager of the year award with that club and got axed shortly after. Now he fires Fredi Gonzalez, MLB orders him to pay Josh Johnson, and a new stadium is about to be built. Tampa Bay is about to be Florida's team.
Bottom feeder teams such as Baltimore and Pittsburgh (no offense Droford and Schlomey) need to have somebody with mega bucks walk in and make an offer they can't refuse and start from scratch IMO. (See New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokrohov.) New ownership, new front office, new everything. Pirates are the AAAA baseball club, and Angelos is too chicken to spend the cash to bring in a big name guy to build around Roberts and Markakis. Mark Teixeira could have been that guy last year, but the Yankees put a few extra bucks on top and that brought him in.
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