The "Rebuilds" That Don't Work
In 2015, the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. From 2009-2011, they had lost 283 games and never finished within 21 games of first place.
In 2016, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. From 2011-2013, they had lost 288 games and never finished within 24 games of first place.
In 2017, the Houston Astros won the World Series. From 2011-2013, they had lost 324 (!) games and never finished within 40 (!!) games of first place.
The lesson a lot of baseball fans (understandably) learned from this stretch of champions was that losing works. In order to win, you first need to lose. And not just lose — you have to lose a lot. You have to be dreadful for an extended period, and only then, once you have been morally purified by the experience of losing so badly, can you finally win.
Fans and team executives call this “rebuilding,” and on some level it has always been part of the game. But the Royal/Cubs/Astros championship run in the middle of the last decade ushered in a new period. Teams have always gone through rebuilding years — that is, years where they don’t expect to make the playoffs and are focused instead on retooling their roster and developing young talent — but we are now in a period that sees “rebuilds” of unprecedented length and depth. Perhaps more troubling is how fans think of them as a necessary part of the process of winning. In other words, teams are able to sell fans on losing at such a scale and for such a duration as a necessary precondition to building a winning team.
But it’s a real bill of goods. Royals/Cubs/Astros fans were all sold on budding dynasties when they won their championship. But aside from arguably the Astros — who have made the ALCS every year since 2017 and won another World Series last year — those dynasties did not come to fruition. Kansas City hasn’t made the postseason at all since 2015, and after the Cubs made it back to the NLCS in 2017, they have not won a playoff series. Both teams have already gone through yet another “rebuild” in the interim: The Royals have lost at least 97 games three times since 2018, and are on pace to do so again, while the Cubs traded away basically everyone from their championship team a few years ago.
Many fans might still say it’s worth it. After all, they won a World Series! That’s more than most teams can say, and I’m sure there are many fans who would trade a few dreadful years for a title, even if that doesn’t turn into a dynasty. But these are just the “success” stories.
We forget about all the rebuilds that do not work. For example, from 2015-2018, the Cincinnati Reds finished in last place every year, averaging 95 losses per season. In theory, this was a period where they could draft and develop young talent — and they did! Guys like Jonathan India and Luis Castillo and Jesse Winker were all drafted or made their MLB debuts in this stretch. Then, going into 2020, they seemed ready to compete. They went out and signed Nick Castellanos and Trevor Bauer and Wade Miley, and put together two decent seasons. But they didn’t make the playoffs, and by last season they were back in “rebuild” mode. They traded Castillo and Sonny Gray and Winker and Eugenio Suarez, and let Castellanos leave in free agency, and once again lost 100 games.
There’s also the Colorado Rockies, who from 2013-15 lost 278 games, but in that time seemed to be setting themselves up for the future. They traded fan favorite Troy Tulowitzki for young talent. Future superstar Nolan Arenado made his debut, guys like DJ LeMaheiu and Charlie Blackmon became regulars, and Trevor Story was making his way through their system. They made the playoffs in 2017 and 2018, and seemed set up to compete for a while when they signed Arenado to an extension going into 2019… but then they immediately fell off a cliff. They have not finished above .500 since 2018, they let LeMahieu and Story leave in free agency, while also trading Arenado, and they lost 94 games last year.
And then there’s the White Sox. I’m not sure it’s fair to even include the White Sox in this category, since their “rebuild” was an extended period of mediocrity and not a short stretch of being briefly dreadful. But they were bad: They never had a winning record from 2013-2019, even if they “only” lost more than 90 games three times in that seven year stretch. But I think they do count, because like all these other rebuilds, fans kept hearing about all of Chicago’s young talent, and how good they would be eventually.
Who could disagree? Jose Abreu won Rookie of the Year unanimously. They traded for Yoan Moncada, one of the most hyped prospects in baseball. And they added Luis Robert, one of the most talented players to defect from Cuba. Not to mention young stars like Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito. The last three years, they’ve seemed to be on the verge of breaking out.
Except… they never quite did. They made the expanded wildcard round in 2020, then won a weak division in 2021, but never won a postseason series. Last year, they were favorites to win the AL Central going into the season, but scuffled to a mediocre 81-81 finish, missing the playoffs completely. Now they’ve started 2023 with a 13-25 record, with Baseball Reference giving them a 1% chance to make the postseason. They’ve already lost Abreu, and it seems like Giolito could be traded by the end of the year, as they enter yet another “rebuild” phase.
What is the lesson here? Well, it’s that “rebuilds” are bullshit. Other than the Houston Astros, no team has spun this new kind of rebuild into a perennial contender. If your team stinks now, it’s more likely to stink again in five years then be good.
And yet teams keep doing it! Right now the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals are each on pace to lose well over 100 games, which is exactly what those franchises planned. They don’t want to win — they are “rebuilding.” They will say they are doing so to be competitive over the long run, but the evidence suggests that won’t work. So who benefits from these endless rebuilds? I wonder if there is some class of people whose power is near absolute and whose effect is wholly negative?