In Andrew Zimbalist’s 2006 book In The Best Interests Of Baseball?, he wrote:
“[Commissioner Bud] Selig had a pet phrase that makes considerable sense: the fans of each team need to have ’faith and hope’ that their team has a chance to win at the beginning of each season. Without this faith and hope, fans will eventually lose interest, and the game will suffer.”
After reading that in 2019, I was inspired to create an annual Faith And Hope Report here at MLB Trade Rumors, so we can put a number on how many teams are competitive and track it over time. 70% of teams had hope in 2019 by my estimate. Given the strange nature of the 2020 season, I skipped that year. To make this assessment for 2021, I’ll be combining FanGraphs’ projected playoff odds with my own common sense, and there is subjectivity involved on the borderline teams. I’ll elaborate on those later in this post.
Teams that enter the 2021 season with faith and hope: Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Mets, Astros, Braves, White Sox, Twins, Blue Jays, Brewers, Angels, Red Sox, Athletics, Cardinals, Rays, Cubs, Reds, Nationals, Indians, Phillies, Royals, Giants, Marlins
Teams that enter 2021 without faith and hope: Rangers, Pirates, Rockies, Orioles, Tigers, Diamondbacks, Mariners
Conclusion: 76.67% of MLB teams have faith and hope of contending in 2021.
Arguable teams:
- The Royals have a 8.9% chance at making the playoffs, with a 78 win projection. As a team that very clearly worked to get better in the offseason and could make further additions at the trade deadline, they belong in the contender category.
- With a 5.2% chance at the playoffs and a 76 win projection, the Giants are a tough one. With the Dodgers and Padres in their division, their playoff chances rest almost entirely on grabbing one of the NL’s two Wild Card spots. Their offseason involved some decent veteran contracts, including an accepted qualifying offer for Kevin Gausman and almost $42MM in additional commitments. I’d say there’s some faith and hope for their fanbase this year.
- The Mariners have a projected 2.7% shot at the playoffs and a 74 win projection. It wasn’t a particularly aggressive offseason, and one of their bigger acquisitions, Ken Giles, won’t pitch this year. They did add James Paxton, Rafael Montero, and various smaller pickups. This isn’t a playoff caliber team and I sense that they’ll truly go for it in 2022, so I am going to nudge them into the non-contender category.
- The Diamondbacks have a 1.6% chance at the playoffs and a 72 win projection, and like the Giants they’re hurt by the division they’re in. It’s a fairly veteran club, and Baseball Prospectus has them better than the Giants. But with a significant payroll cut and a quiet offseason, this doesn’t seem like a team with playoff aspirations. Arbitrary as it may be, I’m putting them in the non-contender category.
- The Marlins have just a 1.3% chance at the playoffs, per FanGraphs, with a 71 win projection. Baseball Prospectus says 70. This club made the playoffs in 2020 with a season that extrapolated to about 84 wins. They would have just missed the postseason if not for the expanded format. The club’s quiet offseason doesn’t tip the scales much. The Marlins did pick up Starling Marte’s option and didn’t lose anyone too significant. This one could go either way, but based on last year I have to lean toward the contender category even if the projection systems call for major regression.
As a lifelong Giants fan, I have faint to no hope for 2020. If they start the year on a year, maybe they can compete. Otherwise, I am watching MiLB
Good for you, have your fun watching the minors in a year where the Giants have put together their most exciting team since 2016.
It will be exciting insomuch as you’ll get to watch the Dodgers and Pads quite a lot in 2021…
In all seriousness, it will be exciting in that you’ll show progress and could be a .500 team. SF will at least be able to play the Dbacks and the Rockies in their division.
“Most exciting team since 2016” doesn’t speak volumes like you think it does
It would have been exciting to see the Giants trade their large slate of aging but still useful stars on expiring contracts, juice their farm system, and have a quick rebuild.
What the Giants are doing by holding on is nonsensical.
You have obviously missed the obvious: Any team—not just SF—CAN’T “trade their large slate of aging but still useful [YOUR WORDS] stars.” Look at the dollars still on those contracts and let me know who is going to “juice their farm system” in return.
What on earth could they have gotten for Belt or Crawford or Longoria or Cueto or Samardzija in 2019 or 2020? I see the logic in jettisoning veterans for minor leaguers, but it’s revisionist history to suddenly claim that the Giants could have gotten anything legitimate in return.
Best case scenario was likely covering every cent (minus the league minimum) in exchange for lottery tickets in the low minors. When you’ve got tickets and merch to sell, as well as trying to keep eyes on the TV, a tear-down for pennies on the dollar isn’t always the best route… especially when the return is negligible.
If they could have gotten a legitimate return for two months of Will Smith in 2019, I’m confident they would have risked their small playoff hopes to reap some genuine value. If they could have gotten a blue chip prospect for Bumgarner, I’m confident they would have shipped him off in 2019. But the rumors were lukewarm at best. They had the money to give him a “retire with SF” deal but they chose not to get in a bidding war.
To think that the fact that fairly useful veterans can be saddled with years of $15-20M annual deals and get anything other than a 22-year-old in A-ball and $2M in savings is silly in most contexts
The way a team makes that happen is to pay down a big part of their contracts. That’s how a team gets another team to take on those contracts and how they get something in return for them. Costly, but not uncommon, and certainly not complicated. Also kind of obvious, obviously.
BlueSkies_LA – Even if you aren’t persuaded by my comment or Cainer18’s comment, the Giants couldn’t get the value they needed to “pay down” those contracts . . . or they would have.
What do you mean by the value they needed? The point is these contracts could be made attractive either by paying them down substantially or by taking on nonperforming contracts in trade. Doing these kinds of trades is really only a matter of whether the team is prepared to rip off the bandaid. I don’t understand why is this so controversial, since it happens all the time. Presumably the Giants haven’t done it so far because they haven’t wanted to take the financial hit and don’t want to be seen by their fans as going into rebuild mode.
The logic you’re giving is sound in theory, but that doesn’t mean it’s some dogmatic automatic move a team has to make every time. It’s a juggling act of keeping fans happy, maintaining the most competitive team you can, making money, and boosting the farm.
For what little return any of their veterans not named Bumgarner, Smith — or the bullpens guys they did trade (Dyson, Melancon, Pomeranz, etc) — would yield, let’s think how those considerations would be affected: the fans, still fat and happy from three titles, would be pissed; the on-field product would suffer; they’d save a little money initially but likely lose out on much more via ticket sales, merch, and local sponsorships (Belt and Crawford are all over the radio and local TV); their farm would likely not be affected unless one of those lottery ticket low-A prospects defied expectations. (On that last point, teams like the Rays and Royals sort of have to take those lottery gambles because of their lack of resources… they have to get lucky with small margins of error in order to be consistently competitive, but the Giants have deep pockets and fans that show up… they can afford to find success through means some teams simply can’t)
I respect the Giants for not tanking (and they’ve been beefing up the farm and flirting with .500-ball in the process). I don’t doubt they would have pulled the trigger on trades that genuinely help them boost the minors and/or swap bad contracts for a player who better fits the roster. But when you have a big payroll and a hungry fan base that’s gotten used to winning after decades of falling short, it makes less sense for them to eject everyone just because they won’t compete and they’re overpaid veterans.
There’s such a thing as nuance. Just because bad-contract swaps and eating contracts for modest returns are things that happen in general, it doesn’t mean it made sense for the Giants to do so in this precise situation.
I think that Giants fans have hope for 2021 knowing that the team will not be terrible but also knowing that the team isn’t competing.
Exactly, expectations are low to begin with but there isn’t a barren of talent either. Mike Yastrzemski, Donovan Solano, Austin Slater are all quality players and Logan Webb is raising lots of eyebrows in ST.
Heliot Ramos calling on line two…”I’ll be there by summer, let me just destroy AAA pitchers for a couple more months”
Also not hearing that “Bart is a bust” talk anymore
Offense shouldn’t be a problem
If (big if) the pitching can hold up, they’re gonna surprise some people
Look, I get it we have the Padres and Dodgers in our division but look at our success last year. I do have hope that this team will do better than any SFG roster since 2016
Sorry but your name is forcing a reply. Rose banned himself from the hall and only wants to join the club for the marketing ($$) benefits normally associated with it. His on field abilities need not be defended. He could have ruined players by his managing based on his gambling. He also continued to lie and deceive trying to cover up his gambling. He’s the last one who should be enshrined if character is a consideration.
I do look forward to seeing Cueto shimmy. Nothing quite like it in the game today.
I think the Giants will be entertaining again this year—because of their offense. But I don’t expect them to contend, not only because of the division, but also because of the rotation. But on the “hopeful” barometer, I’m quite high because I see this team getting better and better under Farhan. Faster than I thought, though we have a long way to go to catch LA & SD.
Can I get a paycheck putting out this type of nonsense?
Seriously, its already been well established that half the league was tanking in 2019.
I hope the players address how teams spend money, if you want to fold your tents, great, but you’re still spending $100m.
Players have to buck up, get rid of Tony Clark and bring someone in with zero baseball experience.
Owners will continue if players don’t slam the gavel with the leverage they have regarding the CBA.
What leverage do players have? A majority of players do not make hundreds of millions of dollars. They can’t afford to strike for 2 or 3 years and not get a paycheck.
If owners really want to push it, they can get exactly what they want.
If you believe 15 MLB teams had no reasonable chance at making the playoffs prior to the 2019…prove it. Should be easy since it was “well established.”
Agreed! He seems to have pulled that figure out of thin air.
For the record, if I were a Mariners, tigers, or d-backs fan, I’d be pretty excited to see some young players come up as the season progresses. The AL west is so wide open that explosive performances from youngsters could put them on the map for the division title
I count 14 teams off the top of my head that stood no chance in 2019. And two more were considered but I generously left them off the list of no chance. Everyone has an opinion.
There’s a very large difference between everyone has an opinion vs something is well established fact
Very large
‘Hope and Faith’ is slang for Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis, a well established theory on fan values. The greater the uncertainty in who will win, the greater the value (over simplified). Typically viewed on single game basis, makes sense to view on single season basis, not sure if replicates perfectly.
There are a slew of great peer reviewed papers that could shed a lot more light on how others could/may interpret what Selig meant by ‘Hope and Faith’ – I, apparently along with others on here, personally see what he meant as different than how it’s presented here. It’s a good thing to hear differing viewpoints, so thanks.
See Norm O’Reilly’s NHL revenue factors paper for more insight (title is slipping me).
If you referring to “Revenue generation in professional sport: A diagnostic analysis” (2006), please leave. You belong with more intelligent debaters.
I really think Bud just meant the teams had hope and faith of making the playoffs. I suppose I could re-read his biography, but that would involve re-reading his biography.
I still have faith and hope for my team, but it’s for different reasons other than winning.
I would argue that the Mariners should be on the faith and hope list. Their youth movement (Lewis, Kelenic, Rodriguez, etc.) along with the weakening ‘Stros & A’s and a perpetually injured and underachieving Angels squad gives the M’s at least a shot at the division. If nothing else, Seattle fans have hope in their young players for the first time since Griffey Jr. and A-Rod…
I think that the Mariners are improving for sure. However, I don’t see the A’s “weakening’ and the Astros still have lots of talent. The team hardest to predict is LAA. If Ohtani really and truly stay healthy then he can keep them in the hunt.
The A’s lost Semien in FA and Matt Chapman’s coming off a major hip injury. I think they’ll still be a solid club in the thick of the division race, but they’ll probably have some growing pains as well.
I have never commented here before, because I never felt the need to until today. Tim, how can you say the Mariners don’t qualify for the Hope and Faith division? Hope and faith is much more than a projection on FanGraphs. True M’s fans have more hope and faith than we’ve realistically had for years. Maybe I am misunderstanding the point here, but I have hope they’ll be quite competitive while continuing to develop their highly regarded young prospects, and I have faith in Jerry and the baseball ops side. I think there is legitimate hope they can win more than 70 games and finish ahead of the Angels and Rangers.
I really think either way is arguable for the Mariners. I don’t view projections as the end-all, which is why I put the Marlins as contenders, but the Mariners are short of a 2021 contender for me.
You can spend all day adding asterisks to what happened in 2020, but I do think it’s fair to say that anyone who made the playoffs a year ago has at least some hope going into the following season, barring a fire sale or something.
I have faith and hope the Royals will be playing .500 ball and be relevant well into August. Really looking ahead to 2022, though.
I have faith and hope that this article won’t be one of those that is put at the top of the feed every couple of days. I probably shouldn’t though.
I have faith in the Indians front office to keep the team competitive, and hope that Rob Manfred will retire or quit before he destroys the glorious game of baseball.
Lol @ the Royals as contenders
I agree lol
Sox hopes took a hard hit today with Eloy going down.
Eloy is just one player. They still have a good shot.
One player is true but the best hitter going down is a hard hit. Sox didn’t come prepared for a hit like this and they should have at least been better prepared. The bench is good and deep until it has to play. Good shot with Eloy, just a shot without him.
@PeteWard8 the White Sox are (and were) not the reason the Royals aren’t going to contend in 2021.
@jimthegoat- what are you telling me for? my comment has nothing to do with yours.
@PeteWard8 I thought you were implying that Eloy going down for the season meant the Royals had a chance. The Royals aren’t non-contenders because Eloy is out for the season. They are non-contenders because they suck.
@jimthegoat- Sorry man I just picked a random spot to land. Sorry the confusion.
i dunno. that team loaded with sleeper rebound candidates and young talent about to emerge. may take some luck from the rest of the divison, but the Twins are mortal and the Indians have taken steps back. i dont think WC2 is out of the question.
@DarkSide830 even if we assume that the Indians drop off (which, with that rotation I think they still finish ahead of the Royals) the Royals would still have to win 90 games for WC2. They were on pace for 70 wins in 2020. Are you trying to tell us that the Royals’ additions this offseason will win them 20 extra games?
Doesn’t matter if my team has faith & hope because NL Baseball & Baseball was ruined! extra innings runner,dh and so on!
There’s a real chance I’m done!
At best,this might be my last season.
“he who is resistant to change us destined to perish”
– Confucius
“…as is he who is open to change, evidently.”
–Confucius’ ghost
“Pizza should be eaten folded over in the middle.”
— Eastern Wisdom
“Hot but not so hot it burns the roof of your mouth.”
— Followup Eastern Wisdom
to be fair, the poster just expressed that they are resistant to said rules, not any and all changes.
OK Boomer
Aussie Rules Football will certainly cure your sports fix over the summer. I’m a Port Adelaide man, myself. And BTW, you don’t “root” for your fav footy club, you “barrack” for them (consult an Aussie slang dictionary and you’ll get it).
/S
Six months in Australia taught me I have only one “rooting” interest – my wife.
most of that stuff isnt coming back this year but okay
travelin’ man – bye bye. Your moniker is misleading.
Actually, 76 % isn’t too bad. Even in the NFL, the league of the infamous “On any given Sunday” mantra, I doubt fans in Jacksonville or NY (both teams) and Carolina, and others, have much faith and hope.
its funny how you don’t see as many people complaining about teams tanking all the time now. probably because people realize its a natural cycle and is one of the best ways a cheap team can contend from time to time. in theory 30 contenders would water down the talent and make most fans only think their clubs had a 1-30 shot any year. that probably isnt too hot for retaining fans.
There used to be a certain joy if a player on your team won a batting title or lead the league in wins, but the modern sabermetrics have squashed that like a bug. So all that’s left is rooting against the yankees. I have faith and hope that some team will squash them like a bug.
You can still take joy in these things. Research simply has taught us they’re not as well correlated with success as we used to think.
Dodgers, too, make for very good squashing.
I don’t have faith that the Angels added enough good relievers. I have hope they can contend in the weaker AL West this season. None of the five teams in the AL West will have a dominant pitching staff. Sorry A’s fans, as much as you want to pretend that losing your dominate closer isn’t going to hurt you, it will. Yes you do have a better Bullpen on paper than the Angels. The Astros will have two quality starters and a bunch of question marks. The Mariners don’t have a deep enough lineup to contend, when their pitching gives up more than 3 runs. The Rangers will be trying to get the 1 pick in 2022.
M’s > Angels
Rosenthal’s WAR was within 0.1 of Liam. Don’t get me wrong. If I had my choice I’d want Liam, but Trevor’s a really good consolation prize. On paper, the dropoff will be minimal.
The A’s should once again win between 95 – 100 games in the regular season. What remains to be seen is if A’s starting pitching can actually carry the team through a tough postseason, which they’ve yet to do.
@Rangers29, the M’s bullpen will be worse than the Angels Bullpen. Marco Gonzalez is the only reason I give the edge to the M’s starting staff.
@Demon389 Rosenthal has had one good season in the past 6 seasons. Can he repeat it? That’s a better question. Liam had 1 blown save. Over a regular baseball season, that would have been 3. Rosenthal isn’t going to come close to that performance. Elvis is one of the worst defensive SS in the majors. Combine that with the fact he can’t hit. The A’s had a few players have career years last year, can they repeat that?
I agree with you about Elvis, but I think the bullpen is actually stronger this year than last year, even without Hendricks. Our starters go nine deep. Career years last year? Nobody hit last year. I am expecting a much better season from both of the Marks, and now that Jed is back to play second base, I think our only question shortstop.
Isn’t the challenge with the M’s that their pitching is pretty thin/unproven? Would love your thoughts…. I do think that they are the ‘wildcard’ of the division. They could take a collective leap and come in third, or still suffer through some lumps. I do like their potential, but not buying just yet. That said, I think i’d group them in the “hope” bracket simply because your fanbase deserves something to cheer about (and this is from a division rival fan!).
It’s good to have confessed to the somewhat arbitrary nature of these evaluations, which is kind of apparent when a team with a 1.3% chance of making the playoffs is considered a hoper and two teams with a better odds are graded as no-hopers. These probabilities include any aggressiveness or lack thereof by the teams in making changes from last year, so it feels specious to effectively double-count what they’ve done or failed to do to improve their rosters. If you simply applied the “playoff caliber” standard you used for the Mariners to the others, a lot more teams would fall into the no-hope category. Maybe you’re trying to credit intentions, but we know what intensions are worth in baseball.
I think intentions matter a lot, because they influence how aggressively the team will promote prospects and make trade deadline additions, which of course is not accounted for in FG projections.
Point taken, but I still think intention isn’t a very bankable concept. Maybe this isn’t precisely what you meant by it, but it seems to me you’re saying any team that doesn’t implement an obvious tanking strategy can be seen as offering their fans real hope. I’m not persuaded the teams posting the longest of long shots are doing more than marking time and trying to avoid alienating their fan bases.
MLB’s formula is to have 8-10 Harlem Globetrotters and 20-22 Washington Generals.
For the most part, it makes sense.
The league, it’s media partners and the majority of it’s fans (Yankees probably have more fans than the 6 smallest markets combined) benefit when the large market teams compete each year.
And then every year, one or two of the small market teams opens a narrow window and is competitive and the people who benefit from the system use it as proof of fairness and an even playing field.
Well, and it’s kind of always been like that even with 16 teams before 1960. You have to cater to the spoiled rotten fans by giving them a good team every year and throw a bone to the not-haves by giving them a year or two to cling to in their memories until they finally grow weary. Funny how people complain about Trout not getting to the postseason. There’s a long line of greats who got none or one or two tastes and that’s it. And so it goes. The more things change …
@for whom
I think there’s truth in your assessment, but you’d have to say more to convince me that it really makes sense for MLB to continue to be structured this way, as its future unfolds.
Thanks for your take.
I dunno, a league with 30 Globetrotters would be cool. i think their B team was at one if our school functions. they’re a treat to be sure.
more like don’t look in the other hand… being ” competitive ” for the sake of being able to claim you are ” competitive is a lie… in sports.. all teams and players should aspire to winning .. that is the point of sports isn’t it.. throwing everything out on the filed is done by the players.. the owners need to do that financially… its why we publicly fund stadiums.. those promises to spend on the team… not increase their profit margins or increase the value of the team.. to spend that cash we as the public entrusted them with to make winning teams..