Earlier this week, Orioles owner David Rubenstein spoke with NPR and discussed his thoughts on the future of the franchise. “Success means you win a championship”, Rubenstein said. That’s all well and good, but it’s a lot easier said than done.
During the interview, Rubenstein, who is 75 years old, said “I’ve got to speed up the effort to get to a World Series a lot sooner than maybe some younger owners would”. Rubenstein did acknowledge the level of difficulty in reaching the World Series and mentioned the fact that he wants to give Mike Elias and his staff every possible resource to take the team to the promised land. Unfortunately for fans, getting to the World Series and winning it have a lot more to due with luck than talent these days.
One result of MLB’s expanded playoff system is that regular season results no longer correlate well with postseason success. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has even come out and explicitly said that he likes the expanded playoffs because they prevent the best teams from winning more frequently…