Just as I predicted, Melky Cabrera just signed a big contract with the Chicago White Sox. For those who didn't believe me, I told you so! Just kidding. None the less, The White Sox could be serious contenders next season with the signing of Melky, Zach Duke, Adam LaRoche and others. The Twins and Red Sox have also done quite well this off-season, signing some big deals. Cabrera signed a 3 year, 42 million dollar deal, which puts him on a team with lots of potential for the next few years. Free Agency has been good to baseball fans in Chicago, as Jon Lester and Jason Hammel will greatly help the Cubs rotation. Check back soon for more!
The rants and opinions of a fanatic of all sports! Comment away and follow me on Twitter @hoover__26, I love to debate!
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Too Many Basketballs?
For a while now, I have been wondering why the Cleveland Cavaliers haven't done better this year. I mean, they have LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Shawn Marion, Anderson Varejao and Dion Waiters, among others. How could they possibly fail with all these stars? Well, so far they have not really impressed.
Their winning percentage doesn't crack the top ten, and it's even worse than the 7th seed in the west. So, I began to wonder why this was happening. Then, as I was hanging a Johan Santana ornament on my tree, it hit me. The "Too-Much-Talent" effect! What is the "Too-Much-Talent" effect, you ask? It is a theory that talent improvements only lead to performance improvements to a point, where it then has a negative effect. This idea has been supported by multiple studies, but only in dependent sports like basketball and soccer. The theory states that when a team has too many dominant players, they stop focusing on overall team performance and cohesion, and start jostling and competing for individual dominance. This becomes a problem for teams when an increasingly large payroll doesn't translate to a better record, as is generally assumed. That could be the problem with the Cavs, as LeBron wants to take over and be the "king", like he did in Miami and in his first Cleveland stint. Then you have Love, who was used to being the lone great on a generally poor team. The same is true with Irving, who was already in Cleveland before they assembled this mega-team. When you put all of this together, you have a talented yet dysfunctional group that is coming in way under the predictions. So, if there is a scientifically proven talent line that, when crossed, creates a decline in team performance, then could that line be used to better put together rosters? What if, in the not so far off future, owners and GMs are making choices to sign or trade players so they can fill their team's "talent storage" to the max, without overfilling it? It is possible, because the stats that were used in the studies are available to pretty much everyone. Maybe teams like the Spurs, Suns and Mavericks have it right. You can win more games with teamwork than you can stars. Think about that!
Their winning percentage doesn't crack the top ten, and it's even worse than the 7th seed in the west. So, I began to wonder why this was happening. Then, as I was hanging a Johan Santana ornament on my tree, it hit me. The "Too-Much-Talent" effect! What is the "Too-Much-Talent" effect, you ask? It is a theory that talent improvements only lead to performance improvements to a point, where it then has a negative effect. This idea has been supported by multiple studies, but only in dependent sports like basketball and soccer. The theory states that when a team has too many dominant players, they stop focusing on overall team performance and cohesion, and start jostling and competing for individual dominance. This becomes a problem for teams when an increasingly large payroll doesn't translate to a better record, as is generally assumed. That could be the problem with the Cavs, as LeBron wants to take over and be the "king", like he did in Miami and in his first Cleveland stint. Then you have Love, who was used to being the lone great on a generally poor team. The same is true with Irving, who was already in Cleveland before they assembled this mega-team. When you put all of this together, you have a talented yet dysfunctional group that is coming in way under the predictions. So, if there is a scientifically proven talent line that, when crossed, creates a decline in team performance, then could that line be used to better put together rosters? What if, in the not so far off future, owners and GMs are making choices to sign or trade players so they can fill their team's "talent storage" to the max, without overfilling it? It is possible, because the stats that were used in the studies are available to pretty much everyone. Maybe teams like the Spurs, Suns and Mavericks have it right. You can win more games with teamwork than you can stars. Think about that!
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