HALFWAY POINT: SHOULD YOUR TEAM BUY OR SELL?

Should your team make that trade to acquire the missing piece that puts them over the top? Or should your team trade away the pitcher who is in the last year of his contract? These are the types of questions GM's around the league are asking themselves. Jonah Keri of the Wall Street Journal helps us consider exactly those questions and more in his article below.


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Time to Buy or Sell? Recent History Offers Help
By JONAH KERI

With the Major League Baseball season just past its halfway point, many general managers face a difficult decision: Do I make the deal that will potentially turn the season around or do I start planning for next year? Recent history offers perspective for the 30 men who face this dilemma.
Associated Press

By scanning each team’s place in the standings at the All-Star break—going back to 1995, the first full season of three-division play and the wild card—each team’s likelihood of making the postseason becomes more clear. Teams leading their division, or tied for the division lead, went on to make the playoffs (winning their division or the wild card) 69% of the time, which makes the decisions of these clubs easy. The same goes for teams 8.5 games or more behind the division leader at the break: They made the playoffs just 3.8% of the time.

The area in between is where ballclubs face a tougher decision on whether to become buyers or sellers. Teams 5.5 to 8 games out of first place in their division made the playoffs 13.3% of the time—long, but not impossible odds. True striking distance appears to start just above that level. Teams 2.5 to 5 games out of first made the postseason 47% of the time.

Granted, the wild card spot throws a wrench into these numbers. The San Francisco Giants, who were trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers by 7.5 games through Sunday, still have a very good shot of playing meaningful baseball in October. Since 2005, only one team out of 13 has made the playoffs after being 7.5 games at the break, but the Giants have a slight edge in the wild card standings with a 44-37 record.

But since the 2009 season is shaping up as a year rife with parity, most GMs’ decisions become that much tougher. Middling squads like the Mets, Braves, Reds, Astros, White Sox and Mariners are still in the thick of the race due to division leaders’ inability to break away. Add it all up and we could see a busier than usual trade season.

Link to article.