Developed Teams 2011, an intro.

On the Rockies vs. Phillies game on ESPN, the commentators made a point about how Todd Helton has one of the longest active careers having played with only one team. It's been more than 14 years since Helton first picked up a bat and strapped on his first baseman's mit for the Colorado Rockies, and he hasn't put on a different uniform since.

I don't remember who the other players on that list were, but Helton's very impressive career got me thinking about team loyalty. When an organization signs an amateur player and shepherds him to the major leagues, there is a natural bond that forms between the player and the team. Whatever might happen to that player after his debut, there's never any doubt as to which team found that player (whether through the draft or a free agent signing) and made him major league ready - for what team he is a "homegrown" player.

Similarly, if a prospect spends significant time getting "developed" in one team's system and then is traded to another team just prior to his debut, I'd say the bond falls with the "developing" team, rather than the debuting team. Furthermore, the developing team doesn't necessarily have to be the drafting team, if a young player happens to be traded soon after being picked up. There's no set science and a lot of it has to do with feel and instinct.

Now, with that concept of developed teams in mind, imagine a world in which all active players still played with the teams that developed them. No trades, no contracts - just all rosters set up this way for a single season - let's call it this season. What might that look like? Who would have the best teams? Where would the best players be? And which teams have been the best not only at developing the best players, but holding on to them as well?

I have to make a confession: I'd been thinking about this issue even before I heard the ESPN blurb about Todd Helton. Long before, in fact. This idea of homegrown teams goes all the way back to an old baseball periodical I used to read back in the early 2000s. Then they made another appearance in Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups, which I read thoroughly. I've even recreated these "developed teams" in several different points in history using video games as a simulator. (In the past, I've done this experiment with All-Star Baseball 2001 for the N64 and MVP Baseball 2005 for the PS2. You may think I have too much time on my hands? Not so: I just complete the project really really fast.)

I am currently in the process of completing this experiment with current rosters, with the hope of using MLB 11 The Show this time around. As you can imagine, I'm using the default rosters - no reason to get myself HACKZD by downloading roster updates on a compromised network. Concurrently, I will be putting an inordinate amount of weight on preseason rankings rather than tracking each player's progress through the 2011 season.

I'll be posting these developed lineups as I complete them and deem them worthy for publishing. They will be done quickly and in no particular order. I will address and attempt to explain certain ambiguous decisions where the developing team isn't crystal clear. Hopefully, as I hope for every project I do for this blog, it will be fun for me and interesting to read about. Only you, the readers, can be the judges.