Gammons on Young Teams

"Dave Studenmund has a great piece in this year's Hardball Times Annual about how the game is getting younger. Studenmund points out that the decline in average age between 2007 and 2008 was the largest in major league history and that 24 of the 30 teams got younger between 2007 and 2008. The Twins were the youngest team in the major leagues at 25.5, and won 88 games -- one fewer than the New York Mets -- without the great Johan Santana."

"The Yankees are going to be really good, but as Joe Posnanski points out, for all the talk of a salary cap, only twice in the past 30 years has a team won the World Series with a $100 million payroll: the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox.
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"In those 30 years, 20 different teams have won World Series titles, and it would likely be 21 without the 1994 strike that cost the sport's best team -- the Montreal Expos -- a chance to win it all. In those 30 years, 14 different teams have won the Super Bowl, 13 have won the Stanley Cup, nine have won the NBA championship."

The Mets Police at www.metspolice.com