Well, normally I'd think tanking, but if he is, he's not doing a very good job of it. Add to that the fact that several of his better prospects weren't #1 overall picks, I'd say there must be other owners losing more than he is in the league, so you can't call him out on it.

Assuming he's not half-assing it (bad, but in a different way), that has to be tanking.

Nobody can manage a team properly (that is, not half-assing it by checking in twice a week, or something) and be that bad, so consistently, by accident.

check out those major league coaches!

He had a 3rd overall pick the last two seasons, 4th overall before that and 10 overall before that. I'm just not seeing how a properly managed team could continue to spiral further down the crapper. Currently he has 20 guys on his ML roster (FA just ended with spring training starting tomorrow), he's only spending $41.4M of his $75M player payroll. With that much free cash, how do you not go after some good FAs, especially when your team obviously needs the help and you do not have a full roster? My guess is that he is looking to save a bunch of salary space either to transfer over to prospect payroll for a big IFA signing down the road or to catch people wanting to offload bloated salaries. Just seems like a terrible way to run a franchise (if unintentional) or blatant tanking.

and yeah, that's what happens when you have a pathetic $9M coaching budget. Obviously there are many different strategies and ideas on the best way to run a franchise, but sacrificing on coaching can't be at the top of the list. The league average in our world is $12M and only 9 teams are below that mark.

and yes, Doc Osborne could be the best 1B coach ever

The only rteason to tank would be to everntually put out a great young team. 7 seasons in a row is too long - this is clearly just plain awful.

Season 9 1st round is in the majors, 10 and 11 are in AAA, 12 is in HiA and 13 is at LoA. He also has some IFAs in the mix too at the various levels about the same age.

My theory is that he's tanking it to get good draft picks and intentionally keeping "spent" salary well below his player payroll so that transfers can be made to prospects for the IFA signings.

And he's had some success in the early years so it just doesn't make sense, unless its tanking in which case it makes a lot of sense.

I'd guess that he is not very good or in a division with teams that are overly stacked through trade rape and feels the need.

Actually his division is one of the worst divisions so he should have a decent shot of doing well if committed to that task

The first couple years everybody has some talent at the ML level. Him starting out ok could be completely coincidental. I didn't see a team loaded with prospects, I see a team with bad management. I didn't see any superstar IFAs (though obviously can't see projections) either. If he was tanking, he wouldn't be letting prospects go in the Rule 5 draft either.

What's the difference? Tanking or awful, he's bad for the world.

It appears he's not monitoring his pitching staff, in S13 he had a relief pitcher make 14 starts, ended with a 13+ ERA. Most of his pitching stats from that season just look like pitchers are fatigued.

Whats the point tanking that many seasons?

What's the point in tanking at all?