I don't know if that was the original intent of capitalism, but I am convinced that is the end result. Not all companies think that way, but I think the big corporations do.
The idea that everything in the Bible is correct when there is so little proof takes an incredible amount of faith. I can not accept that without evidence and it stuns how many people accept it so easily. However, the idea that there is no reason for our existence is really depressing to me. One can say "Why should we even bother to try to do anything with our lives if God controls everything?" On the other hand, why should we try to do aything with our lives if our existence is meaningless? The latter seems more dangerous to me. I am most comfortable in my belief that people all over the world are connected in some way and that we should be kind to and respectful of one another and try to make the world a better place for all. That takes a lot of faith in itself, and I don't know how we became connected nor think it's possible for me to know without some kind of revelation. It's just my way of making sense of everything.
I don't know, but a 100-loss season should be a rare event for any respectable franchise. It should only be the result of everything just going wrong for a season. It shouldn't be because teams didn't try to put together a decent roster.
You can't compare playoff appearances and new champions before and after the start of the draft because they didn't have playoffs prior to the draft. They just took the winner in each league and had a World Series.
As for you other point, I think all teams should try to be competitive every year. Constant tear downs and re-building are not good for the game. I don't even think they are more effective for individual teams long-term.
Is there evidence that baseball is now more competitive than it was before? Has the variance of win totals decreased for example?
I don't care if the owners make money or not, but they fall all over themselves spending hundreds of millions on free agents. Good thing they suppressed the salaries of the younger players with the draft.
Has the distribution of talent objectively changed? There is still a huge difference between the haves and have nots each year. Every year, a bunch of teams loses more than 100 games. They've got almost half the teams in the playoffs every year and a quarter of the teams are still done by the all-star break.
The drama off the MLB draft is mostly fabricated because it usually takes years for the players to make it, if they make it all. It's not like the NBA and NFL.
MLB is raking in the dough though, so it's all good.
I think it's higly unlikely that any professional athlete would fake anxiety so they could take two years off. These are some the most competitive people in the world and it probably kills them to have to take any time off. Anything is possible I guess, but it seems pretty far fetched. I believe the Tigers would be happy for him if he recovered over the winter and was able to play again.
I think the biblical stories are fairy tales, but I believe that many religions promote love and kindness and other good things as fundamentals. The problem is that too many people exploit it and too many buy into their negative persuasions.
It's more humor than criticism. I think most people here realize that taking a shot at possible hidden gems is a good thing even if most of them don't amount to much.