My favorite theory of what drives complacency: "regret avoidance."
Quote:
“It is an irony of the post-Enlightenment world,” they conclude, “that so many people who don’t believe in fate refuse to tempt it.” The psychologists first identified this reluctance last year by reconsidering a well-known superstition about lottery tickets. Experimenters had repeatedly found that once people were given a lottery ticket, they would refuse to trade it for another ticket despite being offered a cash bonus and reassured that the other ticket was just as likely to win.
This superstitious behavior had been explained with the theory of “anticipated regret”: Even though the people realized the odds were no different for any ticket, they anticipated feeling especially stupid if they traded away a winner, so they held on to their ticket just to avoid that regret.
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Read the whole article. I find stuff like this fascinating.
Travel Insurance - Magical Thinking - Appeasing the Gods, With Insurance - John Tierney - New York Times
When I think about the state of baseball, I can only think of one GM who seems to be so coldly analytical that he exhibits zero "regret anticipation."
Kevin Towers in San Diego. Maybe Billy Beane, too, but Towers seems to take it to a new level. Almost a Heltonfan-ian level.
O'Dowd, on the other hand, is probably pretty typical. He'll hold onto his Choos and Jaysons and Jeff (Bakers) till the bitter end of their prospect status. Really, it would've made perfect sense in, say, the post-2006 offseason to swap an aging prospect who's out of options like Baker to a young team with an immediate need for a third baseman in exchange for a lower level prospect. Then you wouldn't have to worry about carving out roster space for a guy who's out of options but is blocked at his position from above (Atkins) and below (Stewart). You take your out-of-options/no space on the roster 1-in-5 shot of being a solid roleplayer 25 year old and swap him for someone else's 18 year old 1-in-40 shot of being a star.
But what if Baker becomes an All Star for somebody else? I can't possibly trade my lottery ticket for someone else's, even if you sweeten the deal with 20 bucks!