NL Parity

by Shomov on Sep 1, 2007 10:13 PM EDT Comment 17 comments

Miraculously, the Mets with a winning percentage of .552 are tied with the San Diego Padres for the best record in the National League. On the other side of the tracks, Washington and Florida are tied for last in the league with .430 winning percentages. Do the math and you will see that only 122 percentage points seperate the best teams in the league from the worst. I have looked at the standings in the NL for every year from 1977 until the present and I have found that this is the smallest range of winning percentages in the past thirty years. The only year that comes close is 1983 when 142 percentage points sperated the Dodgers and the Mets.

In addition to demonstrating the lack of a dominant team in the NL this year, I think that the small difference in winning percentages between the best and the worst highlights the difference between baseball and other American sports. For instance, the difference between the best and worst teams in the AFC last season was 750 percentage points.

PS - Who's idea was it to break the the strike shortened 1981 season into two?

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You call it parity

I call it crap. I don't think this is a case of "the little guys catching up to the big guys" I just think everyone kinda stinks. It's a sad state of affairs when it's likely that not one of the clubs likely to make the postseason in the NL could do so in the AL.

by JasonB on Sep 1, 2007 10:57 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No argument here

I didn"t mean to suggest that this was a good (or a bad) development. In fact, parity usually implies pervasive mediocrity (after all you can't finish the season with 16 teams with over 100 wins). Mediority, admittedly, is not very inspiring, but neither is a situation where every pennant race is over in mid August..

I meant to highlight the small sifference between good teams and bad teams, and how the difference only becomes apparent over the coarse of an entire 162 game season.

by Shomov on Sep 2, 2007 8:37 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

A natural result of the wild card

Every thinks they have a shot, so they don't rebuild (much). Everyone thinks they only need to so much get them over the top, so they go with teams with serious holes. Also, not rebuilding much leads to competitive teams with serious holes, as they don't have as many core great players to build around. Hence you get a lot of mediocre teams.

The NL hasn't had a team with better than a .600 winning percentage or worse than a .400 since 2004. This year as a whole will probably end with that being true for neither league, just as it was true in 2000 (and almost happened last year). This is usually an incredibly rare occurance, and the preponderance of it lately I think is very much related to how the wild card has shaped team building. I'm not a fan.

by jalsonmi on Sep 2, 2007 5:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Revenue Sharing

Plays a role here too. The small/mid market teams aren't dumping talent to big market teams at the crazy rate as before. Hence fewer patsies around baseball. The Brewers were a perennially weak team and now they've assembled good talent and look like they will be in a position to keep that talent longer. Even bad teams hold on to guys like Miggy Cabebra too. It speaks to the competitive balance Selig has been working for.

Keep Lastings Milledge Free

by DoctorK16 on Sep 4, 2007 2:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Sure

But doesn't he know it make for less interesting baseball?

I mean, who wouldn't rather see a World Series between two teams with records of 101-61 and 98-64 than two teams with records of 94-68 and 83-79?

But in order for that the league needs patsies.

by jalsonmi on Sep 4, 2007 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

hmm?

The presence of mediocre teams in the World Series is a problem with the expanded 2-round playoffs and the wild card, not with the distribution of talent around the league.

FWIW, I totally agree with you about the wild card cheapening the playoffs (last year really cemented my feelings on this issue). The World Series should not be a place for the luckiest slightly-above-average team that happens to get hot at the right time. But there's only one fix for that -- use the best indicator of team quality (record over a large number of games, i.e. regular-season standings) to determine the teams that get to compete. In a league that doesn't field more than a couple of excellent teams, the wild card allows too many lucky breaks for mediocre teams. But this doesn't have much (that I can see) to do with the "parity" issue.

by anonymous on Sep 4, 2007 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

but the cards

weren't a wild card team. LA was, who were a playoff caliber team IMO, unlike the Cards. What I would do in baseball is basically what the NFL take 6 teams to the playoffs, give the two best division winners bye's to the division series and make the other teams play a best of three. That would eliminate the luck factor and give them more post season games to make money off of.

Keep Lastings Milledge Free

by DoctorK16 on Sep 4, 2007 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

interesting idea

That also could give teams the best incentive to play hard all the way down the stretch, making the games at the end of the season all the more meaningful and exciting.

We've got ourselves a ball club, the Mets of New York town!

by kingcritical on Sep 4, 2007 5:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's happening now

9 of 16 NL teams have a 14% or better chance to make the playoffs.

That means most players are playing hard everyday and practically every game counts.

Compared to weeks 15, 16, and 17 of the NFL playoffs, that's darn good.

by citimetro on Sep 4, 2007 9:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

what I had in mind...

Was a situation such as last year's Mets.

They had the division locked up with a month and a half to go, which to me seemed both good and bad for Mets fans (nice that you have the security, but unfortunate if you have tickets for late September). I'd like to see a real incentive to go for 99 or 100 wins as opposed to just 95.

Of course, another way to accomplish this would be to say that the team with the best record wins homefield throughout the playoffs and WS, as opposed to this stupid All-Star Game thing they are doing now.

We've got ourselves a ball club, the Mets of New York town!

by kingcritical on Sep 5, 2007 9:35 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

wild card?

So the 2002 Angels (99-63) and the 2004 Red Sox (98-64), both of whom finished with the best run differential in the AL, "cheapened" the playoffs, but last year's Cardinals didn't because they won the division? Huh?

Looking back over the past decade plus of the wild card format, I see few embarrasing wild card winners, and a number of very good teams (like, er, the 1999 Mets). What I do see is a bunch of embarrasing division winners, like the Padres in 2005, the Cardinals last year, and whoever the hell wins the NL Central this year.

Every time Mota pitches, a kitten dies. Please think of the kittens!

by Greenpoint Ian on Sep 4, 2007 5:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

point is,

My point's not that the wild-card team is always the worst mediocrity in the playoffs. My point is that the wild-card/3-division format allows too many teams (and hence too many mediocre teams) into the playoffs. I don't care how we pick the teams, MLB does not produce 8 playoff-caliber squads every year (or, really, any year). Since the playoffs are so few games, and any team can get lucky, we have to raise the bar for entry.

by anonymous on Sep 4, 2007 7:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree

Yeah, there's always a team or two that doesn't belong, but said team hadn't made any noise until last season. Other than abolishing divisions and going with the 4 best teams by record (or the 3 best with a bye for the best), I don't see how we're going to solve the problem. Unless Chicago or Milwaukee or (shudder) St. Louis does something like go 20-4 down the stretch, it's going to happen again.

I'm just quick to jump to the wild card's defense, because a lot of dumb sportswriters attack the wild card itself, rather than the wild card system which can often give us a bad division winner, but rarely a bad wild card winner.

Every time Mota pitches, a kitten dies. Please think of the kittens!

by Greenpoint Ian on Sep 4, 2007 9:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

options

In the first place, I disagree that 3+1 is bad. The division sizes are manageable for an unbalanced schedule, promoting rivalries, and the WC prevents a monster 2nd placer from getting unjustly left out.

However, even if a change were desired, the alternatives are limited. Unless redivisioning is a possibility, you can only add WC positions and extra playoffs or a bye round like DocMets described.

It sounds like you want contraction and a return to two divisions with a Pennant Series and a World Series. I have no problem with that, but it's not gonna happen.

by citimetro on Sep 4, 2007 10:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's a bad combination

Having an unbalanced schedule and a wild card is a bad idea--it leads too massively different schedule strengths for teams. It's one thing if you are only competing with other teams in your division for a spot--you all play the same opponents, so schedule strength is only an issue because you can't play, well, you. But is it fair that, say, the Phillies are fighting for a playoff spot with the Padres, Diamondbacks and sort of Dodgers and Rockies--all those teams have to duke it out with each other while the Phillies have to worry just about us, and get to play a lot of games against the Marlins and Nationals? And don't get me started how interleague play screws things up even more. This isn't football. all teams should have the same schedule strength as everyone they're competing with. (Not to mention how all these problems are what led to the atrocious scheduling of this past year)

The solution is one you mentioned: redivisioning. More to the point, expansion by two teams and going with two leagues with four divisions and four teams in each division.

by jalsonmi on Sep 5, 2007 2:03 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Interesting for Whom?

Maybe for us because we A) Have a good team B) Have the resources to acquire and keep talent regardless of the financial model. If you're a Brewers fan I bet it's more interesting that they aren't 20 games out by now.

Keep Lastings Milledge Free

by DoctorK16 on Sep 4, 2007 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

To clarify

I meant parity overall (and not revenue sharing specifically) makes for less interesting baseball and leads to mediocre playoff match-ups. And as I stated, I think the Wild Card is a real cause of parity. Teams all around baseball (and not just here and Boston) would put a lot more resources and thought into team building if they didn't have the fallback plan of the wild card.

It's also true teams in the past made the playoff with records that bad, and either won or nearly won (a certain team from the seventies that played in orange and blue comes to mind). But an '87 Twins or '73 Mets used to be the massive fluke. Now most years it seems at least one team in the 83-87 win range makes the post season and, really, they have no business being there. That's right, I'm looking at you, 2000 Yankees!

by jalsonmi on Sep 5, 2007 2:10 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs