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Parity: The Only Thing Money Can't Buy You're more likely to see a stathead quote RBI than parity in MLB anytime soon... 01/30/04 Phil Orr Let me preface this by saying I'm sorry I missed last week's article. If I had have written something, it would have been crap. And why waste your time with gibberish? I did however have the time to make this animation. It should provide some comic relief to the rest of my article for those who thought my humour piece two weeks ago was one of my finer ones. Anyway, lately I've been seeing a lot of people claim that the parity and financial structure of MLB isn't actually that bad. ESPN even wrote an article about it yesterday (Lousy being stuck writing on a Friday... they beat me to the punch.) The good thing about me being a day late is I have ammunition to go after some arguments here. I think I'll start by picking apart the ESPN article, trying to focus more on the baseball aspect than the NFL aspect. The main thing you have to wonder is... why do they only focus on the NL? Perhaps we should look at baseball as a whole if we're really trying to compare the sports. Point one: "Since 1998, covering the last six World Series, the National League has had six different representatives (pennant winners).". Very true, Mr. McAdam. However, consider that a lot of luck goes
into making it into the world series. Even if a team has a 60% chance
of winning each round, they only have a 36% chance of making the World
Series. Beyond that, the National League is seldom referenced when
people talk about the problems in baseball. Consider the following
table
It no longer looks quite so NFLish. MLB in this sense compares favourably to the NBA and NHL regarding championship teams, and the NFL comes out ahead. Looking at the NL would be the easy way to prove a point of parity, but when those screaming for a salary cap point to the Yankees as the reason, when the Yankees reach 5 of the last 6 World Series, it doesn't exactly disprove their point. Point two: "Over the last 10 World Series, the National League has been represented by seven different teams. Put another way, almost half of NL teams have visited the World Series in the last 10 Fall Classics." 10 World Series? Dating back a way, isn't it? a decade ago the Yankees
payroll was $41,305,000. And get this... it wasn't even first! The
World Series champion Blue Jays had a payroll of $45,747,666. Salaries
were still under control. Since then, the top salary has risen to
$152,749,814. For those of you keeping score, that's an increase of
3.34X the top salary only ten years ago. For those of you who aren't
economics majors, let me assure you that inflation does not account
for this difference. So as well as dating back to when salaries were
under control to make this observation, the author leaves himself
open for an obvious rebuttal. If we're talking about parity, the goal
is to give all teams an equal chance. Take a look at these numbers
Wow. It almost looks like we may have parity here. Let's look at the last three years more in depth, shall we?
Suddenly, it doesn't seem so fair to everyone. Anyway, the article goes on and on, failing to mention the reason why people deem MLB's structure to be unfair. Or for that matter, how the team who is dominating everyone in payroll also happens to have made the playoffs every year since the adaptation of the wildcard. So let me deviate from the article, if I may, and go about this the way I had intended. First off, many people justify the current structure with basically "It can't be too bad if the Marlins and Angels won. That shows that money doesn't matter!" Admittedly, this is the extreme. Many simply take it to "You don't need money to win" which is obviously true. You can field the cheapest team in major league history and still have a slim chance at winning. It doesn't mean it's good. Now, as already demonstrated, money DOES help. In the playoffs, it's those with the money who for the most part make it. The main reason teams such as Oakland can continue to make the playoffs is quite simply what moneyball references. General stupidity on the part of the rest of baseball. If teams like the Mets who just burn money without considering the practical applications of where to spend it had a GM who knew what he was doing, Oakland's chances would be drastically reduced. The first such team to have money AND a smart GM is Boston. It'll be interesting to monitor how a sabermetrically-oriented GM with wads of cash can work. They have the best of both worlds. The advantage to an Oakland type organization is the ability to find cheap talent, and develop your own from players other teams overlook. The advantages of a Yankee organization is to be able to resign the talent you do develop, and buy up the rest of the league while you're at it. Boston now has the ability to develop lots of good talent and keep that talent, something which has yet to be seen due to the relatively modern era of sabermetrics. Yankee fans often point out that money doesn't matter cause they developed Jeter, Soriano, Williams, Posada, etc. Few recognize that if Oakland developed these players, they wouldn't be able to spend their career on the team. It's great that the Yankees developed Jeter. But could any other team have paid him $19 million to stay with them? The small-market teams that are currently making the playoffs will not for long. Teams such as Anaheim and Florida will not be able to keep their talent base, and even the almighty Oakland will fall once (if?) more teams start catching onto their philosophy. Brains will win over cash, I will concede that. But sooner or later the rest of baseball will smarten up, and money will be all that's left separating the teams. I finally got my Season's Pass for the Jays this year, so if you want to find me during the baseball season to commend me or throw a pretzel at me, I'll be the one in Skydome wearing the ballparkanalysis.com merchandise. Well, Thomas will too. But based on sales thusfar it won't be anyone else. phil.orr@ballparkanalysis.com is the address to reach me at. Feel free to send me sign ideas for the upcoming baseball season. Last year we got on TV with our "Vote Greg 'Crash' Myers X.XXX OPS" where we updated the OPS after every AB. I doubt we'll top that sign, but I'm open for suggestions.
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©Copyright 2003
Phil Orr
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