Parity in baseball?

[BuckyBrewer61]

Mildly interesting article by Jayson Stark

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/jayson-stark/post/_/id/1075/think-nfl-has-greater-parity-than-mlb-well-think-again

 

But, as a small market fan, I get very annoyed when baseball journalists talk about parity in baseball. They also do so by citing the number of different teams that have won the World Series recently. And by that measure, yeah there is some parity, likely more than some perceive. But IMO the reason many different teams win the World Series each year is that the playoffs are a crapshoot, and whether you're best or 10th best, your odds to win the whole thing aren't that wildly different. It's not because all the teams are equally competitive year after year.

 

This perceived lack of parity, at least to me, is not at all the issue I have with baseball as a small market fan. The issue is there is an uneven playing field. At least when the Jaguars go out and lose year after year, they at least know they started with the exact same opportunities to build a team as the Patriots, Seahawks, Packers, etc. They just did it worse. But when it comes to baseball, it takes a lot more to build a winner at a signficant financial disadvantage. Just because one or two low-income teams figure out a way to do it each year, and occasionally do well in the playoffs, does not equal parity.

 

I'd love to see someone make a list of total team salaries over the past 20 years. Then make two more lists of regular season wins and playoff appearances by franchise over that time. I bet good money they'd look pretty similar.

[SoupTown]

Let us say there was no link between salary and win/loss success in MLB teams.

 

Then why would a team pay a $200 mill payroll, when they can get the same results for $50 mill.

 

It really does worry me the mental capability and thinking abilities of the gents that write for ESPN. Actually, we can take this further. One could then assume that anyone, regardless of salary, can research and write rubbish as well as Jayson and the ESPN boys. Therefore, one can ask, why not just go out and get year 8 kids to write for ESPN. Why pay Jayson the big money. In fact, if you research the various blogs around, you will find any old amateur can outdo ESPN. This is because the link between good journalism and rubbish can actually be determined... it is mental capability and thinking abilities. Just like the main link between MLB wins and losses can be deciphered... it is money.

[GAME05]

My biggest issue is how long it takes the small/mid market teams to become playoff contenders compared to the big spenders. GM decisions being equally good/bad, we can be talking 20 years versus 5, not to mention going back every year for a long stretch instead of being a one-and-done. Heck, look what the Dodgers have done. Plus they've got a ton of terrible contracts on that team but it doesn't really matter. Put Adrian Gonzales' contract in Milwaukee and we'd be sunk until the contract is up. Are we supposed to believe that the Dodgers' GM was just really savvy?

 

Selig merely defined parity by looking at playoff teams on a year-to-year basis, and strengthened the argument that only he was making by adding that stupid one-game playoff. But nobody else is really defining parity that way. Between Boston, NYY and Tampa Bay, who really thinks Tampa Bay will be the first of the three to win the Pennant again?

[SoupTown]

Sorry to be rude to Americans (I am one, but transplanted away many decades), but HOW can anyone allow a one game playoff after a 162 game season. It is the dumbest of dumb ideas. The season should be 155 games or so, and let the two wildcards be best of five, then the other series best of 7. 162 games to get to a one game playoff. We should have the superbowl only every 10 years. 10 years of 16 games, then the superbowl. Does that make sense?

[jerichoholicninja]

Sorry to be rude to Americans (I am one, but transplanted away many decades), but HOW can anyone allow a one game playoff after a 162 game season. It is the dumbest of dumb ideas. The season should be 155 games or so, and let the two wildcards be best of five, then the other series best of 7. 162 games to get to a one game playoff. We should have the superbowl only every 10 years. 10 years of 16 games, then the superbowl. Does that make sense?

 

A 1 game playoff between the 4th and 5th "best" team in a league is fine with me. I don't see it as any different than a tiebreaker game (163rd game). In theory it should lessen the chance of wildcard team advancing since they will probably start their best pitcher in the wildcard game leaving their next opponent to start their best pitcher in game 1 and perhaps a second time in the series.

[Point Beer Is Best]

I don't have to even read that article to reach the conclusion that it's garbage, and normally that's an unusual assumption for me to reach. I'm sure Stark probably cited the usual rhetoric of how many different teams have made the playoffs in baseball and probably pointed to the Rays as some sort of example of how it can be done on a limited payroll.

 

You can spend your way out of mistakes in baseball (if your team can afford it, which means small market clubs often avoid the high-risk contracts in the first place). You can't do that in the NFL, often because every team has a fair shake at retaining their own homegrown talent. The elite players almost never, ever reach free agency during their prime years in the NFL.

 

If each league (MLB & NFL) could borrow something from the other, obviously I'd wish there was an increase in revenue sharing and a hard cap in MLB, and maybe borrow the "franchise tag" concept. I'd wish the NFL would adopt guaranteed contracts to curb the fake money (player x signs a 5 year, $100 mil deal that's really a 2 or 3 year deal because years 4 & 5 have a crazy high base salary that you know they'll be cut before that happens). The last CBA in football finally put in the rookie wage scale and has completely eliminated "holdouts" by younger players that had outplayed their contracts, but I still think using an MLB arbitration system for guys on their rookie deals might not be a bad idea.

[Thurston Fluff]

Sorry to be rude to Americans (I am one, but transplanted away many decades), but HOW can anyone allow a one game playoff after a 162 game season. It is the dumbest of dumb ideas. The season should be 155 games or so, and let the two wildcards be best of five, then the other series best of 7. 162 games to get to a one game playoff. We should have the superbowl only every 10 years. 10 years of 16 games, then the superbowl. Does that make sense?

 

A 1 game playoff between the 4th and 5th "best" team in a league is fine with me. I don't see it as any different than a tiebreaker game (163rd game). In theory it should lessen the chance of wildcard team advancing since they will probably start their best pitcher in the wildcard game leaving their next opponent to start their best pitcher in game 1 and perhaps a second time in the series.

 

I love the play in game. It reestablishes the emphases on winning your division while also allowing a good team blocked by a great team a chance. Don't want your season to come down to a single game? Win your division and you don't have to.

[Bombers]

That article is comparing apples to oranges. In football, if you have a top QB, chances are pretty good you get into the playoffs. And if you have a QB who is in the top 5, chances are you will be in the playoffs every single year (Patriots, Packers, Colts, Bronco's, etc)

 

In Baseball, it isn't that simple. You can't just sign a good starter and have that catapult you into the playoffs. You need more than just a good "QB" in baseball. And I get it, the Pats, Hawks, Packers, etc have more than their QB, but lets be honest, the Packers would struggle to be 8-8 with Matt Flynn at the helm. Back to baseball, the one thing you can point to for success in baseball is spending. I have posted (probably ad naseum) but spending DOES make an impact. The impact isn't in "well there are different 'Champions' thus there must be more parity!" No, it goes well beyond that. If you look at the teams who make the playoffs and compare it to their spending, the numbers favor spending. and if you take it step further and you look at who is making the ALCS / NLCS, it gets even worse for the small market teams.

 

See this post:

viewtopic.php?p=869335#p869335

 

Here is what I analyzed from 2008-2013 (6 years, each year containing 4 teams in the championship series games)

Teams ranked in top 10 = 75% of Championship Series teams (18 of 24 teams)

Teams ranked from 11-20 = 17% of Championship Series teams (4 of 24)

Teams ranked from 21-30 = 8% of Championship Series teams (2 of 24)

 

That hardly speaks of "parity" and that "anyone" can win it all. Not even close. Reality says, you need to be in the top 15 in spending, otherwise, your chances are slim.

[Ennder]

Football is far from an even playing field. Players will take less money to go to some teams than others. The structure just works differently. There is a reason the Packers rarely if ever get FA and it is because they have to pay more than the larger market/warm weather teams for the same players.

 

The big difference is the shelf life of players more than anything. An NFL team rolls over almost its entire roster in 5 years. It takes a lot of the Brewers players 5 years just to get their first full season in the majors. You just can't really compare these two sports.

[BuckyBrewer61]

Players will take less money to go to some teams than others.

 

Quick, name the last huge NFL free agent signing. That is, huge star in the prime of his career who's own team, and everyone else, wanted to sign him and he bolted for more money elsewhere. I can't think of one either. Now try the same for baseball - off the top of my head - CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Zach Greinke (yes I know we traded him but of course because the writing was on the wall), Max Scherzer, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano... It really hardly ever happens in football. That's why there are teams that can be consistently good for long periods of team, because you can build a team and keep it together, including keeping your star QB. But the playing field is even from the start, it's up to the teams to build success and maintain it. In baseball it's up and sell to the highest bidder year after year, and oh by the way not everyone can afford to bid the same amount. How is that fair?

[logan82]

The point of course is that NFL players don't switch teams much unless they are 2nd tier free agents to begin with.

[SRB]

The weird thing about MLB is that it should be a complete joke in terms of parity like the English Premier League (where 3-4 just dominate everyone year after year), but the payroll differences are offset by how stupidly large market teams spend their money. If the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers ran things like the Athletics or Rays but with an additional $150M to spend every season, they would never not be in the World Series. The only thing keeping parity somewhat in check is teams' stupidity.

[logan82]

Let's see how the Cubs do the next few years.

[SoupTown]

I like you SRB. If you want to see Keith Law fall into a quivering heap, just send him your sentences: "If the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers ran things like the Athletics or Rays but with an additional $150M to spend every season, they would never not be in the World Series. The only thing keeping parity somewhat in check is teams' stupidity."

 

In my private conversations with him he always simply said 'if the Yankees or Red Sox 'do A or B or C' it is wise, because the Yankees or Red Sox did it'. Some sort of strange circular, fulfillment logic. Yet, he always, always rubbished every Brewer move, because the Brewers 'did it'.

 

So, if A was the exact same event, then

 

A is wise if the Red Sox did it, because the Red Sox doing it makes is wise

the same A is foolish if the Brewers did it, because the Brewers doing it makes it foolish

 

And (sorry to bore, if I wrote this before), but one day I challenged him with some actual signings of model A that were comparable between the Yankees and Brewers - he said the Yankees move was wise and the Brewers move was foolish. And when I pointed out to him that the A was essentially the same in both cases, he then fell back to

 

The A the Yankees did was wise, and the A the Brewers did was foolish, and the logic behind this conclusion is that I (Keith) have an Ivy degree and you dont.

 

I never conversed with him after that.

[jerichoholicninja]

The salary cap helps create parity in the NFL but the two biggest factors are injuries and an only 16 game schedule.

[Ennder]

Players will take less money to go to some teams than others.

 

Quick, name the last huge NFL free agent signing. That is, huge star in the prime of his career who's own team, and everyone else, wanted to sign him and he bolted for more money elsewhere. I can't think of one either. Now try the same for baseball - off the top of my head - CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Zach Greinke (yes I know we traded him but of course because the writing was on the wall), Max Scherzer, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano... It really hardly ever happens in football. That's why there are teams that can be consistently good for long periods of team, because you can build a team and keep it together, including keeping your star QB. But the playing field is even from the start, it's up to the teams to build success and maintain it. In baseball it's up and sell to the highest bidder year after year, and oh by the way not everyone can afford to bid the same amount. How is that fair?

 

The only baseball player you named that remotely fits your description is Scherzer. Every other name you listed were players who the team knew were going to get overpaid and wanted nothing at all to do with them. FA signings in baseball are largely a suckers bet. As for football, the careers are so short, the injuries so high and the impact of a single non QB player is so low that FA just isn't a huge deal overall. The market responds to the game period. In the NFL players take less money to go to the teams that will get the endorsements or a good chance at a ring, it makes it really hard for teams that don't fit those two bills to sign any FA at all. In MLB FA are grossly overpaid and are almost never an efficient use of your money. You are almost always paying for the past and not the future. In the long run parity still exists with both systems.

[brewcrewdue80]

There should not be Parity in Baseball. It's as pointed stupidity that's made it happen. 25man rosters run by the Brewers=4mil per player. Run by the Yanks=8.25mil per player. There is about to be a reckoning in Baseball when it comes to Payroll parity with the Cubs and the Yankees when these International Players make the team while being able to go sign 25-30mil deals if wanted. When the Yanks and Cubs and Rangers for that matter begin adding 4-5Prospects with 2+WAR ability to their teams for less than 1 mil cost in payroll? Now it's 210mil for 20 players. 10.5mil per player to spend. And like I mentioned previously, who can freely offer up QOs left and right? My guess is if Kyle Lohse posted a 3.65ERA or less in 2015 for Milw great. If it were for the Yankees/Red Sox they'd say great here's a QO. Either we get a pick or welcome back to the team for 15/16mil next season. ARam? Same thing. I'd imagine the Yanks tag him with a QO after 2015 if they had him. Brewers? No chance.

 

What's made parity is the willingness for teams to trade top end prospects for Rental type players. The fact there's 162games in a season as my buddy correctly pointed out to me when I said 20-7 Brewers! He pointed back oh, so that's like the Packers starting 1-0 with a Lead a few minutes in to the 4th quarter of the 2nd game?

 

Personally, If I could Run the Yankees with their payroll, I'd probably consider nothing but high end RP draft picks, simply because they're always drafting in the bottom 3rd of the 1st round. Build up a Bullpen cheaply spend the money on FAs and the International market for talent or in trades of RPs. Kimbrel was a 3rd rd choice. David Robertson was a 17th rd choice who netted the Yankees a pick this offseason. Just saying in this day and age and the lesser money involved for a top notch College RP, the Yanks could nab a good one or two every season. Continuously fill up their Bullpen with strong cheap RPs and trade one of them away when they have an abundance. It'd be like Jordan Walden/Heyward deal nabbing Shelby Miller/Tyrell Jenkins. The Yanks could always send money away in a Heyward type deal to sweeten it get a better prospect return.

 

Heck it's beginning to happen already. Yanks acquired Didi Gregarious when the Yanks traded a 1year thus far success story in Shane Greene. Now the Yanks have a former top 100 prospect SS they can play for what was a 15th rd selection for them. It should be quite embarrassing for the Yankees to perform so lowly to payroll of late. 2 WS victories in 15years this century. What's crazy is that the Yankees Team Payroll was 92.5mil in 2000 jumped to 152mil in 2003 and hit 205mil in 2005! Where it's settled around 205-210mil for the moment. They doubled their payroll in 6seasons while being ranked #1 in it in the first place.

 

Oh and what about the Giants? 3 WS in 5 years. 7th/154mil. 8th/117mil and 10th/almost 100mil. That's 3 Championships being top 10 in Team Payroll. Red Sox in 2013 were 4th in team payroll. Cards at 11 in 2011. Yanks #1 in 2009. Phillies 12th in '08. Red Sox 2nd in '07. Cards 11th in '06 White Sox 13th in '05.

 

Not a single Payroll WS champs below 13th overall in 10seasons. Where's the small market team in this list btw? So how can Baseball possibly be better in Parity than the NFL?

 

Lets face it, you hit a Grand Slam with a Draft Pick and follow it up with a HR in a year prior or later your team stands a good chance to be among the better half in the League. For GB it was Rodgers and Clay Mattews. If GB didn't have Aaron Rodgers, would they make the Playoffs? I have no clue who we'd have at QB w/o him. I'm sure there'd have been a draft pick to address the need but what player for and what player did it cost to do so? Randall Cobb/Jordy Nelson were 2nd rd picks.

 

When a market in the lower half wins the WS and does so more than once in 5years, then talk about parity. Right now these teams are Feel-Good Stories that come to an abrubt end. Royals lose Billy Butler/James Shields even Aoki. How about seeing if they even win 82games in 2015 before claiming Parity?

 

Here's the true parity. Lose. Lose alot. Draft high multiple seasons and hit on a few choices. Sell off expiring Contracts for prospects in these losing/down seasons emerge a success story for 1-3seasons.

 

Sorry just a long winded rant. It's crazy to claim parity in baseball when no small market team has won a WS this Century to date. Much less twice.

[SoupTown]

given the truth of the rant, can one argue the Brewers financial plan (max out each year ($100 mill)) is just wrong. Should there be a plan to have like a 4 year plan and go 70 mill, 90 mill, 110 mill, 130 mill.... then reset.

 

Next year, in my opinion, could be the year 1 of such a reset stretch. In that year 1 you really need to go a lot home grown. Then as they get some arby rises and you plug in the odd free agent, you build to a massive crescendo.

 

Alternatively, I guess you toggle... say 90 mill one year and 110 mill the next, back to 90, then to 110, etc

 

In that case, 2015 is the $110, and next year is the $90 mill, 2017 the $110.

 

As I type and think, that could actually be hard. It seems simpler to say each year... we have $100 mill and do the best you can. But you may be forever a 3rd place team.

 

in 2016 my lineup (as a down year - see which newbies are real MLB players) is

 

minus Aram 14 mill

minus Lohse 11 mill

minus Parra 6 mill

 

Aram replaced with Jimenez / Rogers

Lohse replace internally (Smith, Thornburg, Jungmann)

Parra replaced with (Peterson/Taylor)

 

You need to get a feel/give a go to Sardinas and Knebel

 

(and off topic, as I type, who is our catcher in 2018+, when Lucroy is gone)

[Ennder]

If I was forced to either bet on which NFL teams made the playoffs or which MLB teams were going to make it I would go with the NFL side every day of the week. Just feels like there is a lot more continuity in football at the very top end.

 

NFL's parity is driven almost completely by the small sample of games they play. Here is an article that came up with that same conclusion basically. You can ride a hot first 5 or 6 games to a playoff in the NFL and you simply cannot do that in other sports.

 

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=12728

 

Truth of the matter in baseball is that the more money you spend, the less efficient that money is. A team that wants to spend a ton of cash is almost always going to get inefficient returns on it. When you add in revenue sharing etc we are about as close to parity in the league as we are going to get. The one final step is probably better sharing of money from media deals, but a salary cap would just be a complete disaster in baseball. People would say finally things are fair but it would just make things worse.

[Bombers]

In the NFL players take less money to go to the teams that will get the endorsements or a good chance at a ring, it makes it really hard for teams that don't fit those two bills to sign any FA at all.

I would alter this statement and say, all sports leagues have players who take less money to get endorsements or win a ring. Look at the Miami Heat's roster over the past few years. It was loaded. All those guys clinging on just trying to win a ring. Look at Julius Peppers, he isn't going to go play for the Jaguars either. Or Aramis Ramirez, he wasn't going to go play for the Astros. All leagues have older players who want to play for a team who has a shot. And I don't blame them one bit. That part is cyclical and changes year to year on what teams have a chance at winning it all.

 

It's crazy to claim parity in baseball when no small market team has won a WS this Century to date. Much less twice.

This is a good point. In the NFL, the Jaguars have a better chance at winning the Super Bowl than the Brewers do at winning the World Series. Because the Brewers window will forever be narrow. They need the perfect storm to get there and win it. The Jaguars have the same playing field as the Packers, Cowboys, etc. All they need is good management and good draft picks. Just like any team does. In MLB you don't need good draft picks. Spenders can just buy themselves a good team, draft picks be damned.

[pete]

Unfortunately, the Dodgers and Yankees are wising up. Guys like Joc Pederson and Gregorius would have been traded for a couple expensive years of some vet. They're still going to be able to burn a pile of cash on the Moncadas, Tanakas and premium FA pitchers and if they don't work out its whatever.

 

The formula for small market teams is to draft and develop, guys you like you get that first extension that grabs a year or two of FA, trade future FAs 1 year early if you expect to compete and at the deadline if you aren't and supplement judiciously.

 

That trading away part takes discipline but pays off so huge.

 

The downside is the lack of sizzle. Fans equate FA past performance with future. If you ask them if they want to trade for Verlander or Wainwright, the answer is hey-ell no. But Shields or Zimmerman, its Yeah baby! Typically the same fans have no problem giving up prospects either.

 

The lack of sizzle is created and/or magnified by the pervasively negative outside views of the team and its organization. Fans think that the small group of people who create almost all the public noise about prospects are extremely wise gurus, well informed and above politics.

 

Another team is willing to take Jungmann to get something, why not? What about his K rate rising to about 1 per inning - whatever. But what about his elite groundball rate at the same time - WHATEVER. He has been declared a bottom of the rotation filler, something that is easy to acquire at any time. Nelson "screams" reliever profile I've read and he's something you use to get something good.

 

I actually think the Brewers are on the threshold of something really, really good if they do what at least Melvin says they will of embracing their young players and getting the big return that selling that last year yields. At the same time I think there is a huge part of the fanbase that that just elicits groans and the expectation of mediocrity.

[Ennder]

Sorry to be rude to Americans (I am one, but transplanted away many decades), but HOW can anyone allow a one game playoff after a 162 game season. It is the dumbest of dumb ideas. The season should be 155 games or so, and let the two wildcards be best of five, then the other series best of 7. 162 games to get to a one game playoff. We should have the superbowl only every 10 years. 10 years of 16 games, then the superbowl. Does that make sense?

 

Because they play an unbalanced schedule and the difference between the 2 wild cards teams is so small that which one plays on is simply not a big deal. They could either add more rounds of playoffs and dilute the playing field like the really bad playoff systems do or they can go to this system where the day after the regular system we get these amazingly important and awesome games. The system also gives division winners a leg up on wild card teams which is nothing but a good thing, considering the wild card teams have to blow their best pitcher before the real playoffs. This system is brilliant.

[TooLiveBrew]

Sorry to be rude to Americans (I am one, but transplanted away many decades), but HOW can anyone allow a one game playoff after a 162 game season. It is the dumbest of dumb ideas. The season should be 155 games or so, and let the two wildcards be best of five, then the other series best of 7. 162 games to get to a one game playoff. We should have the superbowl only every 10 years. 10 years of 16 games, then the superbowl. Does that make sense?

 

Because they play an unbalanced schedule and the difference between the 2 wild cards teams is so small that which one plays on is simply not a big deal. They could either add more rounds of playoffs and dilute the playing field like the really bad playoff systems do or they can go to this system where the day after the regular system we get these amazingly important and awesome games. The system also gives division winners a leg up on wild card teams which is nothing but a good thing, considering the wild card teams have to blow their best pitcher before the real playoffs. This system is brilliant.

Reading this post is actually the first time I've felt good about the current playoff setup.

 

A one-game playoff after a 162-game season is too random imo, but allowing just 1 more club into the postseason after the 162-game grind feels like a fair reward for that last team in.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The other thing this current playoff system does is put a premium on winning your division, which makes that 162 game marathon season all the more important - as Ennder said the schedule is unbalanced to teams playing most of their games within their own division. adding the second wildcard has shaped the baseball playoffs more in the mold of the NFL playoffs. You have your play-in wild card round, while the other division winners basically have a bye (not a free round of the playoffs, but a few days to get their pitching staff in order for an upcoming 5 game series). Then the wild card round winners normally have to find a way to try and win one of the first 2 games without their pitching staff lined up how they'd want.

 

Aside from hockey, baseball playoffs have the most random outcomes in terms of who wins titles because you can win/lose baseball games so many more different ways than the other major sports. What's brilliant about baseball is it has the randomness of outcomes, even while playing playoff series. Last year's MLB playoffs proved just that.

[igor67]

Given that between the draft and international free agent signing pool restrictions are in place, big market teams trying a draft and develop strategy actually helps competitive balance. The advantage of being rich is money, if you start focusing on low cost players you are by definition not spending money. There maybe short term adjustments, but the real long term loser here is not other teams its the players union.