This week’s topic is competitive balance. Does the playoff system help conceal a balance problem? Does baseball need a salary cap? Or a floor? Is balance getting better or worse? Can baseball learn lessons from other sports?
Makakilo: The only team that has never appeared in the World Series is the Mariners (although 5 teams have never won the World Series). I noted some teams have not appeared for over 30 years (Pirates, Orioles, Athletics, Reds and Twins). Reaching that pinnacle happens to most teams, just not as often as their fans would want.
Even the Diamondbacks recently reached the World Series. They are well positioned to reach it again next season. That’s my optimistic hope.
1AZfan1: Yes the current playoff system does help conceal the competitive balance problem. The shorter the series, the more likely the “not as good” team will win. It’s the best way I can imagine to counteract the lack of salary cap.
The NBA has a “soft” salary cap that I hope some version of could be implemented in MLB. Teams can spend over the salary cap, but they are taxed and penalized (draft pick and trade restrictions) heavily depending on how far over and how many years they’ve been over. I’m not optimistic that the voting parties will ever agree to implement any sort of salary cap, but maybe they will if well-endowed franchises begin to dominate October. The NBA recently implemented it’s “second apron” penalties in response to teams willingly paying well over the salary cap, so maybe MLB could follow suit and slowly rein itself in. I’m not holding my breath.
C. Wesley Baier: I think the playoff system does help hide the problem to some extent. Having a different World Series winner for the last decade is MLBs argument that there isn’t a problem. Going into this season, I made the argument that the Dodgers offseason didn’t mean that they were guaranteed any level of success, a lot could go wrong throughout their season. Looking back at this past season, I was both right and wrong. A lot did go wrong for the Dodgers, but they were able to fix all their problems by the trade deadline, while casually walking their way to a championship.
None of that is particular concerning to me though. What is concerning is the fact that two million viewers in Japan on average watched the Dodgers than the rest of the USA combined, and it appears that the Dodgers have cornered the market on Japanese players. Having that massive of an advantage could create a lot problems for the rest of the National League in the future. I’m not sure it is actually a problem though until we see what happens in the next few years with free agents and international signings.
Jim: It’s a little weird that America, the home of capitalism in perhaps its freest form (for both good and bad), embraces restrictions in the world of professional sports that you don’t see in other countries. Almost every pro league down to the National Lacrosse League has a salary cap, while in Europe, I think rugby might be about the only sport to use them? Of course, the exception in the US is baseball, and I’m not sure quite why. It seems the most obvious way to level the playing field. Don’t want to steal my own thunder, but part of the reason I posed the question was I dug into the stats for an article tomorrow. Teams in the top third for 2024 revenue have won an average of eight games more per season over the past four years than the middle third. That’s a huge competitive edge.
The playoff system does negate this to a certain extent, but also perhaps explains why regular season games get far smaller ratings: people know they’re basically irrelevant. The top national game broadcast, FOX, was watched by an average of less than 1.9 million people this year, despite basically having its pick of games. That’s terrible, but its understandable. I know I watched hardly any regular season contests, because the NL West this year simply was a procession, not a competition, with the Dodgers never out of first place. If MLB wants people to watch more than one month of baseball, I think that needs to be addressed.
If video killed the radio star, what did the internet kill?
Makakilo: According to the song title written in 1979, video did it. According to the song title written in 2010, internet did it. Do we have a who-done-it mystery?
1AZfan1: Internet killed print media. Not a very catchy lyric, but it’s certainly true. And I’m not particularly mad about it, either.
C. Wesley Baier: Definitely print media and the majority of legacy media. Hopefully it doesn’t create more casualties in the near future.
Jim: Map manufacturers. CDs, DVDs and most physical media. Looking stuff up in books. Mail order catalogs. Hell, mail in general. Attention spans. Nuance. Political discussions. Privacy. Some of this is good, some of this is bad, but it’s kinda weird being the last generation who actually will remember life before the Internet and social media.