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If by fiat we stopped regular-season play on Sunday, we'd get just two repeat entries in the playoff picture: the ubiquitous Yankees, and the Twins. We could get a third repeater in the Phillies, but they'd have to settle for slipping in as a wild card, not the division champ, and then only after a one-game playoff with the Giants, who would certainly qualify as newbies if they trounced the two-time defending pennant winners. Even that understates the potential for turnover: Change the point in time at which we might arbitrarily end the season by a few days this way or that, and you could wind up with seven new playoff teams instead of five.

This isn't a recent development, of course. Turn to the same point of the season last year, and you'd be making much the same proposition as far as 2009 versus 2008. Once again, you'd have two new teams in the AL (with the Rangers or the Red Sox replacing the Rays, and the Tigers replacing the White Sox), and you'd “just” have two new teams in the NL, with the Cardinals unseating the Cubs and the Rockies replacing the Brewers for the wild card, and with three more clubs besides in the running for the wild card slot at the least.

To some extent, this sounds a lot more revolutionary than it really is. The American League's shorter field also boasts fewer plausible contenders, for all of the pre-season enthusiasm for exotic longshots like the Mariners or Indians, or the Tigers' eventual decision to give the leftovers of their 2006 pennant winner one last shot. The National League has turnover, but generally within a slightly broader field of usual suspects. In a way, this isn't unlike the phenomenon of the sheer number of teams and players contributing to a sense that there is that much more player movement—whether we're talking about the numbers of contenders or transactions, the raw numbers get to be bigger, contributing to a sense that there's more. More contenders, more movement, more action, and more parity.

Consider the fields from the last three years at this time of year, as well as the year before:
 

AL Team
2008 Actual
2008 Projected
Playoff Odds
2009 Actual
2009 Projected
Playoff Odds
2010 Actual
2010 Projected
Playoff Odds
Yankees 63-55 66-52 9% 76-45 74-47 99% 72-45 70-47 87%
Rays 71-46 69-48 96% 65-54 70-49 30% 71-46 68-49 81%
Red Sox 67-51 74-44 87% 68-51 65-54 51% 67-52 70-49 26%
Twins 65-52 57-60 34% 58-62 62-58 15% 68-50 69-49 85%
White Sox 65-51 64-52 68% 62-59 62-59 35% 65-53 63-55 18%
Tigers 58-59 61-56 4% 63-56 58-61 50% 57-60 57-60 >1%
Rangers 61-58 57-62 ~0% 67-52 64-55 26% 67-49 64-52 97%
Angels 74-43 62-55 99% 73-45 62-56 93% 60-59 55-64 1%

 

NL Team
2008 Actual
2008 Projected
Playoff Odds
2009 Actual
2009 Projected
Playoff Odds
2010 Actual
2010 Projected
Playoff Odds
Braves 55-63 62-56 1% 63-57 66-54 17% 68-49 68-49 86%
Phillies 64-53 62-55 52% 68-49 63-54 86% 66-51 62-55 48%
Reds 52-67 49-70 0% 50-69 48-71 0% 67-51 62-56 65%
Cardinals 65-55 62-58 15% 69-53 66-56 90% 65-51 63-53 67%
Cubs 71-47 68-50 97% 61-57 61-57 13% 50-68 52-66 ~0%
Brewers 67-51 64-54 80% 58-62 56-64 ~1% 55-64 52-67 ~0%
Padres 46-72 49-69 0% 51-71 52-70 0% 69-47 65-51 89%
Giants 50-66 49-67 ~0% 66-54 63-57 21% 67-52 62-57 34%
Rockies 53-67 58-62 ~2% 67-53 67-53 97% 61-56 64-53 7%
Dodgers 58-59 60-57 38% 71-50 75-46 60% 60-58 61-57 2%

Setting aside the National League for a moment, consider the situation in the AL. The slow changing of the guard in the West from the Angels to the Rangers is something many analysts have been anticipating; maybe losing Kendry Morales for the year or the total implosion of Scott Kazmir helped abbreviate this switch, but the Angels' previous, historic capacity to reliably exceed their projected records the last three seasons simultaneously suggested their ultimate vincibility as soon as the going got tough.* The Twins are riding high at present in the Central, but you could say the same of the White Sox two weeks ago. Plot twists seem to be the division's destiny as a matter of course, and between them, the two teams have have four of the last five AL Central titles. This year, that will become five out of six. What's going on in both divisions isn't especially dynamic or ephemeral.

Which leaves us with yet another three-way duel in the AL East for the title and the wild card slot. As races go, it's a lot more exciting in the abstract than the actual—our third-order projected standings suggest we ought to have a three-way death race with a barely-there two-game separation between glory and being no better off than the Blue Jays. Reality's a tougher proposition, but the Red Sox' injury-marred bid to keep up with the Yankees and Rays might mask their ability to catch up more effectively than the tough proposition of a one-in-four shot from our Playoff Odds Report calculates. This year's probability that we wind up with the Yankees and Rays just means we'll get the third of the three potential slates for the two slots. It's exciting and interesting, but it's parity for some, not all.

Instead, as ever, it's the National League where broader possibilities for death or glory reside. You'll notice a couple of obvious missing teams from the 2008 side of things: those are Mets– and Snakes-sized holes. Both clubs subsequently blew it down the stretch in '08, and haven't been really seen since. Similarly, the Cubs and Brewers were at the end of the line by 2008, so the 2009 season wound up with a smaller slate as a result, and it's into that growing vacuum that you could argue the Padres and Reds have stepped in. It's interesting to notice that a big difference in the NL East at this stage of the season is that this time around the Braves aren't underperforming this year, while the Phillies aren't overperforming, creating a tighter race that the underlying fundamental performance of the two teams over time suggests has been there all along.

This year's NL field is especially entertaining because, as we went in Monday night's action, you have six teams within four games, spread evenly two per division. That real-world pack finds its analog in the interpretive data—the Braves with a grouping that tight, I'd suggest that nobody is an easy favorite for survival. The Giants may have just lost a series to the Padres, for example, but they've got seven more bites at that particular apple, plenty of head-to-head play within which to alter the current state of affairs. And best we count out the Rockies and Dodgers altogether, recent history provides plenty of epic in-season comebacks, like the Rockies' run in 2007 or the Tigers' swoon in '09, stupendous enough to squelch any effort to say it's over before it's over.

A couple of questions come from these observations. If the American League's field seems somewhat static or slowly changing over time, the National League's more dynamic spread reflects the real opportunities that exist. The Padres' brass saw what they did down the stretch last season, and decided to take their 2010 chances seriously, a decision justified by the league-relative decline of some of the other entries in the field. The Reds' opportunity was even more narrowly focused: The Cardinals aren't a 100-win team, the Cubs and Brewers had issues, so why not the Reds? Parity in the National League is simultaneously the product and the symptom of viable short-term exercises in hope and faith, because there is no extreme imbalance the way there is in the AL East: You can get to the dance and have a real shot at a pennant, not just the right to lose to the AL East in October.

This slow development during the latter stages of the age of Czar Bud the Only has certainly been brag-worthy in its way, to the point that the man himself touted it to the Fourth Estate at the All-Star break, and for good cause, even dignifying the recommendations of that domesticated dog-and-pony show, the tenuously independent Blue Ribbon Panel of a decade ago, with some credit for the happier present. Obviously, a Rozelle by any other name smells just as sweet. To borrow a term from Keith Woolner, does this really mean that the competitive ecology of baseball changed for the better? Yes and no, but for the most part, I'd argue that it has been and remains mostly a National League phenomenon, because at least there, you have some turnover. Teams like the Tigers or Astros, or the Mets and the Cubs, have tried to patch up veteran contenders of mid-Aughties vintage, and generally failed, but that doesn't mean they were wrong to try.

In the abstract, more teams with realistic late-season bids are supposed to make for better late-season attendance in more venues; if even a by-blow yields up a more plausible pitch for season ticket sales and local-market revenues, then the industry-wide benefit of more teams profiting from playing relevant ballgames (or nearly so) seems fairly obvious. More local revenues equals more money to kick into the revenue-sharing kitty. They say that victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. I suppose opening matters up to a wider field of aspiring sires creates enough action and puts so much cash in the till that you can see baseball as Babylon or Mammon, or both, or just keep things American by combining the two and calling it Mae West.

As ever, there's the element of geographic determinism, but it's relatively minor, in that it's a problem for two teams, and two teams alone. The Blue Jays remain the best fourth-place team in baseball, and the Orioles remain the industry's baby in a well, where the most help you can offer is to toss a shovel in after them. But that problem of geography is essentially unique to those two teams; teams like the Pirates, Royals, or even the Mariners and Indians have no such excuses, and the opportunity is there for them if they land on better combinations of investment and retention than they have so far.

The other question that deserves at least a nod is asking why twice over: Why the distinction between the leagues, and why parity at all? To address the first question, my own argument would be the parity-perverting impact of the AL East's clash of titans. In the AL West and Central, a lower standard for contention retards the need for taking on the more ambitious target of taking on the power division's big three. Or, if a team is going to make that challenge, it's a product of planning and work over time and good fortune. The Rangers aren't building up to win just this year alone, but picking up Cliff Lee was exactly what they ought to have done to make the most of their opportunity.

Why parity at all, though? My thought here is that its the product of a better-run industry overall, where the distinctions between whatever "smart" clubs are in vogue and whatever "dumb" clubs have become relatively small over time. We can kick clubs like the family-run Orioles or the family-run Pirates or the deliberately disinterested Marlins for their failures, but their brands of hope and faith involve bucks as much as ballgames. At least the Orioles seem motivated to create a long-term plan, to follow where the Rays have already gone, proving that it's possible. And being smart doesn't necessarily mean you always come up smelling like roses. We get examples like the Mariners investing too much meaning in the descriptive power of defensive metrics, or the Rockies' great changeup experiment; being too clever by half carries a heavier penalty in a more competitive environment.

*: Indeed, the phenomenon of the Angels' overperformance relative to their expected record is living a longer life than they are themselves, as they lead the AL by being more than five wins above their expected record.

Thank you for reading

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dianagramr
8/17
CK ... nice article ... a couple of points:

1) Did the Padres brass really take their finish to 2010 as the "real deal"? I mean, a lot of talk over the Winter was "when will Gonzalez get dealt?". If the admin. was convinced that the 2010 finish wasn't a fluke, then was A-Gon really shopped seriously at any point ... or was it smoke and mirrors and putting out feelers seeing if they would be blown away with an offer?

2) More of a semantic nitpick here ... In the Angels comment, I don't think "abbreviate" is the proper word to use in "maybe losing Kendry Morales for the year or the total implosion of Scott Kazmir helped abbreviate this switch". Perhaps "hastened"?

3) It's been statistically proven that there is no correlation in year-to-year Pythagorean overperformance relative to real-life W/L record. So, this means that we can't attribute the Angels continued propensity for this to the managing by Scioscia. Given this ... how DO you explain it?
ckahrl
8/17
Thank you Diane, to go point by point:

1) The Pads seemed fairly unapologetic in their own public comments about how much they felt their 33-25 finish meant they weren't a basket case. The "when will A-Gonz get dealt" phenomenon was more of a media story--sexy'd up with Red Sox-related speculation--than a worthwhile subject of commentary. It was not unlike the vile contraction draft stories, which were more about idly fantasizing about where Vladimir Guerrero could wind up, because that's much more interesting that the real-world news involving the much less exciting fact that he wasn't going anywhere until he was a free agent, and there wasn't going to be a contraction draft.

2) Nah, I'm using the meaning of the word related to "to reduce (anything) in length, duration, etc.; make briefer." Words like 'hasten' or 'foreshorten' strike me as a bit self-consciously old-fashioned.

3) Maybe it's because I just saw Eric Van's fine presentation at SABR reinvesting the concept of clutch hitting--long a statheads' shibboleth--with some worthy consideration, but I love the use of the word "can't" related to an assertion of this nature. Per Kuhn, you know as well as I that the power of mathematics as a descriptive language is not absolute, relying instead on its author's turn of phrase, so to speak.

The short answer is that this is one of those things where I'm just not buying. It's sort of like the relationship between payroll and ticket prices--most of us on the analysis side assert they're not connected, yet most people associated with the industry, even former analysts, end up saying there's something there.

The long answer on the subject of Scioscia and his impact is a good one, one I've written about in the past (there was a piece for the long-lost NY Sun in particular). But it's also an essay all to itself. The number of components that go into the Angels' overperformance aren't all Scioscia, of course: the Angels are consistently among the best when it comes to managing their roster, for example, and that's partly to Scioscia's credit.

Frankly, if there's a guy in baseball who deserves a book like Men at Work or Three Days in August devoted entirely to following him around and seeing how he runs a club in a game, a series, or over a week, it's Scioscia, because I think what we'd learn if we was willing to be transparent to just that one fly on the wall would be very interesting indeed.
dianagramr
8/17
Thanks for the considerate responses Christina.

As for point 3 ... I *do* want to believe managers can have an impact on the overperformance relative to runs scored/allowed. In fact, I've wanted to do an analysis of this possibility, and sought to use the "Manager - General" report found here ...

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=70983

1) There is no data prior to 2005.
2) There is no data for the current season.
3) There is no Glossary entry for the column headings "G_W_SUBS" and "SUBS".
4) There is no easy way to have a "multiple season dump" of all data (this is a problem with most of the reports on the site).

If you can pass this along to the responsible party, I'd be most appreciative.
ckahrl
8/17
Believe you me, I want that data too. IIRC, SUBS is the total number of substitutes used, and G_W_SUBS is the total number of games in which subs were employed.

As for point 4... here again, that'd be a lovely thing indeed. Colin, can we add it to the to-do list?
bishopscreed
8/17
Good article.

My question is: what's so great about parity, anyway? As long as every team has hope--not for this year, necessarily, but for a better-run future--I'm perfectly okay with some teams being better than others. If you demand total parity, you might as well shelve the bats and gloves and just get a set of dice. Because at that point you've created a crap shoot, not a sport.

God save us from parity like the NFL. I'd rather see my Royals succeed for one year because they implemented a well-conceived plan, than see them do so for a decade because it's their turn.
ckahrl
8/17
Agreed, Nathan, as a long-term A's fan, that was always my feeling as well. You can endure the bad times as long as they're being used as a time to gear up for a real run.
mnsportsguy1
8/17
I completely agree Nathan. I try to watch a game in either the NFL or NHL but I can help but thinking that I could have saved a ton of time by just flipping a coin. The parity gives luck way to much power because each team appears almost exactly the same. If baseball were to become that menotonous it would be nearly impossible to watch over an entire 162 game schedule.

Here's to wanting a lack of parity!
rbrianc
8/17
Neither abbreviate nor hasten works for me regarding the Angels in 2010. Like the Red Sox this year, or the Yankees in 2008, missing the playoffs in a single year is more like a 'blip'. Like those other two perennial AL powers, as long as you have a management team with a strong record of success in place like Scioscia/Moreno, along with a good revenue stream (not to mention a 4-team division), the Angels will likely be in the mix this next decade as they were the past one.

Granted, Texas will be there too for the forseeable future, as the Rays have risen with a solid enough foundation to prevent printing playoff tickets in the Boston & NY automatically every April, and indeed the Angels do have some offensive issues, they'll be playing in October more often than not I think this coming decade in the same manner one could predict Boston's not going away either.
TheRedsMan
8/17
Regarding parity, we should remember that the ideal circumstance is one of a parity of opportunity, not parity of outcomes. I would argue that the parity of outcomes seen in the NL is, in part, due to the relative parity of resources. The lack of a Yankees to set the competitive bar has a ripple effect throughout the league.
ckahrl
8/17
Well put, Rick, although I'd argue that the Mets have some potential. Happily for the other 15, it seems like their decision tree is covered in kudzu.
TGisriel
8/18
One of the many discouraging things about being in the division with the Yankees is that even when the Yankees develop a weakness (their current outfield)you are convinced they will simply use their overwhelming financial advantage to address that weakness in the off-season (watch where Carl Crawford signs this off-season).

Yankees apologists will say that shows smart management. It takes no genius to note your weakness and then buy the best available solution in the off-season.
dcoonce
8/19
If anybody wants the "parity" the NFL enjoys, I must point out that two seasons ago, an NFL team - with the same resources as every other NFL team (theoretically) - finished 0-16. And if you want to sell me some LA Clippers NBA Finals tickets, I'd love to listen - after all, they have the same salary cap as every other NBA team, right? And therefore, the same chance of winning, right?
dcoonce
8/19
And, not to belabor the point, but the Padres, with a 35-million-dollar payroll, just beat the Cubs, with a 150-million-dollar payroll, three straight games, and now have the best record in the National League.