Jeff Luhnow’s first task was to clear the mess Ed Wade made, and he’s already given the Astros a fresh start.
Whenever “competitive balance” is debated, the debaters inevitably turn to published information about team payrolls to support their positions. This sounds straightforward. Unfortunately, “team payroll” is a fluid concept. The four most widely reported measures each use different methods and can lead to different conclusions.
There is no competitive balance problem in baseball, even in the latest period of Yankee pennants. Supposedly, the Yankees play an entirely different game than other teams. If this is true, we should see this in almost any metric we choose, but it’s not there.