Bob Alpacadaca wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:17 am
Makes it fun. Every game matters. A lot more fun than having all those teams out of it.
Well, there are two very different forces in play here.
#1 is that the WC expansion era has of course created a situation where more teams 'are still in it' for a longer period.
That's simply a numerical fact. Whether or not you consider that 'more fun' is a matter of opinion.
#2 is what the league will no doubt trumpet as 'parity' and pat themselves on the back for it. But what's really causing this
middle-class log-jam currently going on in both leagues is more a case of
disparity.
In most baseball seasons most of the teams fall between a .400 and .600 winning percentage. The average number of teams
over the last 26 full seasons (since 1998 but I'm chucking 2020 out the window)
Not ending up between those two goal posts
is between five and six. At the extremes, twice it's been as high as ten (2002, 2019) and in 2007 there were none.
Currently there are nine which continues a recent trend where the number above .600 or below .400 has been higher (nearly 9/yr since 2018)
2018 = 8 (3 above, 5 below); 2019 = 10 (6, 4); 2021 = 9 (3, 6); 2022 = 9 (5, 4); 2023 = 8 (4, 4)
Not sure exactly what this recent trend shows except maybe that, once again, the "fact" that increased salary caps promotes increased
league parity has once again been shown to not hold water.
But this season there's something more, namely that we've currently got a number of teams WAY over or under those 60/40 benchmarks:
Yanx who just lost 2/3 to
fall to a .676 winning pct; Phils = .667; Orioles = .662; Guardians = .638, while the currently teetering
Dodgers squad squeaks by at
only .608
On the other side we've got: A's = .351; Rox = .347; Marlins = .319; White Sox = .260!!
So basically the top teams are beating up on everyone while the bottom feeders are being beat up on by everyone. And while you can
claim that this is the normal state of affairs in sports I'd argue that this recent trend of more very good AND very bad teams exaggerates
the effect and pushes the middle class folks away from both extremes and therefore closer to each other.
The closest team to the A's, currently the best of the bad, is LAA (teetering on the fringe at .403) which is the only team
within .100 points
of the bottom feeders. And only a handful of teams is within striking distance of this year's elites [ATL, KCR, MIN, SEA] ie: in the upper .500's
That leaves 14 teams currently between a .450 and .510 pct, and that's where the biggest 2024 "race" is. Or, as WFAN jock Jody McDonald
liked to put it, 'it's like a fight to see who's going to be the tallest midget in the circus'.