The state of baseball…

Updated on July 15, 2008 By Ken Begg 6 Comments

As things sit, and as a Cubs fan, I’m obviously pretty satisfied at the season’s halfway point. The Cubs are definately the favorite to win their division (although an eye must be kept on the Brewers), and the aquisition of Rich Harden definately would strenghten our hand in the playoffs and–dare I say it?–the World Series. A long way to go, but we’re making good time so far.

However, in a broader sense what strikes me is an unusual state of parity in baseball. Admittedly, the AL is still broadly stronger than the NL. However, as I look over that standings at the All-Star break, I’m struck not so much by the fact that the Cubs have the best record in baseball (as insane and wonderful as that sounds), albeit tied with the LA Angels. Instead, it’s that they have the best record in baseball with a .600 winning percentage.

That sort of parity strikes me as very strange, although I admit I’m not a stat maven. Even so, it is surely unusual after 80 games for no team to be running away with one of the six divisions. (Appallingly, Arizona leads the NL West with a sub-.500 record!) LA has a six game lead, the Cubs 4.5, and those are the biggest leads by a healthy extent. The other leading teams are only .5-1.5 games in the lead.

This might just be a fluke, but I’d like to think it’s more positive fallout from the end (or at least the reduction) of the steriod era. Without inflated monsters playing the game anymore, jacking out 70 plus homeruns a year, suddenly actuall, old fashioned BASEBALL is being played again. Maybe this is equalizing the field somewhat, too.

Anyway, although the hope is forlorn, here’s hoping all those Cubs playing tonight help the NL win the All*Star Game, and with it home advantage in the World Series. This year, just maybe, we might be regretting it in Chicago if we don’t.

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  • Food

    The greater parity was in evidence last season, as well. No team in MLB won 100 games and no team lost 100 games. That’s rare. Even rarer (read: unheard of) is that the NL’s winningest team, Arizona, had only 90 wins (Colorado also had 90, but played one extra game to get the 90th). That’s never happened before, where nobody in an entire league gets higher than 90.

    Although you’re mistaken about one thing, though: Parity is not a throwback to any era, it’s a totally new phenomenon. There have always been perennial powerhouses (the Yanks from the early 20s to the mid-60s) and perennial buttcrust (the Indians from the early 60s to the early 90s). The decade that comes closest to parity was the 80s (nine different world champs, only 4 teams out of 26 fail to make the post-season at least once, only one team without a winning season).

    So if this is a long-term phenomenon, it’s a new frontier. I would mention, though, that while there’s parity at the top in this decade, there’s none at the bottom. Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Washington/Montreal are still rubbish and there’s no hope in sight for any of them (C’mon, Rays!).

    Still, it’s great to see the Gubs do well. If they are the World Champs, very few baseball fans will be unhappy about it.

  • You do realize that it’s impossible for the Cubs to actually win anything, right? I mean, I understand you want to enjoy the fun for now, but in October… Well, I’m sure “1908” means something to you.

  • [Fingers in ears]LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!!!!!

    (And so on.)

  • MarshallDog

    I think the parity in baseball is product of two things. First is the revenue sharing system. Obviously in baseball, there are big market teams that run away with hundreds of millions in revenue (Yanks, Mets, Red Sox) and those that would normally be perrenially in the red (both Florida teams). Revenue sharing basically levels the playing field, and teams like the Yankees pay more in revenue sharing than most teams have on their payroll, and the Marlins take in close to double what they pay their players. This has the mostly hidden effect of allowing the smaller market teams to draft and sign high-priced young talent that used to go only to the big markets.

    That sort of leads into my second point, that it is now fashionable for teams to value young talent over higher-priced veterans. Up until recently it was a common cliche that a team should always trade a so-called prospect for so-called “proven talent”. So if you could get a Larry Anderson for only Jeff Bagwell, you should do it every time. What teams would later find out is that if you trade all your young talent for expensive older players, you eventually wind up with a team of old guys who can’t play and you can’t trade and with no minor leaguers who could replace them.

    I also disagree that this parity is a product of the “end” of the steroid era. For one thing, I don’t think we have truly seen the end as the testing still contains holes to be exploited. Second, I think if we learned anything from the steroid investigations, it’s that a lot more players were juicing than we first thought. What I’m trying to say is I don’t think any one team’s success or failure can be really attributed to steroids, since every team was part of it.

  • Well, as I note, it’s really the reduction of the steroid era. I’m sure there’s still stuff out there, but players have been put on notice that this sort of thing can ruin reputations even after you stop playing ball, and might keep you out of the Hall of Fame.

    As well, steriods had a huge effect on already talented players (Bonds, Clemens) and just enough of one for others (Niefi Perez) to barely allow them to play major league ball. I think the upper end of steroid usage definately tilted the game. I’ll certainly admit this is just an off-the-cuff theory, however.

    I’m not sure what effect revenue sharing has had. The Yankees still have an operations budget five or six times that of smaller market teams–and sometimes those latter teams are the ones who win the World Series.

    Sticking with younger talent is definately a good idea in the main, but I can’t chastize the Cubs for trading Shaun Gallagher for Rich Harden. Three years from now Gallagher may well be a very good and still very cheap starting pitcher. In this exact case, though, we’ve got a legitimate shot at the World Series, and you have to roll those dice. Hopefully Harden doesn’t suffer some season ending injury between now and September/October.

  • Josh

    Hopefully Harden doesn’t suffer some season ending injury between now and September/October.

    Hah! With Harden, it is not “if”, it’s “when” and “how bad.”

    Anyway, as to your point about the steroid era, I don’t really see it. The way for parity to happen in baseball is for smaller market teams to be able to compete (obviously). To do this, they need to utilize their resources more efficiently than large market teams, and I don’t really see how steroids would change that apart from placing more emphasis on home runs. So, maybe a large market team could just look at HR totals, and buy a great team. But, in the 90s, the successful large market teams (Yankees, Braves) didn’t really do that anyway.