State of the Game: Parity in Major League Baseball Reconsidered

Jason argued on September 15^th that claims of unjust inequality (and inequality generally) might not be as valid as some would have you think. As evidence, Jason pointed to the 8 World Series Champions in the past 9 World Series. He pointed to the 14 different teams that have reached the series over the past 9 years. And he asked that we look at the teams this year who were thought to be contenders for their divisions. He then compared this evidence of parity to the purported relative inequality of the NBA and the NFL.

Let's conflate Jason's points into one:

Since MLB has seen greater diversity in the last decade of champions and World Series teams than the NBA and NFL have seen in their respective championship games, MLB actually has more parity than either of the other major sports leagues.

My major issue with this claim is that when we talk about the playoffs, we must realize that any team can win a 7-game series. Even the lowly Pirates could take 4 of 7 from the mighty Cardinals. Consider the Pirates and Cardinals during this regular season. The Buccos have won 5 of the 15 games in this season's series with the Redbirds. Let's assume, for the purposes of this argument, that this means any time the Pirates play the Cards in a given ("average") game, they have a 33% (5/15) chance of winning. Given this probability, the Pirates still have almost a 17% chance of winning 4 games in a 7 game series.*

*A caveat to this is that this 17% figure is calculated as if all 7 games were played, regardless of the outcomes of the particular games. In other words, this figure assumes that even if the Cardinals won the first four games, the series would continue to be played. Clearly, this is not the case in baseball, so the actual figure would be a little lower. I don't have the mathematical expertise (or time) to try to figure out this statistics problem, so let's just leave it at "The Pirates still have a chance (albeit small) of winning a 7-game series against the Cardinals in the playoffs."

At this point, if you're still reading, you can see that any team who reaches the playoffs has a chance of winning a 7-game series. The difference between two teams in a given series is rarely as big as the Cards-Pirates example, so you can imagine that among two nearly-equal teams, the probability of winning a given series approaches 50% -- almost a coin flip.

I don't mean this to discredit World Series Champions. We like to think that teams that get to, and win, the World Series have something about them that sets them apart from the rest. Maybe it's Josh Beckett's "bulldog mentality on the mound," or the magic of (New) Yankee Stadium, or a team's recent hot streak that has continued into the playoffs. Whether any of these claims have any basis in reality is irrelevant; it makes the postseason more interesting if we have an interesting context in which to consider it, and so we don't disregard it just because it may not have a statistical basis.

That said, here is my primary counter-argument: It is much easier for a playoff team to make or win the World Series than it is for any team to make the postseason.

This sentence seems like a truism. And it is – there are fewer teams in the postseason than there are in the regular season. Once you've made it, you have to win only 12 games to win the WS. Hell, you can play .571 baseball over 21 games in the postseason and sport your rings to the parade. The Nationals [sic] could do that.

What separates the men from the boys (on a team level) is the regular season. Playing 162 games does a lot in the way of separating the wheat from the chaff, letting the cream rise to the top, and third sports/business cliché. And it is pretty damn tough for a small-market team to rise to the top over the course of 162 games.

Jason did some awesome research over the past decade or so on teams' finish within their respective division as compared to their total payroll in that year. For example, take a look at 2004

Jason separates teams into thirds by payroll. In 2004, 6 of the 8 playoff teams were from the top third in payroll. 0 were from the bottom 3^rd. Here are some compiled figures from 2000-2009 (assuming NYY, BOS, DET, LAA, PHI, STL, LAD, COL make 2009 postseason):

Playoff Teams Top Third 45 (56%)

Playoff Teams Mid Third 22 (27%)

Playoff Teams Bot Third 14* (17%)

* 7 of these 14 were the Oakland Athletics.

Thanks to Moneyball, it is common knowledge that Billy Beane, despite having one of the league's lowest payrolls, was able to exploit market inefficiencies in baseball in order to hang with the teams that were outspending him by more than 100% at times. Unfortunately for the small market teams today, the advanced statistical knowledge Beane was able to exploit is now also common (almost?); the Red Sox, for example, have perhaps the smartest baseball mind today in SABR-guru Bill James. Small- and mid-market teams are now forced to look at the margins for undervalued skills of players.

Until a salary cap and floor are implemented, the ability to purchase your way to the postseason will remain.