Before the 2009 season begins, let's pause and reflect.
We watch 30 teams struggle over 162 games for eight playoff spots and then get to enjoy the crapshoot known as the postseason. We enjoy hating the loosey-goosey Yankees or obnoxious Red Sox, laughing at or crying with the Pirates or Orioles and wondering how the Marlins or Rockies do it. (They don't, it's that their divisions suck.) It's worked out pretty well, with eight different World Series champions since 2000 and 23 different teams making playoff appearances.
Parity is alive and well, right?
Dig a little deeper and you'll find that it's not balanced or fair. Since 2000, there have been a total of 36 potential playoff spots for each league. Looking closely, we find that in the American League, there have been ten different teams, but that 30, or 83 percent of those appearances have been dominated by the same six teams, leaving four teams with a combined six appearances and four with none.
It's a little bit fairer over in the National League, which lacks the financial behemoths (and level of talent) of the AL, where 13 out of a possible 16 teams have made appearances, but we still see that 27 appearances - 75 percent of all available - came from the same seven teams, leaving six teams with two appearances or fewer and three with none.
That's not parity. I've got a couple suggestions to make baseball fairer.
A real salary cap
You knew this was coming - quit running for the hills. Baseball needs a hard salary cap, and not the joke that is the soft cap luxury tax.
There's a fundamental flaw in your "free market" when you have the same four to six teams every year bidding on premium free agents. You don't need to be a genius to figure out that the Yankee payroll of over $200 million offers a competitive imbalance, whether compared to the next highest teams at $138 million (the Mets and the Tigers) or the lowest team at $21 million (the Marlins).
Studies have shown that payroll has a positive correlation with winning, which means the more you spend, the more likely you are to win games and thus, make the playoffs. You may not be able to buy championships, but you can certainly buy playoff appearances (just ask the Yankees).
As for the wealth transfer argument, where the cap transfers money from the players to the owners by restricting player salaries, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to ensure parity. The free-market, competitive-bidding theory of cap-free baseball doesn't really hold either, when baseball itself is an oligopoly that has a stranglehold on delivering its product. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that Cincinnati isn't the same size as New York, which brings us to the next issue.
Revenue Sharing: Free Money!
As baseball is a form of entertainment, you're choosing to spend your hard-earned money on it. More people within your area means more potential money being spent on your product.
It's been suggested that the New York metropolitan area could hypothetically support about four to six baseball teams. That's a lot of teams. Since there are currently only two teams, that's like having twice the revenue potential of every other baseball team, which is why large markets are able to outspend smaller markets.
Search online for the Zumsteg Plan, written in 2002 by Derek Zumsteg, a sabermetrician, and you'll find an excellent revenue sharing plan. The gist of his argument is that teams shouldn't be punished just because they serve a smaller population, a factor that has particular significance in Major League Baseball, whose teams face the challenge of selling out 81 home games each season.
Instead, teams should be rewarded for being able to attract customers given what they have, and revenue sharing should be adjusted accordingly. When coupled with a salary cap and floor, revenue sharing has tremendous potential to spread talent around, ensure financial stability for players and owners and ultimately create parity.
Future of Baseball: Dare to Dream
Expand the playoffs.
Seriously, make it five or six teams in each league. Think about all the extra tickets they could sell and the races an expansion would create, especially this year when some 90-win team in the AL East likely won't make it. That's not right; it's like last year's New England Patriots, who went 11-5 and missed the NFL playoffs.
As for those who advocate for the presence of an Evil Empire, I hear your argument - the desire for a bad guy, increased tickets, etc. But let's face it, watching the talent-stacked Yankees or Red Sox beat up and thrash the less-talented Royals isn't good parity, or entertainment, unless you also like stealing candy or need the fantasy stats (see: Jon Lester's no-hitter).
So what will baseball become? Ideally, with the cap and revenue sharing plan, teams that are successful will be ones that make smart decisions with their money and draft well, not ones that can spend away their mistakes or buy wins. It's time for some real parity in baseball.
