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07/22/02 - Date of last update to this page. Competitive Balance
By
Kenneth Matinale July,
22, 2002 Baseball owners and many fans are ready to make drastic changes because the owners claim that many teams are in financial trouble. That would be difficult enough to determine if the teams were publicly held corporations with supposedly independent accounting companies conducting audits. Since they are all privately held, it is impossible to know. What we can know is how well they compete on the field. The main problem is the Yankees. They have made the playoffs seven years in a row and won five pennants and four World Series. Prior to that they had failed to make the playoffs for nearly twice as many seasons (13) but that is not often recalled. Also ignored is how poorly the Yankees played in the early 1990s and that it was conventional wisdom that star free agent players did not want to play in New York and especially not for the Yankees. Maybe this competitive issue should be examined in more detail before making changes. How do we know whether this is not just a hot streak that will end soon. What has happened during similar streaks in the past? How many different teams competed and if there had been a playoff structure how many teams would have gotten in. The Yankees are the only team to have had such dominant streaks and they have had several. Let's set as our criteria winning five pennants in seven years. Here are the other seven year periods. 1921-1927 The Yanks also won in 1928 but we will omit that. Five pennants, two World Series. 1936-1942 The Yanks also won in 1943 but we will omit that. Six pennants, five World Series. 1947-1953 Six pennants, six World Series. 1955-1957 Three pennants, one World Series. The next seven year period follows. This three year period is noted but not included in the study. 1958-1964 Six pennants, three World Series. This is the end of the old dynasty. A common draft followed in 1965 and a twelve year absence from the post season. 1976-1982 Four pennants plus one division title, two World Series. Division play began in 1969. That's five comparable periods. The perceived current problem is traced to 1995. There were no post season games in 1994 because of the players strike. In 1994 Major League Baseball (MLB) implemented a new division and playoff structure to let more teams make the playoffs even before the Yankees started their current hot streak. Each league went from two divisions to three. Included in the playoffs were four teams, not two: division winners plus one wild card team. That doubled the number of teams that qualified. Amazingly, that's when the trouble started. Four of 14 teams qualified. That's 29%, double the previous year. In 1998 when the National League expanded to 16 teams it was 25%. One in four. That doesn't sound so tough. In 1998 MLB added one new team to each league and switched the Milwaukee Brewers from the American to the National League. The AL added the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the NL added the Arizona Diamondbacks who defeated the Yankees in the World Series in 2001. We constantly hear about the last time a particular team won the World Series. Let's concentrate on when they made the playoffs. That is supposed to be the objective. From 1995 through 2001 the Yankees won their division five times. In 1995 and 1997 the Yankees were the wild card and lost in the first round. In other words, if MLB had not doubled the number qualifying teams the Yankees would have been out in two of the last seven years. Since three other teams qualify, three of the remaining 13 teams get in. That's 23%, still pretty good. No matter how good the Yankees are, three more teams make the playoffs. Over seven years the four playoff spots total 28. Let's see how many different teams qualified and, more importantly, how many did not. These teams qualified. Athletics 2 The following teams did not qualify: Angels, Blue Jays, Brewers, Devil Rays, Royals, Tigers, Twins. Eight got in, seven did not, including the Brewers. Here's how the National League did. Astros 4 Left out: Brewers, Expos, Phillies, Pirates, Reds. Twelve in, five out, including the Brewers. The NL had 50% more teams make the playoffs than the AL despite the fact that the Atlanta Braves were in all seven years - same as the Yankees. In each league most teams have qualified for the playoffs during the offending period. Let's see how that compares to the earlier periods of Yankee dominance. There were eight teams in each league through 1960. _____________________________________________________ 1921-1927: The Senators won the pennant in 1924 and 1925, the Yankees won the other five. But suppose there had been a playoff system back then and two of the eight teams qualified? That's 25%, same as the NL in 2001 and comparable to the AL's 23%. Athletics 2 The Yanks had five pennants and finished second in 1924. Six of the eight teams would qualify. Only the Red Sox and White Sox missed. Here's the NL "playoff" teams. Cardinals 2 Surprisingly, one fewer NL teams would have qualified. Here's how the pennants were distributed. Cardinals 1 The Giants had just one fewer pennant than the Yankees. _____________________________________________________ 1936-1942: Pennants: AL: Yanks 6, Tigers 1 NL: Cardinals 1 "Playoffs": AL: Indians 1 NL: Cardinals 3 Four AL teams down from six in the 1920s and six NL up from five. _____________________________________________________ 1947-1953: Pennants: AL: Yanks 6, Indians 1. NL: Braves 1 "Playoffs": AL: Indians 4 NL: Braves 2 The Yankees finished third in 1948. The distribution is similar to the previous periods. _____________________________________________________ 1958-1964: The AL added the Angels and a new Senators team in 1961 with the old Senators moving to Minnesota to become the Twins. The NL added the Mets and Colt 45s, later the Astros, in 1962. There were still no divisions. Pennants: AL: Yanks 6, White Sox 1. NL: Braves 1
AL: Indians 1 NL: Braves 3 The NL pennant and "playoff" teams are the same. Both leagues have six "playoff" teams. The Yankees finished third in 1959. _____________________________________________________ 1976-1982: In 1969 each league added two teams: AL - Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots who moved to Milwaukee in 1970 and became the Brewers; NL - Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres. Each league split into two six team divisions. In 1977 the AL added two more teams: Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners. The AL then had two seven team divisions. The NL caught up by adding two teams in 1993: Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins. Playoffs below shows the division winners. Pennants: AL: Brewers 1 NL: Cardinals 1 Division: AL: Angels 2 NL: Astros 1 _____________________________________________________ The pattern is similar through all six periods. The Yanks dominate but plenty of other teams contend, including small market teams like Kansas City and Milwaukee. The large markets of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have not won much except for the Yankees. --- The End --- |