Bud Selig's fear of a lack of parity never panned out.
With the decade quickly coming to a close, there is surely bound to be no shortage of ‘Decade in Review’ and ‘Decade Superlative’ columns, especially as we have no Y2K looming. At the very beginning of this decade, MLB was considering contraction of two of its squads, as the Expos (remember them?) and Twins came exceedingly close to the chopping block. The major reason given for needing to contract the number of teams was a significant discrepancy in revenues and thus competitive balance between the Haves and the Have-Nots.
In the almost nine years since that round of contraction negotiations, the Haves and the Have-Nots are no closer in terms of revenues or payrolls. Player salaries have continued to balloon, even in last year’s down economy, driving more of the top-end, most expensive talent to New York, Boston, LA, and Chicago. So how did competitive balance look over the last nine years? I would argue more competitive than any of the other major sports.
Eight different teams have won the World Series this decade, with the possibility of that rising to nine should the Dodgers, Tigers, Rays, or a handful of other teams in contention win it all. Six NFL teams won Superbowls this decade, while there were only five NBA champions this decade. The purpose here isn’t to compare parity across sports, but rather to put into perspective diversity in World Series champions.
In the AL, 10 of the 14 teams have made the playoffs over the last nine seasons. Should the Rangers make the playoffs this season that number would increase to 11. The Royals, Blue Jays, and Orioles are the other three to not play a playoff game this decade. Over on the Senior Circuit, the Nationals, Pirates, and Reds are the only 3 teams, of 16, not to play in the postseason. Given that only 4 teams make the postseason in each league each year, the diversity in post season participants is impressive. Clearly, the worries that had MLB considering the extreme action of contraction at the beginning of the decade have not panned out in the least. Given that MLB revenues have doubled since 2000, its clear Bud Selig made the right decision to not contract the Expos or Twins – kudos to him for what would have surely been an unpopular move.
