MLB Competitive Balance

We do not hear much in baseball about competitive balance.  Maybe we should.

The table at the bottom of this post shows the records of all 30 teams since 2000, which shows the success and failure rates of all MLB clubs.  How though should we measure success?  Do we base it on a team’s win percentage, the number of times they qualified for the playoffs, the number of playoff series won, or the number of championships?

Many would argue the measure of a team’s overall success.  For many fans, it will be the win-loss record, but for others the measure of success is how many World Series their team ultimately won.  In order to take in all aspects of this we came up with our own metric (aka BP Success Metric).  Although somewhat simplistic this measurement gives teams credit for reaching the playoffs, and then additional weight for how many playoff series they have won and the most weight for winning a World Series.  Although we list the winning percentage, we have ignored that in terms of our calculation, since just making the playoffs is largely a reflection of a team’s winning percentage.

The table is ordered based upon our BP Success Metric in the far-right hand column.  Based on our metric the Boston Red Sox are the most successful franchise over the past 23 years, with the New York Yankees a close second.  The St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros and San Francisco Giants round out the top five based on our metric.  At the bottom of our list is the Cincinnati Reds, who scored a measly four points on our scale.  This is not surprising since the Reds have not even won one playoff series in the past 23 years.

A bit of further analysis, shows that the top 10 teams in the league by our metric have 65% of the playoff wins and 78% of the World Series titles over the past 23 years.  On the other side, the bottom 10 teams account for just 11.5% of the playoff wins and zero titles over that same span.

What does all this mean in the context of our mission here at Baseball Purist?  MLB has decided that the game has declined in popularity because of the pace of the game, without considering any other factors.  One of those factors they ignore is the competitive balance of the sport.  Yes, teams rise and fall over time, but clearly winning has been concentrated within a small number of clubs, while others barely sniff the playoffs.  One clearly wonders if the fan base has simply tuned out the game altogether in cities such as Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, who have three playoff wins between all of them in the past 23 years.

Perhaps consistent losing does not deter a fan base.  The Chicago Cubs spent 108 years between championships, before finally winning it all in 2016.  The Cubs have one of the strongest fan bases in the league, but perhaps they are more of the exception and not the rule when it comes to testing fans’ loyalty.  Is the health of the game best served by creating the have and have not teams in MLB, with the have nots having literally nothing to show to their fan base after 20 plus years of seasons?

From a practical standpoint, the answer is a likely a “No”.  What do fans in these cities have to get excited about when it is almost a given that their team has no shot at the playoffs and will more than likely be eliminated from playoff contention well before the season ends.  Is that any way to build interest in the sport, especially with the younger generation?  Again, the answer is likely a “No”.