Afternoon Baseball

Fantasy baseball is starting up soon! Two years ago, I went to Italy at the end of May and forgot to update the rest of the way. Still, I had the best pitching staff because I got Mussina, Schmidt, Ortiz (21 wins), and Hudson. Last year, I was middling because Pujols and Livan Hernandez held up the team as my outfielders were trash and Mulder and Zito blew it for me. This year, I'm hoping to find the right combination, with the concession that my mind doesn't work as well with fantasy picks.

Anyways...I'm hearing more and more talk, as usual, about the "competitive inbalance" of baseball, and how tragic that is. Well, let's take a look at that "inbalance:"
Last 4 World Series winners: Arizona, Anaheim, Florida, Boston. Well, Arizona is a team that continues to operating at a huge loss because they don't manage their finances -- and don't get enough fans. Anaheim should be considered a major market team, because they play in LA and used to be owned by Disney, but were sold to an owner who spends even more money on them. Florida is a place to die, not just for seniors but for year-round baseball. And even Boston, for all its free-spending, has still only made the playoffs 4 times in the last 10 years.

Now, people will complain that Boston and Anaheim count as big spenders, and the Yankees have lost 2 WS in that time as well. However, they totally don't consider that maybe Oakland simply has choked it away for several years, and Seattle (big-time owners -- Nintendo -- in a smaller market) has also come up short in big situations several times in the past 10 years. Ditto for Minnesota, which dominates its division. Meanwhile, big spenders Baltimore, LA, Chicago (both of them) and Atlanta have no WS appearances between them in this century, and only 8 of a possible 20 postseason appearances.

Now, there is some inbalance. But if you look at who's consistently making it--Atlanta, SF, NYY, Oakland, and Minnesota--you're looking at the best-run organizations in the game. Ditto for Boston. As for the teams that consistently disappoint--KC, Cincinatti, NYM, Philly, Texas, TB, Toronto, Baltimore, Pittsburgh--you're looking at an array of payrolls, but a litany of badly-run organizations.

So let's get off that kick and enjoy a parity which is very real--namely a parity of good organizations succeeding, and organizations in arrears failing.