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DuPuy: Baseball Has Competitive Balance

This week, Major League Baseball President and COO Bob DuPuy said he was pleased with the competitive balance of the league. “Competitive balance has been a hallmark of the entire tenure of Commissioner [Bud] Selig,” DuPuy said. “The numbers tell an awfully compelling story.”

My first reaction to DuPuy’s statement was that he was nuts. The fact that he made his comments just after the Yankees won another World Series with a payroll that dwarfs the biggest of the big market teams just made him seem out of touch, and maybe even out of medication. Competitive balance in baseball ended long ago and the Yankees and other big market teams have made a mockery of it for years.

But the more I thought about DuPuy’s comment, the more it made some kind of sense. Baseball has a lot of teams that are unable to compete with the big markets in the current system, but the system will not be fixed any time soon. But even with the inequities that teams face, there is a competitive balance among many teams. While many of the largest market teams face a difficult road in NOT making the playoffs, there is reason to be hopeful most years if you follow most of the other teams in the league.

MLB is divided into three groups: The haves, the Have Nots, and Have Somes.

The Haves are the big market teams who use their money to be competitive almost every year. They will sign other team’s free agents and trade for expensive arbitration eligible players. These teams are the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, White Sox, Phillies, and Red Sox.

The Have Nots are the Pirates, Royals, Marlins, Nationals, Diamondbacks, and Reds. While Have Nots can compete and even win on occasion, their revenue streams do not allow any sustained success and they are the true failings of the system.

The Have Somes make up the majority of the league. Some of the Have Somes have dabbled as Haves, but year in year out they are unable to spend with the big boys and be successful while doing it. They are the Astros, Indians, Rays, Blue Jays, Orioles, Rangers, Twins, Tigers, Mariners, Braves, Giants, Cardinals, Brewers, Rockies, Athletics, and Padres.

The Haves will always be competitive and have a much better chance to be dominant for longer stretches of time than the rest. There is little argument that the Haves dominate the regular season and make up most of the postseason slots. While this is patently unfair, it is the reality of a league with little salary restraint in place. Revenue sharing has done its part in distributing money to some teams, but it is not enough.

The Have Nots are in dire straits and usually will need a miracle or two or two to be competitive for even the shortest period of time. Much as the constant success of the Haves is unfair, the plight of the Have Nots is atrocious. Without many major alterations to the collective bargaining agreement, the Have Nots are destined to fail most years.

The Have Somes are in a position to build a very good team that can compete with the Haves, but their shelf life is limited due to the financial constraints of keeping their team together and adding pieces to compliment their core. It is the Have Somes that make baseball’s competitive balance more of a reality than I originally gave DuPuy credit for.

Baseball’s hands are tied when it comes to helping the Have Nots, but the Have Somes have the ability to compete on a rotating basis year in and year out. Since 2000, 38 playoff spots have been occupied 13 different Have Some teams (48%). Only the Blue Jays, Rangers, and Orioles did not make the postseason and each has their own story of mismanagement. Understandably, many are upset that 36 playoff spots were filled by eight teams off of the Haves list (45%). Only six  spots (7%) came from the Have Nots (all by the Marlins and Diamondbacks). But that isn’t the point of DuPuy’s comments or this article. The Haves have a competitive advantage because of their revenue streams and market size and that is a fact baseball has to live with. But if the majority of the league can field a competitive team and make the playoffs often enough, isn’t that asking enough? Isn’t that how most major pro franchises work?

It isn’t all that different than it was in the past when baseball was America’s pastime and beloved by all. With shared revenue, better television contracts, and more playoff spots to be had, most teams can have a legitimate chance to make the postseason. From 1980 – 1989, the Haves made up 39% of the postseason teams. Granted, the Yankees were not as dominant, but they spent a lot of money and they would have made the playoffs as a Wild Card on numerous occasions. The Have Somes were in the playoffs at a 52% clip, while the Have Nots made it 9% of the time. The numbers are more similar than the changes in payroll since then would lead one to believe.

The biggest advantage the Haves have over the Have Somes is their ability to eat their mistakes and move on with a better replacement player. This is why the Have Somes are unable to overcome bad contracts, trades, and drafts. They are also unable to keep their players around long enough to make a sustained run at a championship.

A good example of this is the Seattle mariners. Seattle put together some dominant teams in the late 1990s but lost two all time players in Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey, Jr. to free agency. (Granted, Griffey left for his hometown Reds at a discounted price, but the Mariners were unable to overwhelm him.) The Mariners reloaded at the 21^st century began, but a series of bad moves, including the free agent signings of Adrian Beltre and Japanese import Kenji Jojima left them dead and buried. But just as quickly as they fell, the Mariners have been able to rise back into contention with the emergence of Felix Hernandez and some smart personnel decisions.

The Cleveland Indians also fit the bill of a Have Some team who has been able to build a winning tradition and mount a resurgence when their shelf life has run out. From 1995 – 2001, the Indians won at least 86 games and made the postseason six out of those seven years. The Indians then went three years without reaching .500, but two out of the next three years they won at least 93 games. The Indians are back to rebuilding their franchise after trading away both game 1 World Series starters to the Phillies and Yankees, but their track record suggests that they will be able to overcome their current situation. They will have to honor contracts that will haunt them for some time (Travis Hafner is owed $37 million over the next three years and Fausto Carmona is owed over $11 million for the next two years), but they have few other guaranteed contracts over that time. This gives them the ability to keep their stars such as Grady Sizemore and lock up arbitration eligible players like Shin-Soo Choo .

This cycle of competitiveness and poor play is par for the course for many other Have Some teams. The key for baseball is that there must be a regular resurgence for many of these teams. The fan base will then have hope for a better team to come and that hope must be realized, so if the M’s are forced to trade Hernandez the uproar will only last as long as it takes the club to show they have a plan for success to follow.

This pattern is not dissimilar from that of the NFL. With its salary cap (with plenty of loopholes. Just ask Daniel Snyder), the NFL is lauded for the parity that baseball is so is criticized for lacking. But the cycle of good teams going bad and bad teams going good has been present in baseball for some time now. While an exact comparison is impossible (because of the aforementioned salary cap, the ability to franchise players who could leave for another team, the immediate use of draft picks, etc.), baseball teams can rebound just like football teams, but it usually takes a little bit longer to do so.

This piece in no way attempts to justify the spending of the Yankees and the other Haves, but it does attempt to show that most of the teams in the MLB have the ability to stay relevant and competitive for more years than not. And while that understandably may not be enough for many of their fans, it is not that different from the NFL, other major sports, and baseball of the recent past. Dynasties like the Yankees and free spenders like the other Haves justifiably inspire anger and resentment among some, but the vast majority of Major League teams have the ability to overcome the spendthrifts of major markets and develop winning teams.

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