The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Promised Land of Parity

Jul 22, 2014; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; MLB commissioner Bud Selig (left) talks with Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle (right) on the field before the Pirates host the Los Angeles Dodgers at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

The Pittsburgh Pirates are no longer wandering aimlessly in the desert.

The last two decades of living off the scarce manna of legitimate prospects have been replaced with a veritable feast of bona fide players. The quickly evaporating watering hole of hope among fans has become an oasis of Jolly Rogers hung on front porches and gold P stickers attached to back windshields. The once distant mirage of World Series contention is replaced by…well, actual World Series contention.

Other teams also recently lost in a wasteland — i.e. the Kansas City Royals, Baltimore Orioles, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, San Diego Padres, etc. — have either found their way to lush valleys, or are on a charted path toward them. Very few teams are now adrift in the desert. And those teams have only their own faulty maps to blame.

The promised land of parity is for real.

And former MLB commissioner Bud Selig is the founder.

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Selig instituted two of the most important contributions to the baseball’s current competitive balance — revenue sharing and the luxury tax. The wealthiest teams are no longer embarking on the kind of spending sprees they once were, and the most frugal teams are no longer hoarding cash under the mattress. Moreover, local TV contracts have wrought enormous profits, thus affording budding pre-superstar players in small markets to earn contract extensions before potentially landing mega-deals in free agency. And drug testing has shifted the talent balance in the favor of younger players. (To be fair, Bud Selig is, at least, a co-founder/chief enabler of PED land, too.)

Furthermore, parity seems to be a byproduct of team building via a collective smarter process — smarter drafting, smarter scouting, smarter contracts, smarter evaluation of stats, smarter methods to determine advanced stats, smarter player management, etc. Secrets of successful management teams are hard to keep. The adage is especially true considering the prying eyes of enemy management teams, and an army of media, hungry to uncover the next scantly practiced undervalued method of a forward-thinking team seeking an on-field advantage.

I bet every other GM in the league purchased a copy of Moneyball in 2002, and secretly wanted A’s GM Billy Beane to sign the inside cover, “To my friend _____, the second best GM in baseball.”

A further means of injecting a dose of parity was the introduction of the 10-team playoff format, which includes two wild-card spots in either league. Noted sabermatrician Phil Birnbaum has noted, “With more teams qualifying for the post-season, there’s less point making yourself into a 98-win team when a 93-win team will probably be good enough (to make the playoffs).”

And of course, once in the playoffs, the crap-shoot begins.

Per the excellent site Grantland, during the current off-season, desirable free agents signed with the prior years’ non-playoff teams at a higher rate that at any point in the earlier decade. A better chance of securing a playoff spot, if only by virtue of more available playoff spots, motivates mediocre teams to nab top free agents. In turn, interest in the local team sails and more tickets are sold.

In the earlier two decades, generally the talent gap between large-revenue teams and small-revenue teams was as yawning as the spending gap. Since arriving in the promised land of parity, the gap has shrunk. The teams skimming the bottom of the payroll rankings are now spending closer to $100 mil than zero. And teams like the Yankees — who normally lit their Cuban cigars with Benjamins — are more often using Zippos and pocketing the savings.

Until not long ago, the Pirates lit their gas station Swisher Sweets with $.99 Bic lighters from the plastic tub beside the give-a-penny, take-a-penny station.

Also hoping to light stogies at the conclusion of the 2015 World Series are Pirates fans, who are rightly excited about the upcoming season. Their team resembles a true contender. However, the Pirates seem to be one of many teams, in both leagues, brimming with talent. Despite many pundits singing their praises, the Pirates are often predicted to finish the season in third place in the NL Central, behind the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. Considering that the 2015 Pirates — widely considered the most talented baseball team to play in Pittsburgh since the early 90’s — should excel, but may still end up in the middle of the pack, means that parity might ultimately sting.

Besides a small handful of sad-sac teams — you know who they are — a playoff appearance in 2015 by any other team would not be shocking.

Jared Wickerham, a writer at Grantland, collected data from Fangraphs, and figured the projected 2015 win totals for each team. The results are eye-opening, and indicate the Pirates have plenty of company in the successful team-building process, by big and small revenue teams alike. Consider a few of the results:

— The chasm between the top records and the bottom records has never been more tight. Only 23 projected games separate the the biggest winner from the biggest loser. Furthermore, measures have determined that more teams will be crowded about the 81-win mark.

— From 2005-2013, 3.6 teams per season were forecast to win 90+ games. In 2014, one team was. In 2015, two teams are.

— From 2005-2013, 2.3 teams per season were projected to win 70 games or less. In 2014, only the Astros were. In 2015, only the Phillies are.

— Baseball Prospectus predicts 18 teams to finish at .500 or better, with only seven teams finishing at least 6 games under .500.

According to the projected results, the Pittsburgh Pirates are but a single resident in the promised land of parity, where all votes are counted equally. And in a near dead-heat to the Buctober finish line, one must wonder — what truly separates the winners from the losers? Perhaps luck solely determines which teams finish two games over .500, and which teams finish two games under .500. Or maybe it’s truly the oft-ridiculed intangibles/un-quantifiables that distinguish the winners from the almost-winners: clubhouse chemistry, leadership, or “Navy Seals”/Kyle Stark’s “HOKA HEY – It’s a good day to die!!!” training methods. Or maybe the baseballs gods really do decide.

Me? I’m a baseball god atheist.

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Indications of creeping parity has largely been ignored in favor of two decades of omnipresent huffing-and-puffing about how big-market clubs simply buy championships. However, besides the Yankees’ latest dynasty in the late-1990’s and 2000, and perhaps the Red Sox scattered dominance in the 2000’s, examples of competitive balance abound. Consider the following:

— Jason Stark, writer for ESPN, has taunted the real parity in MLB, as opposed to the perceived parity in NFL. He notes that 27 of 30 MLB teams have made the playoffs in the past decade. The three teams left out are the Marlins, Blue Jays, and Mariners — three playoff contenders in 2015. Only the Yankees and Blue Jays are repeat Word Series winners in the last 35 years. (Yanks 1998-2000, Jays 1992-1993). Only 6 teams have not played in a World Series in the last three decades, and 17 teams have claimed WS rings.

— Stark also writes that 2005 was the last year that more than half the playoff teams had been in the playoff field the year before. Since then, only 39.7% of playoff teams were repeats from the prior year.

— The “myth” that teams can buy champions also amuses Stark. He points out that five of the nine teams with the highest payroll missed the playoffs last year. Three of the teams — the Phillies, Red Sox, and Rangers — finished at the bottom of their division. The Giants were the only team in the top 12 in payroll to win a playoff series. The Nationals were the only other top 12 payroll team to win a single game. Certainly, luck had a role, but still…incredible!

The founder of the promised land of parity had a few parting words before relinquishing his role as MLB commissioner. “We have, unquestionably, more competitive balance than at any time in history. We had to do a lot of things to achieve this, make changes in the economic system, and it has led us to where we are today.

“We used to have teams year after year who couldn’t make the playoffs,” Selig said, as a cartoon thought bubble with a Jolly Roger inside of it lingered above his head. “And I couldn’t say it, but you knew they couldn’t make the playoffs.”

The promised land of parity is quickly becoming overpopulated. The Pirates now need to find a way OUT, hopefully opposite from where they entered.

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