I’ve been posting on the imbalance between the richest and poorest teams in baseball. But so far this season, baseball has a nice competitive balance. No division lead is greater than 3 games. Only six teams strike me as being truly out of the running: Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Houston and Arizona. Of course, any of these six teams could pull off an amazing run, win the wild card and make me look foolish. We can argue about how realistic the prospects are this season for the two Chicago teams, Milwaukee and Seattle, all of which are performing well below pre-season expectations. So if I took the gloomiest view of competitive balance, perhaps ten teams are out of contention. But each of the remaining 20 teams has a real chance to make the playoffs.
Fans of competitive balance should be VERY happy with the better-than expected performance of Toronto, Oakland, Florida, Washington, Cincinnati and San Diego. These are all “small market” teams, and we might have expected them to be out of the running at this point.
Let’s focus on the American League East, where we have a helluva battle going on between the Rays, Yanks, Red Sox and Blue Jays. We TOLD you here before that the Red Sox are a good team. While the Yankees struggled through a difficult portion of its schedule in May, Boston went 11-5 against the Blue Jays, Tigers, Yanks, Twins, Phillies and Rays. Boston is hitting the baseball – in the AL, they are second to the Yankees in runs scored, OBP and OPS. Not bad for a team that focused last winter on “run prevention.”
But Boston’s pitching is still not what we thought it would be. They are ninth in the AL in ERA and FIP, and tenth in the AL in xFIP – ahead of only Texas, Baltimore, KC and Cleveland. What’s worse, Boston’s pitching numbers for May did not show much improvement: the Red Sox had a 4.59 FIP in April and a 4.35 FIP in May. The BoSox May FIP numbers, while improved, were only tenth best in the AL. (Comparable Yankees numbers: 3.93 FIP in April and 4.40 FIP in May.) One would guess that Red Sox pitching must continue to improve if their team is going to compete with the Rays, Yankees and Blue Jays (3.56 FIP in May, 3.71 FIP overall).
As long as we’re on the topic of pitching … the Yanks’ starting pitching has been outstanding, with a 3.60 ERA (second best in the AL) and a 4.01 FIP (third best in the AL). But the Yankee relief pitching has been comparatively awful, with a 4.50 FIP (tied for ninth best in the AL) and a 4.42 ERA (11th best in the AL, ahead of only the Royals, Angels and Indians). The Yankee bullpen ERA in May was a dismal 4.94. If you’re looking for a place where the Yanks need to improve mid-season, it’s the bullpen.
But overall, it’s hard for me to complain. We have great races all throughout baseball, the Yanks are on a clip to exceed 100 wins, and I’m blogging on the Sweet Spot Network. Very nice.
Yup – as far as "competitive balance" goes – things are great. But would it be so awful to have the Bombers just run away with things? All the experts that want to reorganize – I could almost agree – let's put the Rays and Red Sox somewhere else. It is a real downer, looking at the standings, and seeing us 2 (or more) games out of first, even though we have the 2nd best record in the MLB.
I'm just hoping our "hot streak" can continue when we return to playing the varsity, as opposed to the juco teams we have been beating.
Jon, yes I'd sleep better at night if the Yanks played in the AL West (you might not; I live on the West Coast), where we'd have a 5-1/2 game lead over Texas. In 1999, Cincinnati won 96 games and did not win either its division or the Wild Card. In 2010, it's possible that an AL East team will win more than 96 games and not win the division or the Wild Card.
Sleep fine at night boys. And don;t tell me how many up the Yanks are in the wild card! Not interested in what for me is a near-worst-case scenario. We're only a couple back of Tampa, who has been declining. Divisional titles are the only acceptable goal at this point for the regular season. Well, that and the best record in baseball. And an ASG win for the AL (sorry Jason) for home field advantage in the WS.
Wild Card is a measly consolation prize that other teams, like Boston or Detroit or Anaheim, should be fighting for.
Title #28 is coming within 5 months guys. Own it up!
@ Marc
Why does the division crown matter so much? Yeah, we'd all like to win as many games as possible and take the division, but ultimately the only thing that matters in the regular season is earning a playoff berth, and the 1/8 chance at a World Series championship that comes with it. Whether you get to October via the Wild Card or divisional title doesn't much matter.
B/c why should I am for 2nd place or worry about it? We're the Yanks and we're the World Champs. People have to knock us off. And I take pride in division titles, not backing in. That said, of course a wild card berth is much better than staying home, but 1/3 through the season, we should only focus on what they need to do to finish in 1st, not how to settle for 2nd.
Just my elitist Yankee fan attitude. But then again, even Jeter agrees with me.
Yep… Good start to the season for the Yanks…
Cano, Gardener and Swish will probably regress, but between Tex, Granderson and Posada improving, the offense should stay in pretty good shape and set the pace for the league.
I do think Girardi can figure out something with the pen, so not too worried there…
Concerned a little bit about AJ's K rate, Hughes' BABIP, and Andy can't keep this up all season, right??
Anyway, a fun team to watch, and it's great watching Cano, Gardener and Hughes bloom…
JP, I do like home field advantage. Though I admit, I haven’t studied to see how much it means in the post-season.
Larry, fair point on home field.
But again, it's not that I don't care about the division. It's just that the importance of the division above and beyond the wild card is almost nothing compared to the importance of a playoff spot itself.
Put it this way, what would you prefer: 2 games out of first place, and 2 games up in the wild card, or 5 games out of first, and 5 game lead in the wild card?
Maybe I'm overly risk averse, but I prefer the 5 game lead/deficit. The division is nice, but it's literally worthless compared to a chance at a championship. We won the division in 2004, and the Red Sox had to settle for the Wild Card. It is zero consolation whatsoever that we took the division crown that year, and it matters not at all that the Red Sox had to resort to the wild card to make the playoffs.