Sawchik: Postseason reveals widening gap between haves, have-nots

From Travis Sawchik at FanGraphs on October 9, 2017:

The Indians are the last team of their kind standing, the last small-market club remaining in the playoff field, and it may not be all that surprising.

On Friday, this author wondered whether we might be entering an era of super teams. One reason to think that might be the case? This year, for the first time since 1999, six teams produced run differentials of 140 or greater (the equivalent of about 0.9 runs per game). Also: all eight teams that advanced to the divisional round of the playoffs posted run differentials of 100 or greater. Maybe it’s just an outlying season, maybe it’s nothing. On the other hand, it’s a rare event, fueled also in part by the quantity of non-competitive teams in the sport.

That a lot of those non-competitive teams also possess only modest spending power oughtn’t come as a surprise. In a post last month, Craig Edwards found that baseball’s age of parity was over, that the relationship between wins and payroll has grown stronger.

Read the full article here: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/postseason-reveals-widening-gap-between-haves-have-nots/



Originally published: October 10, 2017. Last Updated: October 10, 2017.