Jake Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_j...more-parity-nfl • Boy, it sure is a good thing that The Same Teams Don't Win Every Year in football, isn't it? Ehhh, wait. How come those teams in the NFL conference championship games looked so familiar? Oh. Maybe it's because three of the four also played in those conference championship games last year. How often does that happen in baseball? Ummmm, never in the wild-card era -- and not under any system since 1991-92. ... • Then there are those plucky, underdog Ravens. Did you know they haven't merely made the playoffs in five straight seasons? They've also advanced in the playoffs in five straight seasons. Want to guess how many times even the Yankees have advanced in the baseball postseason in five straight seasons, no matter what the format? Once -- when they were winning five consecutive World Series from 1949-53. But that's never happened in the division-play era. Ever. • In fact, only one baseball team has ever advanced (i.e., won a series) in five straight postseasons during the division-play era. That would be the Braves, from 1995-99. That's it. • Boy, it sure is a good thing The Same Teams Don't Win Every Year in football. Isn't it? You never know what team might shock the world and show up in the Super Bowl, right? Well, not so right. Did you know that since the 2000 season, the Patriots, Ravens, Colts and Steelers have represented the AFC in every Super Bowl but one? True Fact. Feel free to look it up. • Over in that other sport, they keep on spreading the titles around. Even though your reigning World Series champs, the Giants, have won two of the past three World Series, nine teams have won a title in baseball since the 2000 season. But no matter who wins this Super Bowl, the NFL can't match that. If the Ravens win, it will be just seven different champs since the 2000 season. If the 49ers win, it will be eight. Yet one more True Fact. • Have any of these NFL propaganda dispensers noticed that the Yankees, the franchise they constantly use as an example of everything that's wrong with baseball, keep forgetting to stampede through October? Go check. The mighty Yankees have played in exactly one of the past nine World Series. One. Meanwhile in the NFL, the Steelers (three), Patriots (three) and Giants (two) have combined for EIGHT Super Bowl trips over the past IX Super Sundays. • Finally, there's this: Bet you didn't know that 20 of the 32 NFL franchises (62.5 percent) have won NONE of the past 25 Super Bowls. But over the past 25 World Series, more than half the teams in baseball (16 of 30) have won at least one. http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_jayson/id/7420412/ • It's a big deal that six of the 12 teams that made the NFL playoffs didn't get there last season, huh? Well, good for them, but let's put that in slightly better perspective. You know how many years in a row the NFL has now turned over at least half its playoff field? That would be precisely one. In baseball, on the other hand, it's now happened in six consecutive seasons. Shocking! • I always hate to mention this sort of thing. But if you passed third-grade math, you know the NFL ensures some of that turnover in its playoff field just by creating 33.3 percent more division winners than baseball (eight versus six) and 50 percent more playoff spots (12 versus eight). So what do you get when you invite more teams to the party? You get a playoff team (those Denver Tebows) that went 8-8 and got outscored for the season by 81 points. That's what. But that's no aberration, friends. This now makes three times in the last four seasons that a team that went .500 or worse has made the NFL playoffs. Uh, guess how many times a .500 team (or worse) has made the baseball postseason -- even if you go back to 1903. That would be zero, of course. • Which sport has had more parity lately? It isn't even that close. Over the last six seasons, 36 of the NFL's 72 playoff teams repeated. That's 50 percent. But over in baseball, only 19 of 48 repeated. That's 39.6 percent. • We could go back even father -- to 2004, the year baseball really began to feel the impact of its stepped-up revenue-sharing system. Since then, over a span of eight seasons, only 29 of 64 baseball teams have made it to the postseason in back-to-back seasons. That computes to 45.3 percent. But over in the NFL, the kings of parity have had 46-of-96 repeat. That's 47.9 percent. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...lb&c_id=mlb As baseball has gotten younger in recent years, its competitive balance has improved. Eleven of the last 12 World Series clubs have gone to different clubs, and only two of the top nine clubs in terms of Opening Day payroll in 2010 reached the postseason last year. Three teams from the bottom 12 in player payroll (the Reds, Rays and Rangers) advanced to October. Baseball, by its nature, isn't a sport that lends itself to parity. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but teams play 162 games, not 16. That's a heck of a lot of time to separate the best from the rest. Any team can beat any other team on any given day (as is the case in the NFL, where teams have a week to prepare for each other), but the sheer length of the schedule rewards those who can beat other teams with the most consistency. The MLB postseason also inherently rewards the fittest, not the flukes. A best-of-five opening round creates a little more uncertainty than the best-of-seven format in the League Championship Series and World Series, but it still provides a more suitable setting for the deepest and most talented team to shine than a single-elimination setup. When you consider those built-in factors, what's transpired, in terms of the number of different teams contending for and, ultimately, hoisting the World Series trophy, defies popular wisdom. Yes, baseball's structure allows for some major economic disparity (the Royals' Opening Day 2011 payroll, as an example, projects to be just $2 million more than Alex Rodriguez's season salary), but that hasn't translated into the kind of predictability of which the game is often accused. Each progressively gets more out of date, but the good points remain. People just look at salary discrepancy and assume MLB has less parity, when it arguably has more. Especially consider the amount of games played. If the NFL has parity, that means you need lots of games to figure out who is best. They don't play a lot of games, especially in the postseason. Some of their change is likely random variation, where random variation is much less likely to explain playoff position in baseball, given they have 162 games to sort it all out. Then you get into the playoffs and play actual series to determine the best team, rather than one game that again is highly susceptible to flukes. The NFL passes off flukes as parity and still doesn't have the parity of MLB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyyle23 Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Wite, I do believe Jake just told you to STFU Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knightni Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Good reads. They really need proof-readers, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleHurt05 Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 11 different MLB teams have appeared in the last 10 World Series, while 13 NFL squads have been in the last 10 Super Bowls. Counting 2013, six franchises will hold the last 10 MLB titles, while seven NFL teams have won the last 10 Super Bowls. The Red Sox & Cardinals laugh at your parity theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
witesoxfan Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 http://deadspin.com/5697312/the-nfls-incre...-simple-graphic - 2010 http://deadspin.com/5959827/it-happened-ag...triking-graphic - 2012 It could easily happen again this year too, assuming Jacksonville can beat someone. -The Superbowl has also featured 1 more team unique team in the last 25 editions (24 teams in the NFL, 23 teams in the MLB). -There have been 11 NFL teams that have made multiple Superbowl appearances, while 12 have done so in the World Series. -The Pats, Giants, 49ers, and Cowboys are tied for most wins in that time frame with 3, while the Yankees have won 5, one of the Cardinals and Red Sox will add their 3rd, and the other, along with 3 others, are tied with 2 World Series wins in that time frame. -In the last 15 years, the NFL has seen every team in the league make the playoffs. The Pirates went on a 20 year winning season drought, which was just ended this year, the Brewers snapped a 26 year streak in 2008, and the Royals currently have a 28 year drought. Trying to suggest that baseball offers better parity is silly. If anything, they are approximately equal footing. What we can agree upon is that they both offer far more parity than the NBA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Chappas Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 The stat to see if anyone has time, How many NFL teams won a playoff game v how many teams have won a playoff series in this decade. Getting to the playoffs can still be kind of fluky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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