The Ballad of Ricky-Bobby: Is The MLB Too Top Heavy?

BOBBY: I just read your Cust post where you say the White Sox are "set" if they somehow are able to acquire him... but with the MLB rich getting richer -- the Yanks presumably having a loaded 2009 team, the BoSox signing Lackey and having a great 1-3 in the rotation, the Phils landing Roy Halladay who will presumably burn down the National League -- does any of this Sox stuff even matter? With so many completely loaded teams, is the MLB more like the NBA than we think? Or are we playing the always possible and always more optimistic "baseball is a total crapshoot/the Sox have a chance" card"? Maybe, after this recent Yankees World Series victory (granted, their first in, like, a decade) I'm feeling like big money teams own the sport. Am I wrong?

RICKY: When I say the Sox would be "set," I don't mean that they'll contend to win the most regular season games in the American League. "Set" would refer to the division. Because, after all, winning your division in baseball is really all you can ask for. Make the playoffs and you've got a chance.

So to answer your question: yes, the baseball playoffs are still a total crapshoot. Only three times since 1995 has the team with the most regular season wins won the World Series. What the Yanks did last year would qualify as abnormal. To prove my point, look at this pretty picture.

It ranks how every team finished the regular season. The pink box signifies the team that won the World Series.

Remember, we're only four seasons removed from the 83-win Cardinals making Will Leitch and Nelly cry October tears of joy. In the words of Bill Walton, that team was turrible. I mean, the '06 Cards won just 51% of their games! They were the equivalent of an 8-8 NFL team or a 42-win NBA team. But they got hot in a few short series and that's all that matters.

Shortly after the Yanks won the World Series, Joe Posnanski -- who, I have to say, really does live up the hype -- wrote a great piece on the unfairness of the Yankees' payroll. He argues that one of the reasons people don't get pissed off more often about the Yankees routinely spending $70 million more on players than even the second richest team is because baseball is able to hide their dominance through this goofy playoff system. After all, your season and team can only truly be verified as "great" if you win the whole thing, right? This part sums it up nicely.

At the end of the year, the best teams are thrown together in a succession of short series that are fun to watch but are not designed to pick the best teams. Quite the opposite: A short series in baseball is designed to shelter weaknesses and expose strengths. Yuni Betancourt can out-hit A-Rod in a five-game series. Livan Hernandez can out-pitch Tim Lincecum in a one-game match-up. Baseball doesn't hide this -- they slam it down your throat. October baseball! Anything's possible! And so on.

Yep. Even if the Yankees will be a juggernaut again in 2010 (they will be), don't hand them the hardware just yet.