File this under things that are never going to happen.
But if Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball owners so desired, they’d realize the standings are making the case there’s no need to bring the game to the brink of a sport-ruining work stoppage in 2027 and beyond by pushing for a salary cap in the name of increased competitiveness — because management has already legislated parity and competitiveness into the game.
This season marks just the third time in the wild card era in which no team reached the 100-game mark with more than 60 wins. No team is on pace to win 100 games for the first time since 2014.
The best records in the game belong to the small-market Milwaukee Brewers — who lost their general manager (David Stearns) and manager (Craig Counsell) to the big-market New York Mets and Chicago Cubs following the 2023 season — and the Toronto Blue Jays.
If the playoffs started today, mid-sized markets would account for half of the 12 participants. There would also be six teams — the big-market Mets along with the Brewers, Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres — who haven’t won a World Series in at least 30 years, or ever, in the case of the Brewers, Mariners and Padres.
The Mariners, the only team in baseball that has never reached a Fall Classic, made the first major move of Trade Deadline SZN on Thursday night by acquiring Josh Naylor from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Blue Jays, Mariners, Cubs and Boston Red Sox all currently hold playoff spots after missing the postseason last year. Four more teams that didn’t qualify in 2024 — the Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds — are above .500 and within striking distance of a wild card berth.
This should be viewed as the optimal result of expanding the playoff field in 2022, which served a dual purpose for owners: reducing the incentive for most teams to spend big over the winter while building in a larger margin of error during the regular season.
Four teams reached the postseason last year despite enduring at least one 30-game stretch in which they lost 20 or more games. Two-thirds of the current playoff field — the Blue Jays, Mariners, Padres, Mets, Tigers and Red Sox, along with the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers — have lost at least eight of 10 at some point this season.
It’s even possible to sell at the deadline and still make the playoffs, as proven by the Tigers (last season) and Twins (2017).
The bottom of the sport isn’t as deep — even with the Colorado Rockies somehow threatening the 2024 Chicago White Sox for the title of worst team of the modern era. At least three teams have lost 100 games in each of the last six full seasons, but only the Rockies and White Sox are currently on pace to do so this year.
The inability of the six last-place teams to compete in this environment is indicative of their ongoing incompetence, not evidence that the system needs to be overhauled. The White Sox, Rockies, Baltimore Orioles, Don’t-You-Dare-Call-Us-The-Sacramento Athletics, Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates have combined for five championships and eight World Series appearances in the last 50 years.
Alas, at least five of those teams are owned by salary cap hawks — and the Nationals, who were briefly put up for sale by the Lerner family before being pulled off the market, have made it clear how they feel by refusing to wade into the deep waters of free agency even after the Max Scherzer contract paid off with the 2019 title.
And guess who chairs the owners’ negotiating committee? That’d be Rockies owner Dick Monfort.
The CBA isn’t perfect. One thing everyone can agree on is that the loophole allowing the Dodgers to sign everyone this side of Kevin Gross to a lucrative contract loaded with deferred money needs to be closed.
But the game is competitive and compelling. Major League Baseball’s communications department noted earlier this month that MLB.tv viewership is more than 30 percent ahead of last season’s record pace — and that attendance on July 4 was the highest in 10 years.
