Thursday, July 08, 2004

 

Why Parity Sucks (if you're Sabean)

Bud Selig is probably a happy man today. We're a few short days until the All-Star break, and hardly anyone is out of contention yet. Check this out: in the American League, 8 teams (out of 14) are within 5 games of a playoff spot. In the NL, it's an incredible 12 out of 16 teams. So at this moment, 20 teams are in contention. Two-thirds of all MLB teams.

That's great!

Unless your name is Brian Sabean.

Here's the problem with this wonderful parity. That's 20 teams who think (with good reason) that they have a chance to win it all this year. That's 20 teams who will be looking to add talent, not trade it away. That's 20 teams who will all be asking for the same guys from the 10 other teams.

Even worse, there might only be about six teams looking to sell. Baltimore, Seattle, Kansas City, Colorado, Arizona and Montreal are all more than 10 games back of the wild card. Their seasons are done. Likely Baltimore will live in denial and not shop any of their overpriced stars. Toronto is fourth in the AL East, and Ricciardi is smart enough to sell off talent if he gets a good deal. Detroit is having too much fun to want to tear down their roster. Cleveland and Pittsburgh might think they're just close enough to give it a shot. So in all probability, you'll have 20-24 teams chasing for the pickings from only six ballclubs.

It's a seller's market, which will make Sabean's job a lot tougher. He'll have to give up a lot more than usual if we wants to pick someone up. So as much as I'd love to see him pull off that Big Unit trade I mentioned last week, don't expect it. If anything, expect smaller deals that make you scratch your head, like the Schmidt/Vander Wal deal from a few years ago.

Remember, the man has a pretty solid record in making trades. Odds are he'll do well again.

Jefferson 2:52 PM

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