Parity Takes a Major Hit in 2012

[rcankosy]

See the W/L summaries for 2009 (first season) versus 2012 below. 

2009 season

Teams with greater or equal to 100 Wins = 2
Teams with greater or equal to 90 Wins = 8
Teams with greater or equal to 80 Wins = 6
Teams with greater or equal to 70 Wins = 10
Teams with greater or equal to 60 Wins = 3
Teams with greater or equal to 50 Wins = 1

2012 season

Teams with greater or equal to 100 Wins = 9
Teams with greater or equal to 90 Wins = 2
Teams with greater or equal to 80 Wins = 5
Teams with greater or equal to 70 Wins = 2
Teams with greater or equal to 60 Wins = 4
Teams with greater or equal to 50 Wins = 3
Teams with greater or equal to 40 Wins = 2
Teams with greater or equal to 30 Wins = 1
Teams with greater or equal to 20 Wins = 1
Teams with less than or equal to 10 Wins = 1

Key points:

Teams with greater than or equal to 100 wins rose from 2 to 9.
Teams with less than 70 wins rose from 4 to 12.

[Brewers GM]

Since I assume you were bringing this up for some discussion, any thoughts on why?  Thoughts on how this impacts the league?

To me this seems to be pretty unrealistic and is a result of teams not fielding a complete/active roster, but the solution to that is not straight forward.  Is this bad enough to force a rules change?

[Colby]

One thing to consider is that the W-L totals for this season have not been adjusted yet.

[Colby]

Per what has been done in the past, the fantasy record is blended 50/50 with a 41-41 record to make the regular season standings more realistic.  The results for 2012 are the following.

Los Angeles Dodgers  (106-56)
Oakland Athletics  (104-58)
St. Louis Cardinals  (104-58)
Texas Rangers  (101-61)
New York Yankees  (98-64)
Washington Nationals  (97-65)
Cleveland Indians  (96-66)
Boston Red Sox  (94-68)
Philadelphia Phillies  (94-68)
Houston Astros  (88-74)
Milwaukee Brewers  (86-76)
Kansas City Royals  (86-76)
Atlanta Braves  (85-77)
Pittsburgh Pirates  (84-78)
Chicago White Sox  (85-77)
Cincinnati Reds  (82-80)
Tampa Bay Rays  (81-81)
New York Mets  (79-83)
Seattle Mariners  (75-87)
Chicago Cubs  (74-88)
San Francisco Giants  (72-90)
Toronto Blue Jays  (73-89)
Colorado Rockies  (69-93)
Miami Marlins  (66-96)
Minnesota Twins  (66-96)
Arizona Diamondbacks  (65-97)
Detroit Tigers  (64-98)
Los Angeles Angels  (58-104)
San Diego Padres  (55-107)
Baltimore Orioles  (43-119)

[h4cheng]

Roy has a point though. Here are the standard deviation of wins by team for the past 4 years:

2009    11.88
2010    13.23
2011    16.15
2012   15.92

2012 actually saw an improvement in parity over 2011. However, the gap is still increasing compared to 2009. One thing we have seen from my other post is that amount of salary available doesn't have too much to do with winning and losing. In my opinion, it's the quality of the GM that determines whether a team does well or not.

[rcankosy]

Since I assume you were bringing this up for some discussion, any thoughts on why?  Thoughts on how this impacts the league?

To me this seems to be pretty unrealistic and is a result of teams not fielding a complete/active roster, but the solution to that is not straight forward.  Is this bad enough to force a rules change?

My management style is not to force any rules on the league, since this is a free league.  Imo, the main purpose of this league is to have fun, but I wanted to make everyone aware of the current parity level in the league, because it is something I pay particularly close attention to.

With the exception of Dan,  the RC was resoundingly against minimum starting requirements.  Therefore, that proposal was dropped.