I’ve batted this around before but I think this crystalizes it:
I understand Greinke is available and that Houston is after him…this kind of thing really seems to have taken off the last few years. A good team picks up a superstar for mostly money and then suddenly that good team is a great team and then suddenly we have super-teams in the likes of Houston and NY and Boston. Coupled with increasing tanking from the bottom-feeders and now we have more seperation from the bottom and the top then ever.
THIS coupled with effing with the rules (or threatening to) and schenanigans from the likes of Jeter (Christ the pieces they have parted with for almost nothing) has led to the drop in interest and attendance.
Again, I know its a simplistic take with holes in it. But Greinke to the Astros just reminded me of how IMHO how the strong are just getting stronger.
It’s not all that different from the 1940s-1960s when perpetually bad teams like the Athletics and Senators traded all their best players to the Yankees in exchange for quick cash.
It’s just that today there are a lot more teams with money to spend, and free agents to throw at them.
There are actually five teams competing for three slots in the AL right now, all of whom are on pace for 90 or so wins (plus the Astros and Yankees a bit ahead and on pace for 100 or so). It looked much more like a super-team dominated league before the season started than it does now. If the Astros are talking about picking up Greinke, it’s because their 4-5 pitching slots have been kind of a trainwreck this year.
Well, it is that time of year (trade deadline).
Every sport has a big disparity between the top and bottom teams. That’s just the way it goes. The question is are there enough good teams to make the league interesting and I think MLB has been pretty good at that over the years.
The problem isn’t when the strong get stronger within a season. The problem is when the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker over the course of many seasons, so that it’s always the same teams on top and the same teams on the bottom. In that respect, MLB isn’t perfect, but it’s not nearly as bad as it could be.