One reader's reaction to my "Parity" post the other day was to comment that a salary cap would be best for parity much as it has worked for the NFL. The NFL has obtained parity with the system and once powerful teams such as the Rams and the Ravens came back to earth. But although forced parity has the advantage of forcing different teams to the top from year to year, it really dilutes the experience for the fan in a couple of different ways.

The first way that "forced parity" dilutes the fan's experience is that each city's fans must adopt new players to cheer for each year. Teams can only keep about five or six top players and the rest rotate on to other teams. So between trades, free agency, retirements, cuts and the draft, as much as 70% of each team may be new from year to year. It's hard to build up any loyalty that way.

The second way that the salary cap dilutes the fan's experience is related to the first. Two years ago, the Rams were one of the most talented teams in football history and one of the most fun to watch. Their only problem all year was to run into the destiny team of the Patriots in the Super Bowl. They had three great receivers who knew the system, a great running back, a very good tight end, a great defense and a good kicking game. Teams with that much talent are fun to watch. But you can only pay for a few superstars and so have to deal some. Now you have two great receivers and a great running back, but a lot of the others that made all that tick have had to leave.

Another example is the Buffalo Bills having to dump Peerless Price this year. The combination of Price and Moulds was fantastic. Now you have to dump one because Blesoe and Mould's salaries.

So...no...I'm not interested in that kind of parity for baseball. Besides, again, I don't think it's necessary. Someday I'll do a study of all MLB teams over 20 years old and see if I can truly identify a pattern or cycle of success and failure. Just about every team I can think about has had one.

I will concede that the lower payroll teams have a similar problem to teams in the NFL in that they can only keep their superstars for so long. The A's have shipped away Giambi and will soon ship away Tejada simply because they could not afford for a $40 million payroll to have half of that payroll taken by one player. But at least for those teams that develop players and build a good team, the free agency and arbitration rules mean that a Minnesota Twins can keep a young and great group together for a few years before having to let players go.


Next topic: The Schedule.
A few years ago, it was popular to bash the schedule because teams back then didn't face their division rivals more than a few series a year. Now they have "fixed" the schedules so that teams play dozens of games against division rivals. It's great for the Giants to have that many games with the Dodgers or for the Red Sox to have that many games with the Yankees. But then you have to have Twins team play the Tigers and Royals scads of times. Not only is that boring somewhat for the fans but it inflates the Twins success rate and unfairly places them in the race for best record and home field advantage in the playoffs. You then have the winner of a really strong division like the National League Midwest having only 92 wins because all the teams in that division are strong.

Another unfair situation develops with interleague play. The Flagrant Fan does not like interleague play. It's unnatural and it seems more of a circus and exhibition than real games. I'm sure we'll discuss this more when that part of the season begins. But the point is that the outcome of a season may be a result of how tough one team's interleague schedule was compared to their rivals. I seriously believe that the Red Sox chances last year were eroded by having to face Atlanta and Arizona back to back in interleague play.

It is amazing to me that in this computer age, we can't do better with the schedule to do the best humanly possible to create a schedule as fair and unbiased as possible.