The P-Word in Baseball?

A few years ago, Boston Red Sox president Larry Lucchesi ratcheted up the team's rivalry with New York by describing the Yankees as the Evil Empire.

That remark would presumably cast Boston as the Rebel Alliance, with the sides — Red Sox and Yankees; Jedi and Sith; darkness and light, good and evil — battling eternally for galactic supremacy, at least in the American League East Division.

Maybe it'll turn out that way come September, but the Eewoks are in charge right now.

A quick look at the division standings after the season's opening month show Baltimore in leading by four games over Boston and Toronto, with New York six-and-a-half games adrift.

If all of AL East's top four teams maintain their current pace for the entire season, the Orioles would finish 27 games ahead of second-place Boston and 28 games up on the Blue Jays. At 44 games back, the O's would have lapped New York.

Were the season over today, a lot of players would fall way short of their performance incentives. Additionally, only two of last year's playoff qualifiers would return — and neither Boston, the defending World Series champion, nor New York, the consensus pick to win the title this year, would be among them.

That's consistent with a computer simulation in which the 2005 season was recreated 100 times, according to the April 11 issue of Sports Illustrated. In the simulations, 25 of the 30 major league teams qualified for the playoffs at least once.

Is it too early to say parity has come to Major League Baseball?

Yes and no. In the AL East, the Jedi and the Storm Troopers will probably get down to battling each other, and, just like in the Star Wars series, the Orioles will get caught in the crossfire.

The 162-game season has a way of exposing fluky performances, both for teams and individuals. But it's become obvious that the gaps between the haves and have-nots are closing to the point that a small-market team can conceivably win a World Series with breaking the bank.

What's most surprising about this year's postseason race interlopers is that no one ought to be particularly surprised that they are contending. Minnesota, now second in the AL Central, has the league's third-best record and would be in line as the wildcard team under the current standings.

The Twins were picked to win the division and are one of only two teams that would return to the playoffs if the current standings hold up.

The White Sox being in the AL Central driver's seat is a mild surprise, if only because they were predicted for a middle-of-the-pack finish based on recent disappointments more than on current talent. In the West, the Angels were a mid-season favorite, but the Rangers and A's weren't far behind. And that's how it's working out in real life.

In the National League, the Giants were the favorite pick in the West, at least before Barry Bonds went down. Without his presence, the Dodgers stepped into the void, which could have been expected.

Florida was picked by SI to finish second in the East Division, behind Atlanta, but a lot of other observers had the Braves in second. So far, the Marlins have been game fish. And with a pitching rotation anchored by Josh Beckett and Dontrelle Willis, they just might stay in first.

Once the most stratified league in professional sports, Major League Baseball is fast becoming a sport in which the battle is going not to the richest, but the smartest. Even though there is still some work to be done, small market teams now have a chance in baseball, which they didn't have a few years ago.

The lion's share of the credit goes to Bud Selig, the much-maligned commissioner. While the luxury tax he helped push through hasn't enabled small-market teams to match New York dollar for dollar, it has helped.

For teams at the bottom of the payroll list, the luxury tax can deliver more than $10 million. For the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, that's almost one-third of the payroll. In Milwaukee, the luxury tax helped fund a 46 percent increase in player salaries.

Another reason for baseball's semblance of parity has been an emphasis on the part of small and medium market teams on smart, rather than more, spending. The A's and their general manager, Billy Beane, are the prime example of this approach.

Detractors dismiss Beane's philosophy as merely looking at computer printouts to judge talent. In reality, his strategy is to look for talent that is undervalued in Major League Baseball's marketplace and pick it up for less than it's worth.

Now that everyone else has caught on to the value of players who can hit for power and draw walks, characteristics Beane has treasured in years past, the A's GM said last spring that he's on the search for the next type of player that is undervalued, yet valuable.

Make no mistake, there are still things that need to be done to help the small market teams — NFL-style revenue sharing and a salary cap would be the ultimate accomplishment — but habitual losing teams no longer can place all the blame on the New York Yankees.

In its May 1 sports section, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Pirates cut payroll this year, and are paying players $20 million less than they did three years ago, even though Pittsburgh received $17 million in salary tax funding this year alone.

The Post-Gazette report exposed the Pirates management as being unwilling, rather than unable, to spend the money to contend. But for teams looking to get better, they now have a chance, which is all small-market advocates ever wanted.

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