This NLCS is good for baseball

Editor’s note: I was working on this post before I read Larry Brown’s very similar take on this. You’ll have to believe me. Check his thoughts out too.

Over the next week, you will more than likely hear many complain about this NLCS matchup. They will point to the inevitable low ratings, complain that they haven’t heard of players on either team, complain that two teams without a rich, long history are playing and complain that two Western teams are involved. And they may even complain that the Diamondbacks aren’t selling out their home games easily.

Don’t listen to them — playoff matchups like Arizona-Colorado are much better for the sport long-term. Sure, in the short term, ratings and national fan interest might have gone up if it were a Cubs-Phillies or Mets-Dodgers NLCS. Another Red Sox-Yankees ALCS might have given baseball its highest ratings and national interest in a really long time.

But for this league to succeed long term, a perception of parity has to be intact. For baseball to grow, fans of most of the 30 teams have to believe that their team has a chance to go all the way. (I said most, not all, because there will always be inept, mismanaged teams like Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Tampa Bay and the LA Dodgers.)

If the same handful of teams win every year, fans in the other 25 cities will eventually lose interest.

Baseball has had seven different World Series winners in the last seven years, no other major pro sport can even come close to saying that. If either the Indians or Rockies win this year, it will be eight different World Series winners in eight years.

Yet the perception still exists that baseball has a parity problem because it doesn’t have a salary cap, even though baseball has recently had surprise teams make it to the playoffs every single year. Given the history of baseball’s owners, it’s doubtful that baseball will ever have a real salary cap.

But teams can compete anyway — The Indians, Rockies and Diamondbacks have the 23rd, 25th and 26th highest payrolls in the league, respectively. All three were in the bottom third.

MLB executives and FOX are probably rooting for the Boston Red Sox to make the World Series, and were probably hoping for a Yankees/Red Sox vs. Cubs/Phillies World Series before the playoffs started. But that’s shortsighted — for a league to be successful long-term, there has to be parity.