From: snichols@adobe.com (Sherri Nichols)
Subject: Re: Another parity debate (was Re: Dear Sherri)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 23:45:49 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.151439.1@sask.usask.ca> chin@sask.usask.ca (Glenn Chin) writes:
>I don't disagree with the above statements.  However, there is only so much
>established talent to go around.  A few teams signing some top players means
>other teams have less to choose from.

I do agree that hockey has a problem with the size of the talent pool.  One
way to increase the size of the talent pool, though, is to increase the
size of player salaries.  Then some of those guys like Tom Glavine (4th
round pick, Los Angeles Kings, 1984, 2nd round pick in baseball) and Kirk
McCaskill (4th round pick, Winnipeg Jets, 1981, played 78 games for the
Sherbrooke Jets in 83-84, also 4th round pick in baseball) might pick
hockey over baseball.  

>> As a precedent for what?  Increased parity?  That's exactly what exists in
>> baseball right now.  
>
>How about parity in the NBA over the past ten years (championships won by
>big-market teams in Boston, L.A., Detroit, and Chicago)?

Maybe evidence that a salary cap, or at least a salary cap with as many
loopholes as the NBA, doesn't really help parity.  

>  Also, one must be
>careful when comparing parity among different sports.  How consistent (and
>hence, predictable when signing big-name talent) are, say, baseball players
>compared to basketball players?  From my personal observation, the performance
>of baseball players appears to be less consistent than their colleagues in
>basketball and hockey.

I don't see it.  The *perception* is probably there, because the nature of
the sport puts every player's individual performance under a microscope,
but I don't really think the reality is there.  

>Furthermore, in basketball and hockey, star players can log extra time,
>whereas star hitters in baseball come up no more than once every nine
>slots. 

Not quite true; every lineup slot does not get the same number of plate
appearances in the game, and you start each game at the beginning of the
lineup.  Over the course of a 162 game season, there is a reasonably big
difference.  

>Star pitchers are also not available every game.

Star players are clearly more valuable in basketball than in baseball,
though it's not clear how much of that is due to more playing time and how
much of that is due to the differences in roster size.  Hockey roster sizes
are much more comparable to baseball roster sizes.  Also, baseball teams
seldom use all of the players on the roster in a single game.

>If you compare the seasonal results in MLB with those in Cuba or Japan, there
>would be more merit to your claim.

Except that Japan and Cuba are drawing from *much* smaller talent pools
than any of the other sports we're talking about here.  Japanese baseball
teams can only have two foreigners per team.  Cuban baseball teams are made
up solely of Cubans.  MLB teams, on the other hand, draw from the US, Latin
America, and Canada, with some scattered players from elsewhere (there was
an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the first Russian
player being signed to a baseball contract).

Sherri Nichols
snichols@adobe.com