Sure, it's a long season, and a lot of things can happen. Imagine, though, that you're playing on a team that is so bad that you have no shot at anything meaningful, even before spring training. ESPN's Tim Kurkjian tells who these sad-sack teams are.
The gap between the best and worst teams is baseball's biggest problem. It is, however, nothing new. Take virtually any period in baseball history and you'll find teams that had no hope in February. In the American League in the 1960s, the Indians finished an average of 22½ games out of first place. The Senators and Athletics averaged nearly 33 games out per year.
That, of course, doesn't makes the fans of the Tigers, Royals, Devil Rays or Brewers feel better. Unlike the '60s, there are now four playoff teams per league, and these teams still don't have a chance. Tampa Bay's payroll likely will be between $20-$25 million; the Yankees payroll roughly will be $165 million: that difference is approximately 10 times larger than the highest and lowest payroll in 1990. The game isn't as good when it's an upset -- a term that should be left to football -- when the Tigers win two out of three from the Yankees.
It's not a good time to be a baseball fan in Detroit, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, or Pittsburgh. What's ironic is that Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee all have brand new stadiums. They needed new cribs to showcase bad baseball? Methinks the poor fans in these cities have been sold a bill of goods.
