It is staggering to still hear about the lack of competitive balance in the major leagues even as the Rangers and Giants play in the World Series.
Is baseball perfect? Of course, not. But when people talk about a competitive-balance problem, I think they mean a Yankees problem, since they are the financial outlier of the sport.
You never hear anyone complain that they can’t compete with the Phillies or Cubs. But anyone who thinks a salary cap is a panacea just isn’t paying attention.
The NBA has a salary cap, just opened its season and the consensus is four — count ‘em, four — teams can win it all: Lakers, Celtics, Heat and Magic. Enjoy the next 80 games, everyone else.
How about the sainted NFL? Well, there is no salary cap this year and, look, the Bills still stink. Even when there was a salary cap, the ability of just about any team to win had more to do with 1) The small sample size of a 16-game schedule. For example, a team that is really 7-9 is just two good bounces away from being 9-7, the kind of luck that cannot turn a 70-90 baseball team into a 90-70 club. 2) The brutality of the sport. A run of health or injuries in a vicious game can energize or doom a season.
Yet with all of that, MLB still comparatively hangs in just fine against the NFL when it comes to competitive balance — despite the propaganda.
This Giants-Rangers World Series guarantees a different champion for the sixth straight year. The NFL has had five different Super Bowl winners over the same span (the Steelers have won twice). In those six years, 11 different teams have filled the possible 12 slots in the World Series (the Phillies have been there twice). Nine different teams have filled the 12 Super Bowl slots.
In that six-year look, 22 out of 30 teams (73.3 percent) have made the MLB playoffs. In the NFL, 26 out of 32 teams have reached the postseason (81.3 percent). But remember that baseball has the most restrictive playoffs with just eight teams advancing compared to 12 for the NFL.
That is one reason why there almost certainly will be another wild card added for MLB in 2012.
But even now, as there is a complaint about lack of hope in so many locales, especially in comparison to the NFL, I wondered if that actually held.
I see five locales where the NFL clearly wins the hope derby: Ravens vs. Orioles (Baltimore), Steelers vs. Pirates (Pittsburgh), Packers vs. Brewers (Wisconsin), Chargers vs. Padres (San Diego — though so far in 2010 the Padres provided more to the fans) and Redskins over Nationals (DC). If you want to stretch the regional argument, the Colts also would have it over either Chicago baseball team, though both can make a pretty good argument about being more hopeful than the Bears.
Over the rest of the landscape, you would be surprised how close the comparisons are and how many places the MLB team actually has been more productive/hopeful over the past few years.
I would give a clear edge to seven MLB teams: Rockies vs. Broncos (Denver), Phillies vs. Eagles (Philadelphia), Tigers vs. Lions (Detroit), Rays vs. Buccaneers (Tampa), Cardinals vs. Rams (St. Louis), Giants vs. 49ers (San Francisco), and though the A’s hardly are beautiful, they are gorgeous compared to the Raiders (Oakland).
Then I think there are a bunch of matchups where beauty (Yankees vs. Giants, Twins vs. Vikings) or ugliness (Royals vs. Chiefs, Blue Jays vs. Bills) are comparable. Maybe you would give an edge to the Cowboys, but in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately game, the Rangers look pretty good around Dallas. At least the Indians gave the fans of Cleveland a Game 7 in the 2007 ALCS. All the Browns have provided is the happiness of Eric Mangini.
At this moment, the Jets have it on the Mets, but over the last five years it is a closer discussion. The Patriots are a powerhouse, but more so than the Red Sox? Get out a coin to flip for Mariners vs. Seahawks (Seattle), Braves vs. Falcons (Atlanta), Reds vs. Bengals (Cincinnati), Astros vs. Texans (Houston), Diamondbacks vs. NFL Cardinals (Arizona) and Marlins vs. Dolphins (Miami).
And keep in mind that even with bad ownership the Dodgers played in the NLCS in both 2008-09, and the Angels won it all in 2002 and have reached the playoffs in six of the past nine years. There is no NFL hope in Los Angeles because there is no team.
Again, it is easy to just spit the familiar rhetoric about hope everywhere in the NFL and it lacking in MLB. But the Rangers are either going to win their first title ever or the Giants are going to join recent champs such as the White Sox, Red Sox and Phillies who ended long droughts. That will continue what has been a fertile period of competition in the majors backed up by, of all things, facts.
joel.sherman@nypost.com