Major League Baseball's regular season ended yesterday, finally. Three of six division races remained to be decided. Two of them (the NL West and the AL Central) only decided how the Division Series' would be arranged, though, not who would be in the playoffs. The Astros' loss gave the Cardinals the NL Central.
Despite the fantastic finish—six relevant games on the last day of the season—2006 in baseball may be unprecedented in its mediocrity. No pitcher won twenty games, and no team won 100. Never before, in a complete season (not strike-shortened), has no pitcher won 20.
It has often happened that no team reached 100 victories. However, both the Mets and Yankees finished 2006 with only 97 wins, for a winning percentage that rounds up to .599. Only five other years on record have a best winning percentage smaller than .600—1900, 1926, 1958, 1982, and 2000.
There are lots of easy explanations. The Mets would have won more, we can suppose, if the Phillies—maybe even just someone else in the National League—had been closer. Chien-Ming Wang might have won another if he hadn't skipped a start. Whatever. It's still never happened before. Why not? Maybe revenue sharing and other aspects of Bud Selig's magic commissionering have given us unprecedented parity? If we want to buy that hypothesis, though, we have to explain the two teams with 100 losses.
Maybe it's easier just to accept that no teams nor pitchers put together a really good season from start to finish. But if it is parity, then maybe we can look forward to a nail-biting postseason.
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