Competitve Balance in MLB

With the MLB's regular season in the books, I want to look at MLB over the next few days with regard to:  competitive balance, payroll inequality, payroll and performance and attendance analysis. To begin, I examine competitive balance in MLB using the regular season standings and the Noll-Scully measure of competitive balance.  For those not familiar with this measure, start here.  For those interested in calculating this on your own, try this step-by-step measure.  For the calculations below, I am using data from Yahoo! Sports.

Major League Baseball has become less competitive as the Noll-Scully increased from 2.263 in 2018 to 2.452.  In both leagues, competitive balance has decreased.  The National League Noll-Scully increased from 1.579 in 2018 to 1.884, and in the American League the Noll-Scully increased from 2.793 in 2018 to 2.924.

MLB competitive balance waxes and wanes from season to season.  Here is a graph of that in MLB since 2002.