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.
