For the benefit of trumad...

[Upton]

Wild Card Standings

NY Mets......30-25
St. Louis......31-26
Giants.........29-26..1.0
Chi Cubs......28-26..1.5
Cincinnati.....29-27..1.5
Atlanta........27-28..3.0
Florida.........27-31..4.5
Pittsburgh....26-30..4.5
San Diego....26-30..4.5
Houston.......25-30..5.0
Arizona........25-32..6.0
Colorado......24-32..6.5

This is why I care about what goes on with the teams in other divisions, and if you had any sense...you would too.

[cboy4]

1. This will all go over that empty head of his

[madinmaryland]

2. Interesting that Pittsburgh is still in the mix at this late point in the season!

:D

[Capt. America]

3. Good for them, but their problem, and it is the same for many cheap, small market teams...

..is that since there is no "salary floor", and since the profit sharing in MLB does not require that owners spend it on players, the Pirates will be a bottom-dweller forever. The owners of these shit teams pocket the money and have no intention of putting a winner on the field. Lets face it, the gorgeous PNC Park was given to the owner gratis from the taxpayers and the people of Pittburgh (and Cubs fans) go the park more as an summertime activity rather than to support their "team".

[SteelPenguin]

4. +1

Why put a competitive team onto the field when you can pocket 20 million for not doing so. The ownership and management of the Pirates have failed the city of Pittsburgh and MLB as a whole.

If the people of Pittsburgh simply believed that they were making a real try to be competitive, you'd see attendance skyrocket, no matter what the result in the standings (though at this point you'd need to make more than noise). When people follow a team they need to believe in that team, no matter what. That faith in the Pirates has been extinguished from the trade after trade after trade (Kendall, Giles, Ramirez, Bay, Nady, McClouth, etc, etc, etc) that no matter how it's spun is seen as "we don't want to spend money to compete as it eats into our profits".

Salary Minimum. Salary Cap. Football and Hockey have it pretty good (though the NFL apparently wants to fuck that all up too). The Luxury Tax is a joke. It's a bribe from the owners that want to win, to the owners who want to make a profit, to not be competitive.

[madinmaryland]

5. "MLB does not require that owners spend it on players"

That is the crux of the problem. There must be a minimum/maximum salary cap as is done in football. Otherwise, you will have teams running well below the salary cap, in order to turn a profit, as there is no incentive to do otherwise. That I blame entirely on Bud Selig and the entire MLB organization.

[El Supremo]

6. Where is the Natinals?

Colorado isn't last!

[madinmaryland]

7. I think upton is only listing teams that are really in contention!

[Upton]

8. madinmaryland is correct

the Nationals are 25 games under .500...15 games back.

They're not really competing for anything except to see if they can beat Detroit's 2003 record of only 43 wins in 162 games.

Edit: Upon further review, I see that the '62 Mets (40-120) actually have the least amount of wins in the 162 game era.