Bad Math
By Guy Junker

Spring is just around the corner and hope springs eternal. Right?

Well, maybe not if you are a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, or the Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals or Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

None of those teams has had a winning season since the 1994 World Series was cancelled—the last time baseball's collective bargaining agreement expired. And none of those teams is likely to be playing in the postseason anytime soon.

The Pirates haven't had a winning record since their last division title in 1992. Since then the Philadelphia Phillies, Montreal Expos, Minnesota Twins and Florida Marlins have had one winning season apiece. The Expos and Twins were nearly made extinct during the winter.

Hope? Forget about it.

I've already mentioned nine franchises, 30 percent of major league baseball, that have had a total of four winning seasons over the last seven years.

In any given spring, more than half of major league baseball's teams have no hope of making the playoffs before the first pitch is even thrown.

For many of the aforementioned, there is no hope of making the playoffs any season. Period.

Occasionally a team slips through the cracks. The Twins were hot for awhile last year. But any key injuries or personnel mistakes and those teams fall by the wayside. They can't buy replacement parts to make up for bad moves or the wounded.

The Padres made it to the World Series as fodder for the Yankees in 1998. But those teams fall apart as quickly as they rise or at least half as quickly as you can say free agency.

When the Twins beat the Braves in the 1991 World Series, the event was all the more interesting because both of those teams finished last in their respective divisions the season before.

Do you think that will ever happen again? Maybe when pigs fly.

Yet, when the New England Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl last month, it came just one year after the Pats were 5-11. By virtue of the draft, scheduling, salary cap, and revenue sharing, the NFL is set up for teams to be able to go from worst to first in a hurry. It's also difficult for one organization to dominate for very long. And while that may be frustrating for the better operated franchises, it lends hope to fans of every NFL team (except the Cincinnati Bengals) that their favorite 11 has a shot at the playoffs and perhaps more…once every three or four years.

And the Patriots aren't the exception but the rule. The year before the Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV, they were just 8-8. The Giants were 7-9. The year before the Rams beat the Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, St. Louis was 4-12. Tennessee was 8-8. The last three Super Bowl Champions did not have a winning season the year before they became champs. Now that kind of stuff gives real hope.

It certainly doesn't work that way in baseball. Since that Twins/Braves World Series in 1991, only one team has won the World Series after having a losing season the year before. And the Florida Marlins barely fit the description. They were 80-82 in 1996 before buying the title in 1997, the only winning season in their short existence.

In the last three years a total of 13 baseball teams have played in the postseason. During the same three years, nearly double the amount, 24, have made the playoffs in the NFL. Granted, there are two more spots available each year in football. But consider this: in the seven years since major league baseball added wild card teams to the playoffs, a total of 20 teams have taken a possible 56 playoff spots. In the last three NFL seasons alone, 24 different teams have taken the 36 available playoff spots. Football fans have real hope. So do hockey fans. Since the Penguins won their first Stanley Cup in 1991, 15 different NHL teams have played in the finals. One half of the league.

It may be hard to digest all of these numbers but it's easy to figure out what they add up to—futility for teams like the Pirates.

I admire the job Dave Littlefield has done in trying to put together a more competitive team for this year. But for the Pirates, as well as the Royals and Expos and Brewers and a lot of other teams, it's all just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

The New York Yankees new radio deal this year is worth about 33 percent more than the Pirates' total team payroll.

Hope?

Regardless, spring draws close - as proven by the Pirates' current toil in the Florida sun. And in spring, a young man's fancy turns to. . . baseball. But this man isn't so young any more. And neither is baseball where hope only springs eternal for a chosen few.

Guy Junker is co-host of SportsBeat and the 11 p.m. Regional Sports Report with Fox Sports Pittsburgh.