Via BBTF, I really don’t expect this kind of sloppiness from 538:

As recently as a few years ago, you could have lamented the lack of dominant teams at the top of the major leagues. At this same time in 2015, for instance, the leading Elo teams were among the weakest at their slots in the expansion era. But baseball’s era of parity seems to be officially over, with the game moving back toward imbalance. While a top-heavy MLB might never look like its basketball equivalent,2 it’s still going to be tougher than usual for aspiring contenders to break through — a fact you can bet every GM is keenly aware of in the lead-up to the deadline.

So the Nationals, Dodgers, Astros, Cubs, Indians, and Red Sox all build teams the way that everyone loves, drafting well, giving young talent a chance to develop, signing a free agent or two to fill in holes, and now we have a problem? Maybe some of the other 24 teams that are also doing this now are a year or two away from their squads maturing into greatness. The overall history of MLB is a move toward more and more parity. A one year hiccup isn’t going to stop that.

People have been pointing out the end of parity forever. MLB instituted the draft for more parity, even though parity was getting better by decade. Free agency was going to kill parity, except the early free agent era produced more different World Series champions than ever before. Teams want to win, and they will find ways to win. I suspect Mr. Paine thought peak oil was real, too.