Is MLB's Small vs. Large Market Dilemma Stabilizing or Worsening?

Besides being left out of the playoff picture with very little hope of elbowing their way back in, what do the New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals have in common?

All seven of those big-market teams also are among Major League Baseball's top 10 in payroll salary in 2013.

Pretty remarkable, huh?

Of those seven squads, only one is even at or above .500, and at 60-57 through Tuesday, the Yankees barely even meet that standard.

While it's not all bad for the big spenders—the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers are currently leading their respective divisions—it's still hard to believe what a top-10 payroll (anywhere from about $115-230 million or so) can buy you these days.

Or in this case, can't buy you.

On the other end of the spectrum, the miniature-market Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays are right in the thick of the postseason race, despite having payrolls around $60 million—or about half that of the Nationals at No. 10.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, by the way, own the 11th-lowest payroll and the second-best record in the sport.

More or less, then, the same number of clubs from the lower third in total team payroll are in position for the postseason as are from the upper third.

Seems like a new level of parity, doesn't it? Let's find out.

Working our way backward by starting with last year, which was the first under the new two-wild-card format, here's a look at the 10 teams to earn a playoff berth, listed in order of their payroll rank (indicated in parentheses):

As you can see, it was a bit of a different story from what we're seeing so far in 2013, as five teams among the top 10 payrolls made it to October baseball, but only one in the bottom 10 did so.

But at the same time, the average payroll rank (APR) for this group of 10 playoff teams was 13.0, which is only slightly above the midway point. In other words, the 2012 postseason was a pretty good mix of big-, middle- and small-market squads.

Now let's continue the journey by looking at the teams that made the 10 previous postseasons from 2011 back to 2002, which were all played under the old format in which eight clubs earned trips to the postseason.

For the sake of comparison, we're going to break up the 10-season stretch into two separate five-year periods: 2011-2007 and then 2006-2002. Again, we're working backward here.

(This time frame also works well, by the way, because we're avoiding the Yankees' run of four titles in five years around the turn of the century, which certainly lands in the big-markets-win-all-the-time bucket.)

Here are the teams that went to the postseason from 2011-2007, listed in order of their payroll rank (indicated in parentheses):

These five Octobers encompass a total of 40 different postseason spots, 21 of which were occupied by a top-10 payroll team (53 percent), and eight of which were taken by a bottom-10 payroll club (20 percent).

The APRs in 2011 (13.5), 2010 (13.1) and 2007 (12.8) all check in close to the 13.0 mark we saw in 2012.

Here are the clubs that went to the playoffs from 2006-2002, in order of their payroll rank (indicated in parentheses): 

During this handful of Octobers, 22 top-10 payroll clubs—one more than the 2011-2007 stretch—made it to the playoffs (55 percent), but only five bottom-10 payroll teams—three fewer—reached the postseason (12.5 percent)

What's more, only 2002's APR is at or above 13.0, whereas the other four seasons are below, with 2005 (8.5) and 2004 (7.5) coming in well under.

The differences aren't huge, but they're present. Over the past three years, the trend has been for postseasons to be a better, more evenly spread mix of big-, medium- and small-market teams.

And even if it's too early to make any definitive calls on 2013, the way the playoff picture is shaping up, the average payroll rank will almost certainly be above 13.0 again—and could even approach 14.0, depending on which clubs round it out in the end.

It's possible that for every Dodgers, Red Sox and Tigers team, this October also could have a Pirates, A's or Rays team.

All payroll data comes from USA Today.