Every team's path through relative payroll × talent above budget — the competitive cycle, traced over time. Pick teams below.
Each marker is one season (markers grow, and the arrow points, toward the present — the direction of travel). Smoothing is a centered rolling average (1 = raw seasons, higher = the underlying regime). Quadrants: WINDOW = cheap & winning · CONTEND = winning but expensive · FORCED-SPEND = expensive & losing (the dead zone) · REBUILD = cheap & losing.
Every settled team-season since 1985, classified by its quadrant — how often each leads to October, and the average win%. Living in the WINDOW is worth many times the forced-spend dead zone, at a fraction of the payroll.
| Regime | Seasons | Win % | Playoff % | Pennant % | World Series % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WINDOW | 290 | 52.1 | 30.0 | 4.8 | 1.0 |
| CONTEND | 309 | 56.8 | 63.1 | 19.1 | 10.0 |
| FORCED-SPEND | 261 | 48.0 | 9.2 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| REBUILD | 328 | 43.3 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 0.3 |