There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid.

—Ralph "Garr" Waldo Emerson

It has its ups and its downs.

—Elevator operator describing his trade.

An age and a faith moving into transition,
the dinner cold and new-baked bread a failure

— Alfred "Boomer" Wellington Purdy

"The bottom rail's on top now!"

—Union soldier and former slave to his ex-master whom he was now guarding during the Civil War.

For a few moments the Tampa Bay Devil Rays captivated the imagination of the average baseball fan, and it wasn't to figure out how their meaningless All-Star rep would impact more deserving but necessarily overlooked candidates. The D-Rays won 12 straight and were over .500 later in the season then ever before. And they didn't even have the best improvement in the AL, let alone in baseball.

The Tigers own that honor by going from a historically poor record in 2003 to just mediocre this season, a 215-point improvement in winning percentage. If the Tigers can keep it up, it would be only the second 215-point increase since 2902 (the other being the second-year D-Backs in 1999). As a matter of fact the Padres (up 144 points), Rangers (143), Brewers (114), and Reds (114) are all ahead of the D-Rays and their 111-point improvement and all of those teams are in the playoff hunt this year after being marginalized quickly in 2003.

Then there's the other side of the equation, the teams that have had severe declines in 2004, and there are more than a few. The Expos went from marginal wild card challenger last year to the worst team in the NL this year (179 point dropoff). Other teams aged quickly—the D-Backs (168 points lower), M's (161), Braves (150)—or just plain failed to live up to—Royals (120) and Jays (89).

The volatility in the standings got me to wondering how unusual a season this one was. I first compared all teams' record over the last season and half to determine each team's change in winning percentage, i.e., the increase or decrease each has seen (the absolute value of the winning percentage difference). I average those numbers for each league and for baseball in general along with the standard deviation of the data.

Here 'tis:

So how odd is an average change of 79 points anyway? I took a look at the average annual winning percentage change for all teams in a given league as well as within all of baseball through time.

Well, the first thing I found was that baseball has never witnessed six teams improving by 100 or more points as it has so far this year. Five teams did improve by that much only three times before, and the last was amid the Federal League wars in 1914. The others were during the during the American Association and Union Association challenges in 1883 and 1884.

Only one time since World War I have there been five teams decline by at least 100 winning percentage point (actually 6 met the criterion in 1992 as well as in 1884; also, there were 5 in 1902 and 1918).

Now, let's put the 79-point change in perspective. On average the change per league per year is 67 points. Here is the breakdown per decade:

Note the flattening effect especially from the 1920s until today. As the game and the teams matured, it became much more difficult for teams to make dramatic changes in their winning percentage from one year to the next.

The last time that the major-league average change exceeded this year's (79 points if you've forgotten), was 1919 (84 point average change). The last league to exceed either league's average change this year was the NL in 1993 (89 points, greatly aided by my Phils). The only other league since World War II to exceed this year's was the AL in 1968 (83 points)

So what does this all mean? It could mean that this is a special season in which teams like the Braves, D-Backs, and M's pass the torch to the Rangers, D-Rays, Padres, and Reds. (And the Tigers rebound from putrescence while the Expos finally run out of gas as well).

Or it could mean that the first-half success that those teams are now enjoying will not last. The D-Rays have been streaky and could return to their old ways. Another 5-24 run like they had earlier this year is not an impossibility. The lack of pitching on the Reds and Rangers may come back to haunt them. The reality will probably be somewhere in between.

By the way, here are the yearly percentage changes per league for those late nights when you just can't get to sleep: