What would the dominant baseball narratives be if this season were 17 games long? That’s a worthwhile thought experiment, given how much discussion there’s been lately about parity. There’s a conventional wisdom that the NFL is more competitive than baseball, with teams making dramatic rises and falls in the standings from one season to the next. But how much of that is simply a result of how short the football season is? Right now, all but one of baseball’s 30 teams have played between 15 and 17 games. And right now, the Los Angeles Angels are in first place after entering the season as complete afterthoughts. The Atlanta Braves are in last.