The MLB Playoffs Put a Wealth Divide on Display. Housing Has One, Too.

Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series kicks off on Sunday with a matchup that feels almost comically on the nose for a question hanging over the sport—and the housing market.The Milwaukee Brewers have won more games than any other team this season while spending less than half as much on players as their opponent, the Los Angeles Dodgers—a difference of roughly $146 million versus $339 million, according to Sportrac. Los Angeles’ deeper pockets allowed it to spend heavily on proven stars in free agency, while Milwaukee got much of its production from homegrown talent it supplemented through trades.Regarding L.A.'s resulting roster, as Brewers manager Pat Murphy put it after Milwaukee advanced on Wednesday: “There’s like an All-Star at every position."The contrast gets at the question Major League Baseball is struggling to answer: Have the financial advantages of its richest teams grown large enough to change the nature of the competition itself?And as high home prices and mortgage rates continue to weigh on buyers, the housing market is confronting its own version of that question: Have years of uneven wealth gains left households competing in the same market ...