On June 8, the Minnesota Twins were in last place in the American League Central. They were in the midst of another rebuilding year, or so it seemed, until they did something utterly bizarre: Like a team loading up for the stretch run, they acquired the best veteran slugger available, signing Kendrys Morales to be their designated hitter.

"Why not the Twins?" said Terry Ryan, the team's general manager, as he announced the move.

Ryan wasn't delusional. At the time, the Twins were only three games below .500 and only 3 1/2 games out from the second AL wild-card spot. But when a losing, last-place team in a medium-size market fancies itself enough of a contender to outbid other teams for a player like Morales, it represents a strange, new frontier in the evolution of Major League Baseball.

The expansion of the postseason and economic reforms designed to increase competitive balance have taken the sport to a point where just about every team can claim to be a contender, whether they are very good or not. Entering Thursday, 24 of the 30 teams were within five games of a playoff spot, including seven that had losing records.

A league that was once divided between the haves and the have-nots has become the united realm of the mediocre. Twenty teams have won between 45% and 55% of their games, nearly double the number that fell within that range at this point in 2013. And if the sport's hierarchy seems clear, try waiting a week. It may change.