Chicago ? More and more, regular-season domination means less and less in the postseason.

When all three 100-victory teams were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs this year, it meant the 1998 Yankees are the only team since the 1989 A’s to lead the majors in victories during the regular-season and win the World Series.

Not so long ago, the final season standings were a solid predictor of playoff success. But that’s not true anymore.

The team with the most regular-season victories went to the World Series 16 times and won seven times in the first 21 seasons of division play. But in the last 13 seasons, the season’s big winner has made it to the Series only five times, with only the ’98 Yankees winning.

With San Francisco in control of the National League Championship Series and Anaheim also alive, we may be looking at our first all-wild card World Series. That would be in keeping with the recent trend.

The eight teams in this year’s postseason had a combined winning percentage of .612, making it the winningest playoff field since 1977. There were no weak teams in the bunch. Still, it has to be surprising that the team with fewer regular-season victories won all four first-round series.

But should it? The reality is that the depth that helps a team win 95-plus games over a season doesn’t mean a thing in October.

In the last three years, teams with better regular-season records are a surprising 2-15 in playoff series. If this trend holds true, we’ll be looking at a San Francisco-Minnesota World Series, with the Twins winning.

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Playing games: Don’t be surprised if all this speculation about Dusty Baker winds up going pffft if the Giants reach the World Series.

While Baker is at odds with owner Peter Magowan and especially executive vice president Larry Baer, it is hard to imagine them allowing Baker to walk away after taking a team to the Series. They don’t want to pay a manager what Baker could earn on the open market, where the bidding could open at $4 million a year and possibly top Joe Torre’s $5 million salary, but Baker is putting the Giants ownership in a position where it will have little choice.

The Cubs will have to be creative with Baker seeming like pie in the sky and Texas taking Buck Showalter off the table. The candidates in play include coaches Ken Macha and Bob Melvin, but it’s no longer farfetched to believe they will take a run at prying Art Howe away from Oakland.

The New York Mets are strongly considering a similar move with Lou Piniella, who would be a more popular hire than even Baker. The Mariners have said they won’t let him out of the final year of his contract, but general manager Pat Gillick doesn’t really want to force Piniella to stay.

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Woe is them: You think your team has problems? Try being a fan of the Baltimore Orioles.

After standing at .500 as late as Aug. 23, the Orioles went 4-32 down the stretch to end up at 67-95, better only than Detroit, Kansas City and Tampa Bay in the American League. It was their fifth consecutive season in fourth place in the AL East.

But that’s not the bad news; it is that none of the executives they had targeted to take over the baseball operations are willing to work for owner Peter Angelos. That makes former Baltimore pitcher/pitching coach/broadcaster Mike Flanagan the most likely choice to replace the overmatched Syd Thrift.

Because their minor-league teams have been woeful for so long the Orioles managed to alienate even the owners of the Rochester Red Wings, who decided to switch allegiances after 42 years as the Orioles’ top farm club.