The current standings in baseball are weird. The second Wild Card was added to increase interest in the final month of the season by keeping more teams in the running and it is doing that, but only in the American League. Without it, the Yankees would be running away with the sole Wild Card, four games ahead of Texas and 9 in front of the still barely believing Indians and Orioles (9.5 actually).
Instead, seven teams are semi-legitimately competing for the two Wild Card spots in the AL with four being strong contenders. The second Wild Card isn’t so interesting in the National League. As it has been all season, it looks like the NL Central show with the Cardinals, Cubs, and Pirates are all slated to make the playoffs while only San Francisco and Washington are within ten games of the two leaders. In the American League, the Indians are considered an extremely outside shot at five back, but in the NL, the third place team is five back.
This dichotomy has been intriguing (at least to me) all season and the biggest question I have had is “are the teams in the American League all equally good or simply so mediocre none can take advantage of a weak field?”. The best way to test this is to use the season long matches between the AL and the NL, where the teams are move obviously split between greatness and awfulness.
Using a scale of a team having a .525 winning percent or better being a “good” team (TOR, NYY, KC, HOU, NYM, STL, PIT, CHC, LAD, SF), between that and .475 being “mediocre” (MIN, BAL, TB, CLE, TEX, LAA, WAS, AZ, SD) and below that being “bad” (DET, BOS, CWS, SEA, OAK, ATL, MIA, PHI, MIL, CIN, COL) the below chart shows the results of when the best in the American League face the best in the National League and so on down the line. Winning percentages are for the AL.
The reason why using straight winning percentage overall doesn’t distinguish the top team is because most of the team’s games occur within the same league (and the same division). If a team has poor opponents within the league and division (such as the MLB best Cardinals who are a combined 16-8 against the Reds and Brewers), they will have an artificially inflated winning percentage. Comparing a larger amount of teams across both leagues should bring more significant results.
This they do. When the best teams in the American League face the best teams in the National League, they have generally been victorious. When they play the dregs of the NL, they destroy. This is to be expected and the NL greats return the favor against both the mediocre and poor AL teams. What is unusual, or at least of interest is that in every other category outside of mediocre vs mediocre, the AL prevails. There are only three NL mediocre level teams, so the results there are least significant, but the fact that the worst teams in the American League have destroyed them at a pace nearing 60% is glaring.
In general, this seems to preserve the idea that those teams at the bottom of the National League, particularly the Rockies, Marlins, Phillies, and Reds are actually really bad, not just at the disadvantage of playing extremely talented opponents. If that were the case, we would expect the Brewers and Reds to be the bottom two teams in the league since they are forced to face those three potential play-off teams 17 times each.
| W | L | W% | |
| AL Top 6 | 366 | 283 | .564 |
| NL Top 6 | 380 | 265 | .589 |
The above chart shows the difference in records between the current playoff teams in the AL and the NL and, while the senior circuit boasts 14 more wins and a 2.5% greater winning percentage, they have been outplayed in direct matches between leagues to the tune of a .560 AL winning percentage.
The overall stats confirm this assertion that the AL is not only better on top, but throughout. In runs scored, ten of the worst 15 teams in the majors are in the National League and that includes the curiously spectacular St. Louis Cardinals as well as the playoff bound Dodgers and Cubs. As expected, the NL teams are better at preventing runs, but still we see familiar names at the bottom of the list in the Rockies (30th in runs allowed), Phillies (29th), and Braves (26th).
The story is the same in team fWAR, if that is your preferred method, again showing the NL leaders taking advantage by regularly playing against the six worst teams in baseball and seven of the bottom nine. While the Dodgers are first here, this is getting away from the initial concept of trying to find a more fair way to compare the leagues.
There is still error in calculating using interleague play. This year, the divisions have played their opposites, with the AL East playing the NL East and so forth. Because of this, the most split divisions (those Eastern ones) got to double down their advantage. The Yankees and Blue Jays have had the advantage of playing Miami, Philadelphia, and Atlanta while the Mets and Nationals have had the opportunity to take advantage of a Boston team currently second to last in the AL standings.
Or have they?
In the most recent series, Boston took two of three from the Mets and on the year, the Blue Jays have lost their only three game series against the Braves and the Yankees theirs to the Phillies. Again showing why a larger outlook is necessary to see any difference, any team in baseball is still capable of winning any series against any other team. As it has always been, parity is much stronger in baseball than any other sport and individual series like these show it.
On the whole, it seems safe to say that fans of the American League are actually lucky to have so many competitive teams, rather than unlucky to be without a few great ones. Of course, this is all perception in the end, but there is at least enough evidence to be happy about the dearth of Wild Card options rather than be disappointed.
