Archive for national league

Last month, I wrote about the two leagues, noting that

1. The American League, perceived as being bad this year, was actually a good deal better than the National League overall, and
2. The perception of the American League’s weakness was due to a near-record level of parity, with neither great nor bad teams.

Let’s start with the second point. At the time of the post, through games of September 5, the standard deviation of winning percentages among American League clubs was the lowest it has been in the 30-team era. Projected onto a 162-game season, the standard deviation of wins for American League teams was 7.8, barely eking out 2007’s 7.9 as the most egalitarian distribution of wins since 1998.

Since September 5, a .500 record has become a black hole, exerting irresistible gravity throughout the American League galaxy:

• Of the teams with the six best records in the league on that date–the Royals, Blue Jays, Yankees, Astros, Rangers, and Twins–only Toronto and Texas had a winning record the rest of the season.
• Baltimore, the sixth-worst team in the league as of the morning of September 6, tied the Jays for the best record in the East thereafter. Boston, then the third-worst team, went 15-12 the rest of the way.
• Cleveland, four games below .500 at the time, scrambled to finish 81-80.

Overall, parity in the already-equality-loving Junior Circuit increased, by so much that I looked beyond the post-1998 30-team era. I calculated the standard deviation of winning percentages for every league-season since 1901. I then multiplied the standard deviations by 162 to arrive at the standard deviation of wins over a 162-game season. Yes, I know, most of those seasons were shorter than 162 games, but that’s OK; I’m just looking to turn the standard deviation of winning percentages, which is not an intuitive figure (e.g., American League, 1930, 0.1107), into something that is recognizable (17.9 wins). Here are the ten seasons in baseball history with the highest parity, that is, the lowest standard deviation of wins:

The 2015 American League is the most egalitarian, populist, tax the rich/feed the poor, Kumbaya-singing league in baseball history. As I suggested in September, it’s the Sweden of leagues.

(The National League finished 2015 with a standard deviation of 13.1 wins, ranking it 102 out of 230 league-seasons in terms of parity. It was the ninth-most unequal among 36 league-seasons since the expansion to 30 teams in 1998. For Gini coefficient detractors, the most unequal league ever was the 1909 National League, which featured the 110-42 Pirates, 104-49 Cubs, and 92-61 Giants, along with the 55-98 Dodgers, 54-98 Cardinals (Yadi was hurt), and 45-108 Braves.)

Now, as to the other point, the American League’s superiority over the National League despite its group hug ethic, here’s a chart.

Twelve years and running.

As with every year, there have been storylines that are unique to the 2015 baseball season. The remarkable infusion of young talent to the game. The relevance of the Cubs and Astros after years of being doormats. The disarray in Boston and Detroit. And, of interest here, the general ineptitude of the American League.

Many commentators have bemoaned how weak the American League is this season. You can get a sense of that by just perusing the standings. All data here are as of the start of play on Sunday, September 6.

• The Red Sox, Mariners, Tigers, White Sox, and A’s–all expected to be good teams this year, picked by many to win their divisions or qualify as wild cards–have the five worst records in the league.
• Two divisions have only two clubs with winning records, and there are only six teams in the entire league more than a game above .500.
• In the East, Toronto’s gotten hot, but the team had a losing record as recently as July 28. The Yankees’ two best offensive players are old, one’s hurt, and the other has the second-lowest OPS in the league in over the past 30 days. Nobody else in the division is above .500.
• The Royals lead the Central with the American League’s best record despite having the fourth worst starting pitcher ERA and FIP along with, this being the Royals, the fewest home runs and walks on offense. The second place Twins have been outscored. Again, nobody else in the division is above .500.
• The National League West is led by the Astros, a year after losing 92 games and two years after losing 111. Many of the players in their lineup have an on base percentage below .300 with the team. The Rangers are in second after losing their ace pitcher in spring training. The defending divisional champ Angels are treading water, just a game above .500.

Given that, one could argue that at least four of the best teams in baseball this year are in the National League, though one would get a counter-argument emanating along the Missouri/Kansas border. In any case, the Cardinals have the best record in the majors, the Pirates and Cubs third and fourth, the Dodgers tied for fifth, and the Mets eighth. The National League has the best teams, with the best records, making it the best league, right?

Except for one number: 89-73.

That’s roughly equal to the projected won-lost record for the Mets and Astros this year. That’s a good record. It’s good enough to win a soft division, good enough to make the playoffs in almost every year. An 89-73 team is a good ballclub.

But I didn’t list the 89-73 record because of the Mets and Astros. Rather, it has relevance for another reason: 89-73 is the record of American League teams against National League teams this year. Actually, it’s 151-123, but prorated over 162 games, it’s 89-73. The American League, on average, is the Rangers or Nationals playing against the Orioles or Red Sox: A .525 team playing a .475 team. The American League is, overall, clearly the superior league. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise; as Jeff Sullivan pointed out last year, the same occurred in 2014. And it happened in 2013. And 2012. And 2011. And every single year beginning in 2004.

How can that be? How can the top of the American League be unimpressive, the rest of the teams deeply flawed, yet the league is easily beating up on the National League?

There are two reasons. First, the National League may have the best teams, or at least most of them, but it absolutely runs the table on bad teams. The worst record in the majors this year is owned by the Phillies. They’re followed by the Braves. Then the Reds. Then the Marlins. Followed by the Rockies. The A’s are the next-worse, but then we return to the National League, with the Brewers. Six of the seven worst teams in the majors this year are in the National League. Those six teams, cumulatively, are 334-478, a .411 winning percentage, and 38-72 against the American League.

The second reason, closely related to the first, is parity. Yes, the American League doesn’t have the talented teams that the National League claims. But neither does it have the clunkers.When it comes to team performance, the National League is a stars-and-scrubs, penthouse-and-outhouse type of league. The American League is much more egalitarian. The teams with the six worst records in the American League are the A’s, Tigers, Red Sox, White Sox, Mariners, and Orioles. Those are six hugely disappointing teams, but they’re disappointing because they have talent, if underperforming talent. Those six teams, cumulatively, are 376-434, a .465 winning percentage, and 56-54 against the National League. Compare that to the six listed in the last paragraph.

Put this another way: You probably remember the term standard deviation from statistics classes. Without getting into the formulae, the standard deviation is a measure of variance. Given a normal distribution, about two-thirds of values (68.2%, to be precise) fall within one standard deviation of the mean. It’s a more precise term for “plus or minus.” Since 1998, the inaugural seasons of the Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks, there have been 30 major-league teams. During that time, the average team won/lost percentage is .500 (duh). The standard deviation is .071. Over the course of a 162-game season, then, the average number of victories is 81 games (162 x .5), with a standard deviation of 11.6 games (162 x .071). If there’s a wide variation between teams in a league, its standard deviation will be higher. If there’s parity, it’ll be lower.

I calculated the standard deviations of team winning percentage for every season in each league from 1998 to 2015, giving me 36 league-seasons in total. I multiplied the result by 162 to express it in games. Again, in those 18 years, the average team wins 81 games, plus or minus 11.6. Here are five the seasons with the greatest standard deviations:

I have every reason to hate Dee Gordon.

Prior to the 2012 season, I found myself struggling to figure out who would get the final keeper slot in a longtime, highly competitive fantasy league I played in. It came down to two players: Mike Trout and Dee Gordon. They both would have cost me the same, but Gordon was coming off a rookie campaign where he batted .304 with 24 steals in a miniscule 224 at-bats. Trout, on the other hand, was heading into 2012 with what seemed to me like a more clouded future. He had just posted a pedestrian .671 OPS with a 22.2 K%–albeit as a 19-year old–the year prior. He was also blocked in LF at the time by the great Bobby Abreu, and was looking at possibly another year of seasoning in the minors. In the end I chose Gordon, and the rest is terrible, nightmare-inducing history.

So how strange that I find myself here now, defending Dee Gordon, the very man who hoodwinked me into choosing him over Mike mother-flippin’ Trout.

Ironically, I think the hate for Gordon has gone a bit too far this year. It’s odd to think that there’s any hate for a guy coming off a season where he led all of baseball in steals while also posting a top-25 batting average of .289. But some people seem awfully down on the guy coming into 2015. Perhaps they too were burned by his 2011 breakout, and refuse to make the same mistake twice. Though I can’t fault them if that is the case, there is reason to believe that Dee Gordon’s days of breaking our hearts are over.

The first thing to point out are his batted-ball rates. As the graph illustrates, there weren’t any earth-shattering changes occurring here. It is worth noting, however, that Gordon set a career high in groundball percentage and a career low in fly-ball percentage. And if you’re willing to consider 2013 an aberration like I am (he only managed 106 plate appearances that year), he has actually been gradually trending in the right direction with both his fly-ball and groundball percentages while maintaining a fairly steady line-drive rate. Spikes in groundball percentages are rarely considered ideal, but when a player has the elite speed Gordon does, the odds of turning a weak dribbler or a grounder towards the hole into a hit get a very favorable bump.

Which brings me to perhaps the most eyebrow-raising aspect of Gordon’s 2014 season: his bunt-hit percentage (BUH%). After averaging a 28.5 BUH% over the prior three seasons, Gordon posted a ridiculous 42.6 BUH% in 2014. To put that number into perspective, here’s how it stacked up against the league’s other elite speedsters:

Bunting for hits is a skill. The fact that his success rate rose by nearly 15% last year tells me that he worked on and dramatically improved this skill. Perhaps more importantly, though, it tells me that he’s keenly aware of how dangerous a weapon this skill can be for him when used effectively. When paired with his declining fly-ball rates–and especially his new career low IFFB% of 8%, down from 13.2%–the numbers start to paint the picture of a player who may have finally begun to consciously tailor his plate approach to his strengths.

While I will never forgive Dee Gordon for what he did to me, I do see reasons to be optimistic about his 2015 season. Should his elite ability to bunt for hits carry over into this season, his .346 BABIP shouldn’t see as much regression as people seem to think, and another year of plus average and a stolen-base crown seems well within his reach.