The NL Has Been Really Bad in 2017

There is always a lot of talk about the AL being better and the interleague record usually supports that, but this year it seems to be especially severe. The AL is once again dominating IL play and there might be some scheduling and market-size reasons for this, but also when looking at other factors the AL seems to be much better.

The number of very bad teams:

KC and Oakland have been quite bad, but still the three worst records belong to NL teams.  If you look at below .450 teams you have only the two mentioned teams in the AL, but six teams in the NL.  And that is with the Brewers as one total rebuild team actually over-performing. If you look at the teams that even try to compete you have the Braves, Padres, Phillies, Reds and Brewers as full rebuilders while in the in the AL only the White Sox are fully committed to rebuilding. Now you could say that the A’s and Royals should do a full rebuild but the same could be said for the Marlins. However you slice it, there are way more non-competitive teams in the NL than in the AL.

The WC Contenders:

There is a weak division too in the AL with the West, but there are still at least five somewhat credible WC contenders including all AL East teams and probably one of the Twins or Tigers.

In the NL that field has been thinned out to the Cards and the two overperforming West teams (although the Cards, like the Tigers and Twins, are basically projected as .500 teams now).

Now the Dodgers and Nats are really good but even the third supposedly great team, the Cubs, has been mediocre, albeit they should win the division rather easily considering the abysmal state of their division.

Overall the AL seems to be in a much better state as both the East and the Central division of the NL are in a really bad state.

There is hope of course as the Braves,  Brewers, Phillies and even Padres have some good young players and minor league prospects and the Reds have some big league success with position players that were somewhat unlikely prospects, but all of those teams still have ways to go.