NL poor in inter-league play
I was just gazing at standings this morning and noticed a deep peculiarity in the "last 10 games" column. The National League is a whoping 34 games under .500 over the last ten contests. I knew the AL was winning the inter-league war, but I did not think it was that bad. The last 10 games numbers really hit home.
Only the Brewers, at 8-2, have a winning record for the last week and a half... with the Mets, Cubs, Rockies and the Birds at 5-5. On the other side, Kansas City (with some help from us) has a sparkling 9-1 mark... but that aberration by no means accounts for the disparity.
My simple question is: what do you think explains this huge dip between the leagues? {and note, the numbers have been similar in the past few years also.}
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It is a combination of things: 1) The DH. AL teams have a huge advantage because, in theory, offense is anchored by a professional hitter who by the nature of the DH rule removes the worst hitter from the line-up. Because of this, AL teams have 2) Better pitching. Pitchers need to be better in the AL because of the DH. Of course, AL teams can afford better pitching because, overall, 3) AL teams can pay pitcher premium salaries due to overall (not always, but overall) club salaries. Also, because of overall salaries and the need to combat better pitching, AL teams tend to be able to pay more for better hitters. Over time, these factors have created a feed-back loop upon which AL teams must commit to in order to create improvement. NL teams have a different model and rely more on quality bench players which are needed for pinch hitting and substitutions in a game.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
by palampe on Jun 25, 2008 12:58 PM EDT 0 recs
The notion that...
AL teams playing at NL parks are at a disadvantage is ludicrous. Am I really supposed to believe that an NL team is in that much better shape because its pitcher has been hitting all year and the AL pitcher hasn’t? That may be the most minimal advantage ever. On top of that, when a key pinch-hitting situation arises, the AL team has an EVERYDAY player on the bench ready to take an important at-bat. On the other hand, when an NL team visits an AL park, the NL team is fielding a lineup of 8 regulars and a bench guy. Meanwhile, the AL team has 9 regulars, and the extra guy is usually a highly skilled, highly paid, everyday DH. Now all of that doesn’t totally make up for the interleague disparity between the two, but it certainly does its part. But just remember, you never hear any of this from the talking heads on your TV…
by LukeMP1186 on Jun 25, 2008 2:07 PM EDT 0 recs
Exhibit A: 2007 World Series
The Sox had to bench either Ortiz, Youkalis, or Lowell, meanwhile the Rox had to trot out Ryan Spilborghs as the DH.
by guayzimi on
Jun 25, 2008 2:23 PM EDT
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Money is the root of all evil, even this one
This is a good NYT article on the phenomenon:
The cause is straightforward: A.L. teams have spent more money on players than their N.L. counterparts. In 2005, the average N.L. team had a $71 million payroll, while the average A.L. team’s was $75 million. Since then, N.L. spending has increased only slightly, to $74 million a team, while salaries in the A.L. have soared to $93 million a team.
So says, Titus Pullo (formerly The Dude)
by Titus Pullo on Jun 25, 2008 2:08 PM EDT 0 recs
I thought the NL was only something like 10 games behind
the AL this year as of Monday?
by Hardcore Legend on Jun 25, 2008 2:37 PM EDT 0 recs
that royals series really sucked!
i was hoping this year would see at least some progress in reversing AL superiority. i would guess money is the largest issue as well… i remember looking up the salaries a few years ago and found that the combined payrolls from either league was about even… with the NL of course containing two more teams. that’s a lot more money, and it’s not like it’s just the yankees as an outlier messing with the averages.
another issue that i hate is that the inherent differences between the leagues favor the AL in interleague play, which depresses NL records overall because the interleague games count just as much as regular games. i feel like this must add to the perceived notion that the NL is worser (not a real word i know) than the AL than it really is, because at the end of the year, there don’t seem to be as many good records in the NL.
could we at least win an all-star game? just once?
by mattybobo on Jun 25, 2008 3:00 PM EDT 0 recs
Lots of reasons
The AL always has an advantage in interleague play for three reasons:
1. The DH (worst rule in professional sports history, for more of how I feel on that topic, read the recommended fanpost by KYCards about the Yanks being run by idiots)
2. The AL has fewer teams, so they end up playing more games at home in interleague and they play more quality teams more times—so each team has to be better in order to compete.
3. The huge disparity in payrolls between leagues that keep growing wider and wider.
"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller
by fourstick on Jun 25, 2008 11:27 PM EDT 0 recs
interesting
i didn’t realize #2 was true, but if it is, then doing the math on it, shows that it should make a big difference. If each NL team has 6 home and 9 road games vs the AL, and you looked at it from that perspective across-the-board, the 2007 NL would have been expected to have (using the overall 2007 NL home/road win %) :
(6 * .535 + 9 * .465) = 7.4 games out of 15, or a .4933 overall winning percentage. That is reduced a bit since 3 NL teams had 9 home, 9 away, so the actual winning percentage should have been .4944.
The 2007 NL should have won 120.1 games, if the schedule was “fair”, and they actually won 115, so the other factors may have been worth as few as 5 games total, out of 243.
The “disparity” seems to be even greater this year, but note that the overall home-team advantage is increased this year, as well.
"If thats bad luck, lets DFA our luck away." -DriverZN
by SleepyCA on
Jun 26, 2008 8:28 PM EDT
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Thanks, guys
at least I didn’t get razzed for asking a dumb question
by the Tewk on Jun 25, 2008 11:36 PM EDT 0 recs
it's worth discussing i think
if only because a lot of people (myself included) have simply gotten used to assuming that the AL is better than the NL, without really bothering to look at it closely anymore. the nature of the league differences, how interleague is set up, and things like payroll all combine to screw the NL in interleague play.
but if we could just beat the kansas city royals i would probably not bother complaining!
by mattybobo on
Jun 26, 2008 12:30 PM EDT
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to be honest
looking from the predicted all star teams I thought the NL would be doing better
www.GriffinandtheGargoyles.com
www.myspace.com/GriffinandtheGargoyles
Dont take me seriously :-D
by jealousblues on Jun 27, 2008 2:48 AM EDT 0 recs
AL has a built in advantage, but...
I think the AL clearly has an advantage because of the DH, but that does not explain the current disparity given what I see as the NL’s superiority. Just look at the stats. I had a hard time picking all-stars for the AL because I couldn’t find clearly deserving hitters at many of the positions.
IIRC, interleague play was pretty even after the first round but has recently went south for the NL. I think this is just a random blip in the data (small sample). Think about this: just as this last round of interleague was beginning: the Cardinals lost Pujols and Wainright, the Cubs lost Zambrano, the Phillies started playing terrible, the Mets fired their manager, etc. At the same time, the Royals got hot, the Tigers started playing like everyone expected all year, and on and on…I don’t think anyone seriously believes the Royals are a better team than the Cardinals, yet they have won 4 straight games. It’s hard to say the AL is better when the Cubs cleaned up on the White Sox and the Cardinals took 2 of 3 from Boston – but it all suffers from small sample size, so you can’t really draw any conclusions from any of it. How would the outcome of the KC sweep have been changed if Pujols had played in those games, which I remember as all being very close games?
by rthorat on Jun 28, 2008 4:56 PM EDT 0 recs











