Broadcast Rankings: Radio and TV Master List

In the great American tradition of “belaboring the point,” the author presents here another installment in an ongoing consideration of baseball’s various radio and television broadcasts — a project, it should be said, that has been greatly aided by the efforts of our readership.

Against all odds, this post actually does add something to the conversation. In fact, it might be the most important addition, in that it comes closest to answering a question entirely relevant to consumers of over-the-air baseball — especially the sort who read FanGraphs.

On both the PC* and PlayStation 3 (and perhaps some other) versions of MLB.TV, it’s possible to select an audio feed to accompany the video of a selected game. The question that has often occured to the author — and very likely to many readers, as well — is, “Which audio feed is likely to best complement the video of this game?” Or, alternatively: “Which audio feed won’t compel me to perform acts of violence against my person?”

*Provided the NexDef plug-in — the efficacy of which is a different conversation — is installed.

Because few of us are likely to have anything resembling a working knowledge of all 61 English-language broadcast teams, answering that question has been a challenge. Through the broadcast-rankings crowdsourcing project, however, we have come closer to something like an answer — or, at least, have produced a frame of reference with which readers might then more easily draw their own conclusions about the league’s various broadcasters.

Here, for the benefit of the wide readership — and in a sortable table — is the complete master list of radio and television broadcast rankings:

*Denotes ranking for 2011 broadcast team. Broadcast arrangement has changed for 2012.

And here is a modified — but still entirely sortable — version of that list, including only the highest-ranked broadcast for each major-league club:

*Denotes ranking for 2011 broadcast team. Broadcast arrangement has changed for 2012.

And, finally, here are some notes:

• The biggest gap between a team’s radio and television broadcasters is 2.0, between St. Louis radio (4.3) and television (2.3)

• The smallest gap is just 0.035, between Seattle radio and television (both 3.3).

• The highest average score for a team’s radio and television broadcast was San Francisco’s combined overall score of 4.8.

• The lowest average score was for the Chicago White Sox, at 2.4 (with the New York Yankees close behind, at 2.5).

• As was noted last week, radio teams averaged an overall score about 0.5 points higher than television teams. While, on the one hand, that might suggest a bias in favor of the radio medium itself, it’s notable that the Pirates broadcasts — the members of which move freely back and forth between radio and television — received very similar scores (3.1 for radio, 3.0 for television), enough likely to be explained by error.