Interleague Play Is Not Over, But Results Conclusive
We have one more week left of interleague play in the 2012 season, but to be honest, we don’t need to wait for the rest of the games to play out to realize that the American League is once again putting their dominance on full display. The AL and NL have squared off in 168 of the 252 scheduled games so far, and the whippersnappers in the American League have pounded their senior circuit brethren. The current totals: 96 wins for the AL, 72 for the NL, good for a .571 winning percentage. It isn’t just a few close games going the AL’s way either, as they’ve outscored the NL 776 to 659.
With 84 games left in interleague action, the National League would have to win 54 of them to avoid a ninth consecutive losing record against the American League. Even if the NL manages a split in the remaining games, the AL would finish with 138 wins, matching their best interleague mark since 2009, and the third best mark either league has managed since interleague play began. It’s not quite as bad as it was in 2006, when the AL went 154-98, but it’s clear that the American League is still the superior league.
A popular theory for their continuing dominance is the strength of the American League East, and particularly, the presence of the Yankees and Red Sox. Having the highest revenue team in the sport gives the AL an advantage, and the competition between Boston and New York has established a standard in that division Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Baltimore have to strive for as well. The AL East is perhaps the best example in sports of the “rising tide lifts all boats” phenomenon, as the Rays, Blue Jays, and Orioles are all forced to put together better rosters to compete against the Yankees and Red Sox, and that strength shows up when they play everyone else.
However, it’s not just the AL East destroying the NL East this year. Yes, the Yankees are 10-2 in interleague play (which includes the entirety of their current nine game winning streak) and the Orioles are 9-3, but the other three AL East squads have all gone 6-6 against the NL so far. Even if we eliminate those five teams from the discussion, that leaves the AL West and Central as a combined 59-49 (a .546 winning percentage) against the NL. Being home to the Red Sox and Yankees certainly helps, but it’s not the whole story.
In fact, the quality of the non-contenders seems to have as much to do with the AL’s dominance as the quality of the top tier teams. The also-rans in the AL — Seattle, Oakland, Minnesota, and Kansas City — each have gone 6-6 in interleague play, holding their own and not embarrassing the junior circuit. The also-rans in the NL — San Diego, Colorado, Houston, and Chicago — have combined for a 13-29 mark, led by the hapless Rockies going 1-11 against the American League so far.
Indeed, the three teams currently atop the NL divisions each have a winning record in interleague play, so the best of the NL is showing that they can hang with the American League, but once you get down to the middle and lower tier teams, the differences really begin to stand out. If you take the Nationals, Dodgers, and Reds out of the picture, the NL is 54-84, a .391 winning percentage. The good NL teams can keep up with the AL, but the mediocre NL teams are getting thumped.
So, why is the AL continually better than the NL? It’s probably not any one thing, but instead a combination of factors. Baseball is cyclical, and right now, the AL just has more talent than the NL does, but that’s not going to last forever. The NL has also had a recent funk from high revenue teams being poorly run, so teams like the Cubs and Mets just aren’t as good as they should be. The DH also gives AL teams the ability to give aging sluggers a softer landing, so they can more confidently bid on free agents like Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder. And, yes, having the Yankees helps, as they’re annually one of baseball’s best teams, and give the league a leg up in heads-up competition.
The shift could begin as soon as next year, when the Astros make the transition to the American League West. At least in the near term, it will shift a low talent roster to the AL, and that in and of itself should help the NL when they meet head to head. Of course, the Astros aren’t guaranteed to stay uncompetitive, and if they develop some more talent, that could be more of a short term shock than a long term correction. But, combined with the growing intelligence of teams like the Mets, Cubs, and Dodgers, the NL now has several high revenue teams on the rise, and as they spend their money more effectively, they should build competitive rosters on a more regular basis. My guess is that the NL will start catching up to the AL fairly soon, but early returns on interleague play show that it isn’t happening yet.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
The Jays would easily be the best team in the NL. I’m very surprised that they’re not over .500. Probably a small sample fluke as they’d be a 100 win team in the NL.
/dies
If that were really true, the Nationals wouldn’t have gone up there and embarrassed them the way they did.
my imposter strikes again. next time you try to troll me, at least make it more realistic.
I’d say the 18 thumbs down confirm that it’s pretty realistic. Nice attempt at deflecting though.
Nah, Mikey Kemp, 18 thumbs down (now 41) would be a pretty poor return for the real everdiso. It’s actually a pretty good indication that most people are on to the imposter already.
If you haven’t caught on yet, here’s a couple of hints to make the imposter more visible to you:
1) The real everdiso only criticizes the red sox as extremely overrated on this site, while the imposter wants people to believe that I gripe about this site’s treatment of every other team. Not true, it’s only the red sox who are universally overrated on this site and have earned themselves some healthy counterarguments.Easy giveaway there.
2) The real everdiso doesn’t big up the Jays in every post, instead using them only as examples for specific arguments/excuses used by red sox fans to explain their team’s failures of the past 3 years (most tellingly re: injury issues).. The imposter, of course, does big up the Jays in every post. another dead giveaway.
Keep those two simple things in mind, and you won’t have any problem telling the imposter from the real thing.
And note that the 2nd everdiso you’re responding to under my name there is either a 2nd imposter or the original imposter pulling double duty. Either way, an impressive amount of effort going into trying to discredit by mockery what they can’t discredit with actual argument – that I’ve been dead right about their 5th place red sox for the past 3 years, and they’ve been tremendous homers the entire time.
Warning: Troll, pretending to be everdiso, for reasons that I cannot fathom. Do not feed/
Yeah, cause that’s way out of line with things everdiso really says.
heh. I admire your persistence, everdiso jr.!
just remember, no matter how persistent you are, it won’t ever make me any less right about your beloved 5th place Red Sox, not you any more right.
hey genius, if hes an “imposter” and you are tired of being “trolled”, then why dont you just use a tiny bit of common sense and go by a different user name?
its not like you have a good reputation to preserve or anything.
because then the terrorists win.
Do you ever get tired of trolling?
The NL has made a lot of bad decisions in recent years, including a trend toward building giant ballparks that scare off sluggers who have options.
Why doesn’t this equally attract aging pitcher with a diminishing velocity who need to pitch to contact more?
I’ve never understood why there isn’t a flip-side to every park factor argument.
philosofool: The big difference is that the declining pitcher is less talented than the slugger.
doesn’t the DH explain a big portion of the difference? even if the NL had some talent come their way, the DH would always put the AL in advantage.
the difference in hitting ability between the NL pitcher and the AL pitcher is pretty minimal, vs the difference between the DH and the best hitting bench player on an NL club.
I just don’t see the NL ever being a more dominant side in interleague play, even if the “worst” nl club goes over to the AL. they have a decent DH player already on their roster in carlos lee.
I don’t understand why so many people easily buy the DH argument. For AL teams to have a better DH than NL teams, they have to spend money on the position. NL teams can allocate money that would be spent on a DH to other positions. So, they should get an equal advantage when playing in NL parks – they get to have their full starting lineup (and $ given to it) on the field, the AL has to bench a player.
The DH is not the reason why the NL is weaker in interleague – the league is just weaker as a whole.
NL teams could reallocate the money. But they don’t. Primarily because other NL teams don’t, so there is no need to. Its one of the reasons why AL teams have higher payrolls.
The presence of the DH ups the competition level for AL offenses. Even if an AL team saves money by using cheap DHs, they still have to compete with teams that have David Ortiz, Adam Dunn. So they are forced to reallocate the money. NL teams are not forced to reallocate, because there is no DH to raise the level of competition.
Additionally, the DH forces the AL to acquire and develop better pitchers. Facing the pitcher in the NL lets teams get by with weaker pitchers that probably wouldn’t cut it in the AL.
Of course, this is assuming that NL owners are not Steinbrenner types – win a championship at all costs – but rather focused on fielding teams competitive enough to attract fans. The absence of the DH makes that job a lot easier – a competitive team in the NL is a mediocre one in the AL.
@todmod: NL teams should get some advantage in NL parks because the AL teams will (other things being equal) not have allocated as much salary to the players taking the field. But this might be lessened some because there’s a smaller market for players who need to DH, or who need to spend time at DH in order to be effective. If DH’s salaries are driven down because they can only sign with AL teams, then the DH won’t draw as many resources away from the players that the AL teams field in NL parks.
Another questions is whether AL teams get an advantage from being able to rest regular players by having them DH.
Both these effects would need to be studied, though, and I doubt they account for the whole AL-NL disparity anyway.
And half the games are played in NL parks, where the AL gets to use their DH once to PH. And the AL teams have to suffer through watching their pitchers “bat”.
This is not actually true. It is like saying that formula 1 and stock cars should be about as fast because they both spend about the same amount of money on their cars. When you have a constraint, it reduces output unless it is irrelevant.
If the DH were irrelevant than some AL teams would opt to have their pitchers bat and allocate the money elsewhere. But none of them do that so…
Well, in my view, the key to success in professional sports all starts at the top, with strong ownership. Strong ownership will not only spend the money it takes to field a competitive team but will also do a good job of finding people who can actually put together a strong roster and a strong minor league organization and, most importantly, allow management to simply do its job (i.e., not micromanage). A strong ownership group can even consistently field a competitive team despite a relatively small payroll if its management team is especially good, e.g., Tampa Bay.
I really think that what it boils down to is that the AL, for whatever reason, has a greater percentage of strong owners than does the NL. And, as Mr. Cameron has pointed out, the fact that weak ownership has been replaced by what will hopefully be strong ownership among several NL teams will address the big gap between the two leagues. I really don’t think that this has anything to do with the DH rule.
I’d have to disagree with that argument. This argument only really holds true if you have a hard salary cap, and all contracts are paid based strictly by performance.
When you have someone like Jesus Montero DH’ing in seattle getting paid <500k, simply saying "wasting" $500k on a dh that doesn't necessarily get to play in a NL park while NL team's get to use their full salaries on their lineup doesn't make much sense.
The argument works theoretically, but in the real world, money doesn't neutralize AL and NL.
Michael Young and his 74 wRC+ laugh at the DH excuse for AL dominance!
I was having this argument with an NL fan friend. He said that the sole reason the AL always won interleague play was that we had a big advantage at home since we had a DH we paid a lot of money and they didn’t.
Well now that interleague play has concluded, decided to add up some records and see for myself.
In 2012, the AL went 72-54 against the NL in national league parks, meaning no DH. So this argument is pretty much a cop out
Add the DH to the NL. But make it Designated only for one player, not one position. If the starter comes out, so does the DH.
This would keep the NL style of double switches, pitch hitting, etc, while making both leagues follow the same rules.
No, NO, NO, NO, NO!!! I hate the DH, don’t ever put it in the NL. I stopped watching the AL because of the DH. In my view, having the pitchers hit is part of baseball strategy. Watching washed upped hitters who can’t run or field is not my idea of fun baseball, even worse than weak pitcher hitting.
Wait. I thought the DH was the reason why the AL is much better than the NL, but then the same people say DHs are nothing but washed up guys who suck.
Yes, I agree! I also enjoy seeing pitchers flail at the plate while they try not to hurt themselves instead of watching real hitters actually hit. To me, real baseball is when someone who is good at something completely different (pitching) is asked to hit and does it little better than I could. Professional sports is all about having the best in the world at one thing do something completely different than their actual skill that they’re getting paid for, and having that person look stupid doing it. Oh, also it makes me so happy to see pitchers taken out earlier than they should for a pinch hitter. Because if there’s one thing I love, it’s having a guy who is pitching well taken out of the game for no reason and wasting bullpen arms because of it. Go, NL!
I completely agree! I don’t remember who it was, but it was something along the lines of “having a DH hit for the pitcher in baseball would be like having someone designated to shoot free throws for Wilt Chamberlain”. I can’t stand the DH, at all. Baseball used to be about being multi-deminsional (guys like Mays, DiMaggio, Mantle, and Brock could hit, run, and throw). The DH now allows guys like David Ortiz a job at a major league level. There are 5-tools scouts rave about a prospect having, and the DH allows a “2-star” player to get a fairly hefty deal. It’s outrageous, IMO.
Of course, in the Nationals case, watching the pitchers flail with the bats has meant seeing a fair number of home runs and extra base hits. Still hoping they will let Strasburg and his over 1.000 OPS bat cleanup once this year.
We should also make pitchers catch at least one inning in all games they start in order to get a win and the ballboy should be forced to play SS from the 7th inning stretch and on.
Seeing a ML pitcher hit is a lot like me stepping into the batting cages and having the machine dial it up to 90. Not a lot of strategy. Just a whole lot of laughing at someone who has no business ever handling a bat at the ML level (apologies of course to the few who can actually swing the stick).
Pitchers are bad at hitting. That is an argument for pitchers to not hit. It is not an argument for the DH.
If you don’t want the pitcher to hit, go to an 8 man lineup.
How about 9 designated hitters? And 9 designated runners? Allow any pitcher to pitch to whatever hitter comes up to the plate, even if he was previously taken out? You definitely need a designated runner-on-first catcher, right? I want only the best against the best!
“There are 5-tools scouts rave about a prospect having, and the DH allows a “2-star” player to get a fairly hefty deal. It’s outrageous, IMO.”
I’m not sure you know what ‘outrageous’ means.
Or if that legitimately produces outrage in you, you may need to focus your attention and/or energies elsewhere – following baseball is not a healthy pursuit for you.
The Rockies have the worst interleague record in Baseball, but since the begining of interleague they have dominated the AL if the Rockies had the 600+ winning percentage they had before this year it would go a long way towards closing that gap
And if the Nationals didn’t have a great interleague record, the gap would be even wider.
I understand what you are getting at but the Rockies are 0-9 at home to the A’s, Mariners and Angels
Overall the Rockies are 1-12 in Interleague in the seasons between 2006-2011 the rockies had a .620 winning percentage in 08 they finished 7-8 every other season they had a winning record against AL opponents.
“I understand what you are getting at but the Rockies are 0-9 at home to the A’s, Mariners and Angels.”
…and? You can’t just conveniently toss out the best/worst performances to further your argument. Those things happened. Are the Rockies a “true talent” .000 winning percentage team? Nope. But it happened nonetheless.
I mean, if you take out Luke Hochevar’s starts on June 2, May 6, May 1, and April 13, his ERA would be a very serviceable 3.25. But those poor starts happened, and his ERA currently sits at a league-worst 6.27.
I think what has been said is right on. The American League teams have stability at the DH position so they have a clear advantage in their home parks while the NL isnt going to pay the high salary for a DH just to have a DH for the very few games they need it. I think the AL is still a stronger league but not as dominant as interleague play would make it seem.
But if the DH is a huge advantage in AL parks, wouldn’t it be a huge disadvantage in NL parks. Especially when you consider that the NL teams are able to spend that cash that goes to a DH on someone who excels at the NL game
In theory, yes you make a good point.
I disagree with that. Pitchers that hit are often so bad, the difference is minute comparitively. When an NL team heads into an AL park, they have to have a bench player fill that role. A starting DH > a bench player (at least I would assume that everyone can agree on that). When the AL team heads into an NL park, they just have a pitcher fill the ‘DH’ role. In this instance, since even the ‘better’ hitting pitcher are bad, an AL pitcher = NL pitcher offensively.
The AL has the advantage at home, and the NL doesn’t get near the advantage when they come home. Theoretically, it makes sense that both sides have the advantage, but when you think about the difference in hitting ability both leagues get, the AL has the larger advantage.
They may hit poorly but at least many of them can bunt a man on base over or not make a total fool of themselves on the basepaths if they luck themselves into a hit.
To determine the advantage it’s pretty simple – is the gap wider between:
A typical AL DH and the best bat riding the pine on an NL team
or
An NL pitcher hitting or an AL pitcher who has zero practice hitting
you could think that, but most NL bech players have to be more versatile. They are more than just a big bench bat, and need to be able to play multiple positions in most cases. In the AL, sure the DH just gets stuck at first in NL games, but their bench also contains the versatile types as well.
Basically, in moving to an NL park, the AL still has utility guys to play during double switches, but also a $10 million dollar bench bat. The NL either has a cheap prospect with power (Allen Craig), and aging vet who used to have power (Jason giambi), or lots of light hitting speedsters. In the AL park the NL doesnt have the big hitter to plug in like the AL.
Past 10 World Series Champions (you know, the only thing that really matters–not regular season games)=5 AL, 5 NL. Comeon…
“The good NL teams can keep up with the AL, but the mediocre NL teams are getting thumped.” Cameron acknowledges that the top teams in both leagues are fairly equal, but the middle and bottom tier of the NL are inferior to the AL.
Ha, you know this isn’t ESPN right?
Well, DH is right, in that in those last ten years the max 70 game sample size for the World Series is more reliable than the 2500+ game sample size from which Dave makes his conclusions.
Because a 7 game series always tells us who the best team is …
agree that the DH and roster makeup because of it give them an edge, but it’s interesting that the world series isn’t mentioned in the discussion of how the AL is that much better than the NL, which suggests the league’s are more even given results in recent years.
Small sample size, obviously, but it appears that NL teams have a 126 wRC+ in 214 PAs from their DH, vs 116 wRC+ for the AL in many, many more PAs. Now obviously the question is about the drop-off from replacement player to replacement player. But the NL has some guys like Carlos Quentin and Jim Thome that have done just fine at DH this year.
Negative. World Series is 4 to 7 games between two teams with expanded rosters, IL play is 252 games between all teams, with regular rosters. Get real.
Do you have the data by home/road? I would expect the AL has a significantly better record at home, where they get to play their regular DH against the NL teams’ bench-DH. Though I guess that would only account for about 2 wins per 162 games.
THis, we need the numbers broken down by AL parks vs NL parks. The DH question is the big one that needs to be answered. If the majority of the AL advantage is coming when they are at home then it strongly points the finger at AL teams having an extra quality bat.
Re: DH rostering issue, can’t we just look at all games played in NL parks to get the answer? If the winning percentage is within the margin of error despite all NL parks that would pretty much end that discussion right? Not saying that will be the case but it should be pretty easy to look at.
As Dave brings up, the DH rule does more than simply give the AL teams one superior hitter. This rule allows them to offer more money to players who project to be defensive liabilities in the future. So, this reduces the risk in signing a player to a long term contract. This alone makes the AL a better league.
Understood Bill, my point isn’t it reasonable to assume (I know dangerous word) that these risky long term deals are being signed by guys who legitimately figure to wind up at DH and that the market for players who figure to wind up there vs not wind up there is pretty efficient among all teams? So my point would still stand that simply eliminating the DH from consideration would give you a legitimate evaluation on how much better the al teams are than nl teams sans DH so we can analyze it for the remaining factors.
Most teams play better at home anyway, so you would expect an improvement from the NL for that alone.
NL teams have actually played worse at home than on the road this year.
In 2012, Home Games and Inter-league Play
Rk Lg Year G W L W-L% RS RA pythW-L%
1 AL 2012 84 44 40 .524 375 348 .534
2 NL 2012 84 32 52 .381 311 401 .386
Winners of last two World Series and last two All-star games!
NL is King!
word up bitches !!
In case we need a reminder that the win stat is meaningless.
2011 ASG winner: Tyler Clippard (WAS)
2010 ASG winner: Matt Capps (WAS)
Obviously, the Nationals have the best pitching in baseball!
…oh wait.
The win stat is meaningless, win records are not.
Are you referring to pitching wins or team wins? Yes, pitching wins are basically meaningless. But team wins is the most important stat in baseball, especially in the WS, then in the postseason, and then in the regular season. It all comes down to team wins.
It’s funny because the Nationals actually do have the best pitching staff in baseball.
Cheers, Rex. Got the joke.
Team win records ARE meaningless over 7 games.
AL record at home: 44-40
AL record on the road: 52-32
*** also of note: this season (2012), if it were to end today, would have the second worst overall home winning percentage since 1900. So far the win percentage for home teams overall is .508. The only other season it was worse was in 1917 when the home win percent was .506. I think there have only been 9 seasons in total with a home win percentage less than .520 since 1900.
So while I agree that the roster makeup and budgeting for the DH in the AL would seem to be the largest “structural” advantage for why the AL beats the NL in Interleague play annually, that does not appear to be the reason for the difference so far in 2012.
Thanks, now howabout average payroll for each league? Do the Yanks and Sox force other AL teams to spend more and thus increase talent? It does seem like the majority of big FA deals are haded out by AL teasm lately. Does the AL buy an advantage?
Take away the Yankees and payrolls are about equal and the AL still has a huge IL win advantage in non-Yankee games.
Average Payrolls (in millions of $):
AL: 104.8
AL w/o Yankees: 97.7
NL: 92.1
NL w/o Phillies: 86.6
Phillies payroll and Yankees payroll are comparable outliers compared to their respective leagues.
I don’t think “average” payroll will tell us much… “median” payroll might be a better metric to use.
Using the mean team payroll isn’t perfect because the marginal advantage of spending additional money does vary depending upon the size of the payroll, but there is some theoretical marginal advantage to adding payroll. I think it is better than using the median. Why do you think median would be better?
If we wanted to go even further overboard on this we could use a weighted average of the NL teams because not every team plays the same number of IL games.
Are you arguing that the generally high road win total across MLB this year explains why the AL has this huge advantage?
I encourage you to rethink that if you are.
The AL has better players. End of story
Assuming that’s true (that the AL has better players), why would that be “end of story”? That sounds like the beginning of the story, especially on a site dedicated to baseball research.
Why did you mention the Red Sox as a reason that the AL is so good? The Red Sox are garbage. But you should write another article on one of their crappy middle relievers since fangraphs loves Boston so much.
HE obviously was talking about long-term. Sox have the best interleague record in baseball since 2003 and have won 3 road series this year v. the NL.
The sox have had several years, in fact, where they were barely .500 v the AL but dominated the NL to such a degree that they won or contended for the wild card.
Would balanced interleague schedules change things?
The DH gives the AL a huge advantage, especially now that the position is more often rotated among a group of players. It allows teams to rest guys while still using them in the lineup. it also enables each AL team to carry one more big (or even medium-sized) hitter because he’ll get to play more.
The DH also forces AL teams to find better pitchers to combat the deeper lineups. Since an AL team doesn’t really need to carry pinch hitters, it can use a bench spot for an additional specialist pitcher. AL managers play a lot of matchups in the late innings.
Sure, this is cyclical and the NL could eventually return to the dominance it enjoyed from the 60’s through the 80’s, but I think the adoption and evolution of the DH position gives the AL a long-term advantage.
I prefer the NL game, personally…
So the AL can spend more money on better pitching because of the DH while also employing an extra strong hitter because of the DH. This makes no sense.
I think what Stu is saying is that the DH allows an AL team to focus more money on 9 starting hitters, its 5 starting pitchers and its primary relievers because the bench players receive fewer PAs and the back end of the bullpen faces fewer batters. Intuitively this makes sense because NL SPs are sometimes forced to leave the game an inning early for a pinch hitter and bench players get into more games because of the need to double switch and pinch hit for the pitcher – obviously this could be verified by examining actual data.
It is possible, and in my mind not unreasonable, that AL roster construction might be inefficient if used over an entire season, but doesn’t present as many disadvantages for a team playing 3 series over the season, usually not more than 2 in a row.
It is also possible that AL roster construction (with essentially a designated pinch hitter) might provide those teams an advantage, but that most of the players of this type are unwilling to sign with a NL team because they wouldn’t receive enough PAs.
Can some of the AL’s dominance be attributed purely to the numerical 14/16 split of teams (quite apart from which teams those are)?
If you’ve got a theoretical 5 in 14 chance of the playoffs then you’ll be more likely to make the marginal investments required to continue to push for those playoff spots, and you’re more likely to continue to attract fans throughout the season, helping you to grow payroll further etc.
5/16 might not seem much worse but it’s 4.5 percentage points. Bad teams will get eliminated from contention more quickly, depressing fanbases and so on and so forth.
Evening up to 15/15 is intrinsically fairer – and that it’s the Astros moving helps too as Dave points out. If it were the Brewers moving back it would have been analogous to the Cambridge don who moved to Oxford* – and lowered the average IQ of both faculties.
* please feel free to substitute your preferred Ivy League schools
I could see this having a larger than expected effect.
This makes absolutely no sense. ….since Cambridge is far superior to Oxford.
My theory is that the cycle will swing the other direction once the fat overpaid DH’s yield diminishing returns and constrain AL team payrolls. Better player development for speed, defense and pitching will swing the balance back to the NL in time.
So why has it only gotten worse with time? A guy like David Ortiz would be an annual MVP candidate in the NL because he would play 1b. As for the idea that AL teams will not sign big sluggers to DH, this offseason included Puljos and Fielder making the jump to the AL. Both will almost certainly end their careers as DHs.
A guy like David Ortiz would be hard pressed to find a starting position on any NL contender (the only teams in which MVPs are really considered). His awful fielding ability would likely have him on the bench.
Why do you think he has awful fielding ability? He has been quite good with his instincts and agility in his limited action at 1b for Boston. I’m not saying he’s a gold glover, but there have been (and are) a lot of bad fielding 1bmen in the NL over the years.
Prince Fielder on the 2011 Brewers being just one example. Now bringing his talents to Det in the AL.
If Ortiz was a satisfactory first baseman, with no injury risk by playing it (more on that shortly), he’d be playing first base for Boston, and they’d be looking for someone else to DH who is even less satisfactory on defense than he is.
The average AL DH this year is putting up an OPS of .772; the NL DH, an OPS of .698. That is a LOT of offensive difference. With all other positions (except, ironically enough, pitcher), the difference between the two leagues’ average OPS is much smaller, and generally but not always in the NL’s favor, probably because of park effects (no AL team plays home games in a hitter’s paradise like Coors, and several other NL parks are playing as extreme hitter’s parks this year).
So who are those effective DHs? It turns out that a large fraction of the AL hitters serving as their team’s main DH are on the wrong side of the 27-year-old career-peak marker. The only “regular” DH younger than that is Billy Butler; Delmon Young and Jesus Montero are also younger, and play much of the time at DH, but are still frequently used at real defensive positions even in AL-only play. All of the others are getting up there in years.
This leads to a testable hypothesis: many of the AL DHs, in fact, COULDN’T be regular players in the NL, because their age would put them at unacceptable risk of injury if they played the field every day. If this hypothesis (which can be explored by looking at injury histories, average number of days on the DL, what happens when players change leagues and roles, etc.) is correct, then given that bit OPS advantage to AL DHs, the idea that dedicated DHs confer a non-baseball-skill advantage on AL teams has legs.
What is the average salary for AL teams? NL teams?
Each league will have some high profile spending failures (Cubs, Mariners, etc.) that can be discussed as well.
Also, would matchups affect expected win percentage? This is possible in the sample size being discussed.
Yes, the AL is stronger right now. The real challenge is determining how much stronger and why.
This gets to Dave’s point about the Yankees and Red Sox. Yank have the most money to spend, by a lot. Sox have been largely successful in recent years by spending to keep up (and developing a great farm system). That has likely resulted in teams like Texas, Det and Anaheim having to spend more to compete for a wild card, and teams like Tampa, Balt and Tor to really focus on player development (with different degrees of success).
There is no big monster payroll in the NL (consintely) pushing everyone else to spend wisely or die. Even before the expanded playoff format this year, all you had to do was be withing a few games of .500 on sept 1 in the NL and you are in a playoff race.
Another thing. If the DH by nature is a pathetic fat old guy with no real value, then AL teams smartening up and not carrying such people would only serve to make the AL more dominant.
See analysis above. You can carry a big old fat guy with no skills EXCEPT hitting, if hitting is all he’s expected to do. A look at the age of the primary AL DHs says that that is indeed what teams do. They can get away with it because of the reduced injury risk as well as the insignificance of their inability to field their positions.
Based upon the data provided by usatoday.com average payroll for AL teams ~ $104.8 million, NL ~ $92.1 million.
This helps mitigate any payroll inefficiencies that AL teams suffer in NL parks. It also should give us an expectation that AL teams will be, on the whole, better than NL teams. Assuming, of course, that the front offices in each league have roughly equal efficiencies.
$12 M difference in average payroll combined with the massive failures from a couple of high payroll teams (Cubs and Mets come to mind) explain a lot of the talent gap between the AL and NL. (This would make for a great article.)
.. or the AL Central, where “a rising tide sinks all boats”.
but once you get down to the middle and lower tier teams, the differences really begin to stand out. If you take the Nationals, Dodgers, and Reds out of the picture, the NL is 54-84, a .391 winning percentage.
Why not remove the Rangers, White Sox, and Yankees for this stat?
(if you are comparing middle and lower teams, it only makes sense to remove them from both leagues)
The average score, then, has been 4.61 to 3.92.
4.61 Runs per game is lower than the average RPG in the American League east. And 3.92 RPG is just about par for the course in the AL west. The .7 run differential is also very clost to that of the Cleveland Indians (-.6).
The impact of 15 Al and 15 NL teams next season has to be more interleague play, right?
The biggest spenders make the market, not just for free agents in general but for the price of contention within each league. Of the five biggest (by market) clubs in baseball, two are in the AL (NYY and BRS) and three in the NL (NYM, LAD, CC). The former have been ahead of the curve in new media revenue and smart high payroll, while the latter have been case studies in dysfunctional, venal, and disinterested ownership. The disparity between the flagship clubs in each league is reflected in the disparity between the leagues overall.
This should even out over the next decade as revenues and spending increase in the second-tier NL markets. DC, Miami, and SF are on a strong development path and, given the inevitable correction at the top clubs, should restore the NL to parity at least.
The DH is ugly and irrelevant.
I agree with this. If the NL teams are better run and/or spend more they will win more games. But there is a chicken/egg issue here, too. We have little evidence that the fans in MIa or DC will support their teams enough to sustain long-term success.
Fan support doesn’t mean what it used to mean. In the modern era, eyeballs on screens is all that matters, and DC and Miami shouldn’t have too much trouble generating summer sportsfan revenue. You don’t have to get them to the park — you just have to get them to change the channel.
The TV ratings thing doesn’t help your point. The Nationals and Fish don’t get much of a TV draw either. Nor do the Angels and Dodgers, for that matter (high payrolls — normally).
No, DC and Miami aren’t drawing eyeballs yet, but the ROI is much larger in media than at the ballpark, where such large markets are concerned. That potential will underwrite a whole lot of spending over a long period of time. Wins will be produced, loyalty gained, and crowds will probably follow.
The existence of an embiggenable revenue source provides the necessary incentive to invest in the club. The Angels are a good example: they didn’t get their $3b (or whatever) deal because of their cute centerfield rock garden. They produce content, and content is power in the current “WTF media distribution?” game. The next few years will be very volatile for baseball, but it will mostly be a positive volatility — there’s a crapton of money for the clubs to make, and a good new incentive for them to spend, too.
The answer is so obvious its amazing no one has mentioned it yet: Willie Bloomquist is in the NL.
of course!
[forehead slap]
It’s misleading to include the Padres among the “NL also-rans” when San Diego has the best interleague record among all the National League clubs. Don’t pile on the Pads when it’s not necessary!
And this without the White Sox usual dominance. They are 6-6 this year. in 2007 they were 4-14. Otherwise their worst year since 2004 is 11-7.
“The DH also gives AL teams the ability to give aging sluggers a softer landing, so they can more confidently bid on free agents like Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder.”
Shouldn’t this be a bit of a double edged sword in interleague player, where the AL team must bench a regular player that, often, they’ve paid a premium for?
It’s funny how small sample sizes are conveniently ignored whenever the myth of the AL’s superiority is brought up.
Small sample sizes? This is 10 years in a row.
The sample sizes are fine. The two tailed binomial probability that the two leagues are in fact equal in ability, given that the AL has a 96-72 record, is .027. Furthermore, it runs along these lines every year back to 2005. You add up the AL W-L across all 8 years and it’s quite clear the AL is superior.
Think flipping a coin 168 times; how often would you get 96 tails or 96 heads?
answer: 2.7% of the time
As others mentioned above, AL success is a preordained outcome because of the DH. NL teams cannot match that extra bat in any of their bench players. Thankfully, it’s fairly trivial to generate the numbers for NL parks only using baseball-reference’s team situation tool. I built a spreadsheet off the data that you can see here. The upshot is that over the past ten years NL teams have been the better team in games without the DH, with a .513 winning percentage. Over the past five years the AL has taken the upper hand with NL teams winning only .482% of the games. But this is hardly the slaughter that consistently gets bandied about.
As of today the AL is 150-135 which is a .526 WP% Or roughly the KC Royals.