FanPost

A Look at the "Weakest Division" Argument

We’ve all heard it.  "The AL Central is the weakest division in baseball."  Does this statement hold water?

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Analysts and experts looks at wins and losses in a season, and they see that of the first place teams, the Tigers have the least amount of wins.  Ergo, the AL Central is the weakest division.  Not only that, but it seems to be cited as a recurring historical fact.  Using the method above it is easy to make that assertion.  I’ll try to look a little deeper, but not too deep (warning, not very scientific or sabre-y)!  If you find you have something to add to this by all means because it’s always interesting to see other methods and viewpoints.

I first decided to look at how many times each division has been represented in the World Series in the last 10 years.  The AL East has 6 appearances, the NL West 4, the NL East and Central 3 each, and the AL West and Central 2 each.  From this we can see that the AL East has a clear advantage, but that should come as no surprise.  In reality it is a pretty even spread in a small sample size of 10 years, with the AL East being an outlier.  Solely on this it is more accurate to say "The AL Central and West have been the two weakest divisions in the last ten years" than "AL Central = weakest."

Of course, World Series appearances don’t tell the whole story.  Wins and whether teams have a winning record is another one of the ‘eyeball’ tests that lead some to cite the AL Central being the weakest division.  So, including this year’s current standings (as of 8/23), I went back through to 2001 counting the teams in each division with a record at or above .500.  I realize there’s a big difference between 81 wins and 95 wins, but merely scratching the surface should glean enough info to get the point.  Here are the average number of teams per division over the last 10 years with a record of .500 or above (AL West and NL Central weighted as 5 team divisions):


AL EAST – 2.9091
NL EAST – 2.9091
AL WEST – 2.7272
AL CENTRAL – 2.6363
NL WEST – 2.6363
NL CENTRAL – 2.1212

Interestingly, the only divisions to post just 1 winning team were the AL West in ’08 and the NL West in ’05.  The AL Central has had at least 2 .500 or above teams in each of the last 10 years, and the years with 3 such teams outnumber the years with 2 (not counting this year).  It is definitely still possible the AL Central has only 1 winning team this year which would lower the average, but even then it would not put it below the NL Central.  I wouldn’t look at this and say the NL Central is the weakest division; it is, after all, a 6 team division, but since 2001 that division has not carried as many winning teams as the others.

Nothing here shows me that the statement "The AL Central is the weakest division."  Really, the only blanket statement about divisions that seems plausible is the AL East is/has been the strongest, obviously because of New York and Boston.  For me, anything else doesn’t hold water.  What do you think?

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the <em>Bless You Boys</em> writing staff.