Wednesday, August 20, 2008

What Division is the Best?

I was looking at the MLB standings this morning and noticed how the league only has two strong divisions from top to bottom, the AL East and, surprisingly, the NL Central. The AL Central only has two teams, the ChiSox and the Twins, but neither of those teams look particularly strong and the rest of the division sucks, especially the Tigers. The NL East has a good race going on right now, but none of those teams are strong. The Mets and Phillies have a lot of weaknesses, primarily with pitching, the Marlins are so-so, the Braves are all dinged up and it's amazing that they aren't in last place, and the Nationals are a total embarrassment. 38 games under .500? Dude. And don't bother wasting time arguing the merits of the West divisions, you'll just look like a total idiot.
My question is which division is the best. You have a good argument for the AL East because 4 of the 5 teams are over .500 and the Orioles, the lone sub-.500 team, is only 5 games under. However, there isn't much of a race for the division outside of the DRays and the BoSox. The Yankees have no chance, nor do the Blue Jays.
The NL Central, though, is also starting to look like a two-team race. The Brewers are 6 behind the Cubs and the Cards are 8.5 back. Hell, that doesn't even really look like a race. But given that the Cubs, Cards, and Brewers still have a lot of games to play against each other, it's still anyone's division. Also, there is a real battle for the Wild Card between the Brewers and Cards (and the Cubs if anything goes wrong), which makes it distinct from the AL East. The Yanks are pretty much done and cannot compete top-to-bottom with the BoSox or DRays for the division or the Wild Card. This gives the NL Central an edge over the NL East as far as interest. Also, the Astros are the fourth team over .500 in the division. For the only six-team division in the league to have 4 teams over .500 says something about its strength. The Pirates and Reds, though, make the division's bottom real weak as they are 12 and 16 games under .500 respectively.
I have concluded that, because of the records of the Pirates and Reds at the bottom of the NL Central, the AL East is better top-to-bottom, but that the NL Central is the more interesting division. The division race is still strong in the Central and will probably come down to the last week of the season, as will the Wild Card.

2 comments:

Malach the Merciless said...

AL East has been that way for years

AngryMan said...

Sort of. It's usually just a two-team race, though. The DRays and Orioles have really held the division back for a while. The BJays at least could be competitive.