A huge portion of discussion about baseball ultimately boils down to trying to figure out how good players and teams are. We all love spinning our wheels on this topic, or else we probably wouldn't post on this forum. One of the things that frustrates me about this topic is that it's relatively uncommon for people (and pundits in particular) to acknowledge just how much the unbalanced schedule screws with our ability to accurately answer this fundamental question. There's certainly some degree to which we tend to acknowledge weaker or stronger divisions, but I don't think we do this enough, and we certainly don't do it enough when we try to analyze things on an individual player level.
When we break things down further and look at defense or offense it becomes even more tricky. Does a team seem great defensively because it's in a weak offensive division, or is the division's offense being suppressed by that great defensive team?
In the interest of consolidating at least a little bit of data that can help contribute to enhancing our understanding of divisional performance, here's a bit of a breakdown:
AL EAST: +116 run differential, +20 win differential, 1518.2 average 538 ELO, 3773 RS/3657 RA
AL CENTRAL: -81 run differential, -14 win differential, 1500 average 538 ELO, 3776 RS/3857 RA
AL WEST: +71 run differential, +14 win differential, 1515.4 average 538 ELO, 3894 RS/3823 RA
NL EAST: -206 run differential, -46 win differential, 1486.4 average 538 ELO, 3754 RS/3960 RA
NL CENTRAL: +39 run differential, -2 win differential, 1505.2 average 538 ELO, 3736 RS/3697 RA
NL WEST: +61 run differential, +28 win differential, 1505.2 average 538 ELO, 3649 RS/3588 RA
There are a few things that jump out at me when I look at this data:
The most glaringly obvious is how utterly atrocious the NL East is. Despite playing in the weaker of the two leagues, the NL East still managed to put up an embarrassing run and win differential. It's almost like the NL East is a glorified AAA extension. The overal division offense is pretty pedestrian, but the pitching is by far the worst in baseball. What that suggests to me is that the offensive performances of NL East players are likely inflated.
Another interesting factor is the odd skew between the run and win differentials in both the NL West and NL Central. Despite putting up a decent overall run differential, the NL Central is down two games. Meanwhile, the NL West put up the best run differential in the NL (but would be third in the AL), and yet managed to finish up 28 games -- 8 games higher than the AL East, who has a run differential nearly twice the NL West. I suspect that the NL West is worse than it appears based on the won/loss totals, and the NL Central is better than it appears. It's worth noting that the lucky team in the NL West seems to be the Padres, who should have an even worse record than they do.
Looking at the AL we see that both the AL East and West are quite good (with the AL East being the best division in baseball by a significant margin if you measure based on run differential) while the AL Central is bad. The quick take there is that the Indians are probably overrated, while the Red Sox, Yankees, and Astros are all a bit underrated. I think that this possibly applies more to Houston as the AL West doesn't really look that good at first glance, but it actually is both decent and was dominated by Houston.
Drilling down further on the RS/RA data, some interesting observations can be made. Now, I'm not quite confident here as there's the whole "chicken and egg" phenomenon, and we could put a finer point on these conclusions by actually calculating the divisional RS/RA against non-divisional opponents (but that would be FAR more laborious). Also, just for reference 3764 is average for RS/RA. With that in mind:
The NL West has a great RA number (best in baseball) but the division's offense is also quite bad. Tough to say how to weight the causal factors here, but I suspect the pitching is legitimately good, but not quite as good as it seems.
The NL East has just terrible defense, but merely slightly below average offense. That makes me think that the offensive numbers for the NL East in particular and, to a lesser extent, the entire NL are somewhat inflated by the terrible NL East defense.
On the AL side, the same could be said for the AL Central but to a somewhat lesser extreme. That division has really bad defense but only slightly above average offense. While it's a bit dangerous to make conclusions about individual teams based on this data, it makes me think that the Indians' offense is probably not as good as its RS suggests, but their defense is probably actually even better than it looks as they put up incredible defensive numbers in a division that actually has slightly above average offense.
The AL West, on the other hand, is something of the opposite case. That division is a big outlier on offense, but is only slightly below average on defense. That suggests to me that either the offense or the defense is better than it looks, or a little bit of both. Meanwhile the AL East has slightly above average offense but significantly better than average defense. Again, it's a bit hard to make an exact conclusion but either the offense, defense or both is probably actually better than it looks.
When we break things down further and look at defense or offense it becomes even more tricky. Does a team seem great defensively because it's in a weak offensive division, or is the division's offense being suppressed by that great defensive team?
In the interest of consolidating at least a little bit of data that can help contribute to enhancing our understanding of divisional performance, here's a bit of a breakdown:
AL EAST: +116 run differential, +20 win differential, 1518.2 average 538 ELO, 3773 RS/3657 RA
AL CENTRAL: -81 run differential, -14 win differential, 1500 average 538 ELO, 3776 RS/3857 RA
AL WEST: +71 run differential, +14 win differential, 1515.4 average 538 ELO, 3894 RS/3823 RA
NL EAST: -206 run differential, -46 win differential, 1486.4 average 538 ELO, 3754 RS/3960 RA
NL CENTRAL: +39 run differential, -2 win differential, 1505.2 average 538 ELO, 3736 RS/3697 RA
NL WEST: +61 run differential, +28 win differential, 1505.2 average 538 ELO, 3649 RS/3588 RA
There are a few things that jump out at me when I look at this data:
The most glaringly obvious is how utterly atrocious the NL East is. Despite playing in the weaker of the two leagues, the NL East still managed to put up an embarrassing run and win differential. It's almost like the NL East is a glorified AAA extension. The overal division offense is pretty pedestrian, but the pitching is by far the worst in baseball. What that suggests to me is that the offensive performances of NL East players are likely inflated.
Another interesting factor is the odd skew between the run and win differentials in both the NL West and NL Central. Despite putting up a decent overall run differential, the NL Central is down two games. Meanwhile, the NL West put up the best run differential in the NL (but would be third in the AL), and yet managed to finish up 28 games -- 8 games higher than the AL East, who has a run differential nearly twice the NL West. I suspect that the NL West is worse than it appears based on the won/loss totals, and the NL Central is better than it appears. It's worth noting that the lucky team in the NL West seems to be the Padres, who should have an even worse record than they do.
Looking at the AL we see that both the AL East and West are quite good (with the AL East being the best division in baseball by a significant margin if you measure based on run differential) while the AL Central is bad. The quick take there is that the Indians are probably overrated, while the Red Sox, Yankees, and Astros are all a bit underrated. I think that this possibly applies more to Houston as the AL West doesn't really look that good at first glance, but it actually is both decent and was dominated by Houston.
Drilling down further on the RS/RA data, some interesting observations can be made. Now, I'm not quite confident here as there's the whole "chicken and egg" phenomenon, and we could put a finer point on these conclusions by actually calculating the divisional RS/RA against non-divisional opponents (but that would be FAR more laborious). Also, just for reference 3764 is average for RS/RA. With that in mind:
The NL West has a great RA number (best in baseball) but the division's offense is also quite bad. Tough to say how to weight the causal factors here, but I suspect the pitching is legitimately good, but not quite as good as it seems.
The NL East has just terrible defense, but merely slightly below average offense. That makes me think that the offensive numbers for the NL East in particular and, to a lesser extent, the entire NL are somewhat inflated by the terrible NL East defense.
On the AL side, the same could be said for the AL Central but to a somewhat lesser extreme. That division has really bad defense but only slightly above average offense. While it's a bit dangerous to make conclusions about individual teams based on this data, it makes me think that the Indians' offense is probably not as good as its RS suggests, but their defense is probably actually even better than it looks as they put up incredible defensive numbers in a division that actually has slightly above average offense.
The AL West, on the other hand, is something of the opposite case. That division is a big outlier on offense, but is only slightly below average on defense. That suggests to me that either the offense or the defense is better than it looks, or a little bit of both. Meanwhile the AL East has slightly above average offense but significantly better than average defense. Again, it's a bit hard to make an exact conclusion but either the offense, defense or both is probably actually better than it looks.