Write On Sports LLC - "Divisional Inequality in Baseball" by Scott Campanella

Divisional Inequality in Baseball

2007-04-25 14:54:06 | By: Scott Campanella

It's high time baseball did something to fix one of its biggest problems. No, I'm not talking about steroids, scuffing baseballs, or the Chicago Cubs. It's the huge competitive advantage some teams have gained merely by belonging to the right division.

Back in 1994, Major League Baseball suffered a lost season, which ended in August with no playoffs or World Series. That was also the first season that the American and National Leagues were restructured into three-division leagues instead of two. At that point there were 28 teams in the major leagues. With the addition of Tampa Bay and Arizona in 1998, that brought the number of teams to 30. Although there has been a realignment of teams since then, the basic structure of the league has not changed since 1998.

With 30 teams and six divisions, there should be an equal number of teams (five) in each league. This is true of all but two divisions: The National League's Central Division has six teams, while the American League's Western Division has four. This may not seem like a big deal until one looks at the percentage chance that each team has of making the playoffs.

Major League Baseball currently allows eight teams into the post-season each year. The six division winners get in, plus two Wild-Card teams (one from each league). That means that (all things being equal) each team should have a 26.67% (8 divided by 30) chance of making the playoffs.

However, in the American League (AL) West there are only four teams. Each team has an opportunity to get into the playoffs by winning its division or claiming the Wild-Card spot for the AL. Each AL West team thus has a 25% chance (1 in 4) of winning its division, plus a 9.1% chance (1 in 11 non-division winners) of claiming the Wild Card spot. This adds up to a 34.1% chance that each AL West team has of making the playoffs. By comparison, each team in the AL East or AL Central has only a 29.1% chance of making the playoffs (20% to win their division, plus 9.1% chance at the Wild Card). That's a full 5% competitive advantage that the AL West teams have over the other two American League divisions.

In the National League, there is a somewhat similar scenario, except the National League (NL) Central has six teams while the other two divisions have five. This means that each NL Central team only has a 24.4% chance to make the playoffs (16.7% chance to win their division, plus 7.7% chance to claim the Wild Card spot). The teams in the NL East and NL West have a 27.7% chance of making the playoffs, so the disparity in the National league is only 3.3% instead of five percent.

If one looks at all six divisions, one can see the wide gap between the teams in the NL Central and the AL West:

National League
East ----- 27.7%
Central -- 24.4%
West ----- 27.7%

American League
East ----- 29.1%
Central -- 29.1%
West ----- 34.1%

As anyone can see, the teams in the AL West have a 9.7% higher chance of making the playoffs than the teams in the NL Central. Compound this advantage with the fact that two AL West teams (the A's and Angels) have repeatedly dominated the other two division rivals (the Mariners and Rangers), and the disparity between the divisions grows even further. This large disparity sways the competitive balance to the point where Major League Baseball needs to address the issue.

The solution is relatively simple: Move one NL Central team to the AL West. Then, (all things being equal) every team has the same chance to make the playoffs each year. Keeping location and competitive balance in mind, logical choices to move to the AL West are Houston or Chicago. The Cardinals (St. Louis) are typically the best team in the NL Central, while Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Cincinnati are farther east than the Cubs or Astros.

Until the problem is fixed, I'll relish being an Oakland A's fan even more. See you in the playoffs (again)!

Comments

Phillip Conrad commented,
Not a bad idea. I would think the Houston Astros would be a good team to toss to the AL West. That might even inspire a pretty good in-state rivalry.
April 25, 2007 3:07 p.m.

Pete commented,
Isn't a better solution to simply go back to four divisions? You could still have eight teams make the playoffs -- two division winners and two wild cards in each league. This would have the added benefit of preventing mediocre (or underachieving) teams from making the playoffs. Neither the 2006 Cardinals nor the 2005 Padres would have made the playoffs under this format. After last year, I fear that baseball is in danger of turning into the NHL, where they might as well not even play the regular season.
May 2, 2007 8:40 p.m.

Raymond commented,
I would love the idea of expanding two more teams even though the recent MLB economic structure doesn't support expansion and realigning to 8 divisions of 4 teams each. And even if it doesn't expand, 6 divisions of 5 teams each would be great. I understand that MLB currently has 16/14 teams in each league so that there would be no team on a bye, but maybe that's where schedules should be thought over again. Let's have more interleague play. There's also uneven competition in interleague games if you think about regional rivalry. The A's play the Giants every year, but may not see a non-rival in the other league for 3 years. Maybe each team plays every other team. 4 series against members of the same division, 3 series against other members of the same league, 2 3-game series against each team from a division in the other league (rotated yearly), and 1 2-game series against every other team in the other league. I haven't done the math yet, but it probably doesn't add up to 162 games.
August 14, 2007 1:32 p.m.

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