Baseball On A More Even Playing Field
Although the MLB season is played over a total of 162 games per team, the volume of games compared to other team sports still fails to ensure that there is inherent fairness built into the final season standings. The lack of parity is highlighted with the likes of the Toronto Blue Jays having close to a combined sixty games a year against the Rays, Red Sox and Yankees or four teams in the NL Central having regular meetings with the resident whipping boys of the Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates. And even in interleague play, viewing figures always trump parity with the New York Mets having regular matchups with their Bronx neighbours when they would rather have a series with the Baltimore Orioles.
Regular W/L records show only the strict wins and losses and a Pythagorean record is often used to ascertain how well a team actually performed, based on runs scored and runs allowed, whereby any variation from the actual W/L record is deemed down to variance (or, more accurately, luck). However, the regular Pythagorean record doesn't take into account the strength of schedule which led to the introduction of third order wins which is a Pythagorean based metric but which accounts for the strength of opponent hitting and pitching; using this metric, the records of each MLB teams can be better compared as if it were a single soccer league.
The strength of the AL East, seen by them taking the top three spots in the combined league, is apparent especially with the Toronto Blue Jays sitting in 7th place despite being in fourth place in their division – their difficult schedule is highlighted by the fact that taking into account the strength of their schedule, they should have four more wins that they currently do. And one thing is for certain - however you try and rank teams within MLB, it always seems to be the Pittsburgh Pirates in last place.
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Originally Posted by pally
