Royals vs. NL Central
by Rowyal on Aug 31, 2007 1:24 PM EDT
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PrintSo my roommate, being a huge Cubs fan, has been following their series against the Brewers pretty closely. Tired of hearing him talk about how awesome they've been playing, I reminded him that they play in a joke of a division and would be in no better than fourth place in the AL Central. Not surprisingly, this led to some Royals bashing. Which brings me to the point of this diary.
Does anyone have any stats to back up the fact that the Royals and Cubs of this year are actually far closer in quality of play than their win-loss records would otherwise indicate? Strength of schedules, common opponents, etc. Or, any defensible projections of what the Royals' record would be if they played in the NL Central and the Cubs' in the AL Central would be pretty helpful.
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Here's the best I can do
Most projections are built on Runs Scored and Runs Against - since my analysis is going to be crude and quick anyway, I'm going to go with the oldest version of the "Pythagorean formula."
But first, an adjustment for league. The AL as a whole has scored 180 runs more than it has given up, or 12 6/7 per team. I'm going to split this about evenly and assume the Royals would have scored 7 extra and given up 6 fewer runs in a neutral league. It's only 11 1/9 per national league team, so I'll give the Cubs six fewer runs, giving up five extra.
After this correction we get a Pythagorean win percentage of:
Royals - .480 ~ 63-69
Cubs - .532 ~ 70-62
So seven games back, which is pretty close. For reference:
Twins - .529 ~ 69-63, so they and the Cubs would be duking it out for third.
by the way
I think this has the effect of closing the gap further.
Let's also add that all but 3 AL teams
That's a pretty heavy indictment of the NL, and as we know, the NL Central's the worst division of them all, whereas the AL Central may be the best.
right you are
54%
by byebyebalboni on Aug 31, 2007 5:28 PM EDT reply actions
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