MLB: How the NL West Is the Best Division in the Majors

As the 2010 season comes to a close, all eyes are now on post-season play.  As pundits debate which team has a chance to go all the way, they will be able to use a boatload of data from the regular 162-game season.  Two series in particular drew my attention, the Cincinnati vs Philadelphia and the New York vs Minnesota games.  Both of these series feature teams from the Eastern and Central divisions of their respective leagues.  In both cases, the central team lost, badly.  I thought to myself if it was possible that these teams were overrated, after all, the central divisions in each league have some of the league’s worst teams. 

I set out to rank the overall strength from top to bottom of each division.  I created my own ranking system based on the division medians of offense, pitching, and defense to create a rating for each category.  I chose to use the median average as opposed to a mean average because a median will not punish or reward any division to strongly for outliers like the Yankees or the Pirates.

 These rankings are based on sabermetric stats that I will describe on each slide.  I understand that there is a good deal of disagreement over the validity of sabermetrics here so I included another metric in my rankings: results.  In fact, I weighted final win-loss record twice as much as any of the other categories.

 The first few slides will discuss the rankings in each category and I don’t expect much disagreement with those slides, I just copied and pasted numbers and calculated a simple average.  But when it comes to the later slides with the Divisional rankings, I welcome comments and criticism.  

Ranking The Bats

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NEW YORK - OCTOBER 19: Mark Teixeira #25 of the New York Yankees reacts against the Texas Rangers in Game Four of the ALCS during the 2010 MLB Playoffs at Yankee Stadium on October 19, 2010 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Nick Laham/Get

I am a big believer in the wOBA stat as a metric for measuring total offense.   For those of you unfamiliar with the stat, it takes into account the specific value of offensive plays- 3B vs HR for example- and creates an easy way to measure overall offense.

Ranking the Offenses:

1. AL East median ranking: 6
2. AL Central median ranking: 10
3. NL Central median ranking: 17 mean: 16.3
4. NL East median ranking: 17 mean: 17.6
5. NL West median ranking: 17 mean: 18.2
6. AL West median ranking: 22

Ranking The Leather

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SAN FRANCISCO - JULY 28: Andres Torres #56 of the San Francisco Giants in action during their game against the Florida Marlins at AT&T Park on July 28, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

The controversies surrounding UZR are perhaps even greater then those relating to wOBA.  In small sample sizes it can be dangerously misleading, but with a large enough sample UZR will usually agree with the eye test.  With at least 11664 player innings per team to draw from, UZR over one season passes the sample size requirement.

Ranking the Defenses:

1. NL West median ranking: 3
2. AL West median ranking: 11
3. AL East: median ranking:  14
4. NL East median ranking: 27
5. NL Central median ranking: 20
6. AL Central median ranking: 24

Ranking The Staffs

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PHOENIX - SEPTEMBER 01: Starting pitcher Mat Latos #38 of the San Diego Padres pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the Major League Baseball game at Chase Field on September 1, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona. The Diamondbacks defeated the Padres 5-

For pitching I chose to use the FIP (fielding independent pitching) metric as my measuring stick.  FIP uses stats like BB/9, K/9, HR/9, and ground ball frequency to determine an expected ERA.  It is not a perfect metric as there are pitchers that will consistently outperform or underachieve their FIP but it usually successful at predicting a pitcher success once defense is taken into account.

Ranking the Pitching Staffs:

1. NL West median ranking: 4
2. NL East median ranking: 11
3. AL East median ranking: 15
4. NL Central median ranking: 17
5. AL West median ranking: 21 mean: 16.4
6. AL Central median ranking: 21 mean: 17.8

Measuring Success

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ST. PETERSBURG, FL - OCTOBER 12: David Price #14 of the Tampa Bay Rays pitches during Game 5 of the ALDS against the Texas Rangers at Tropicana Field on October 12, 2010 in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

For this slide I had to do some interesting things with the numbers to make sure win-loss records had the appropriate weight in my rankings.  For each division I ranked the win total of each team with respect to all of MLB.  The AL West would have win totals ranked 8, 15, 17, and 29.  I took the median for each division to determine the winningest division top to bottom.

 Ranking the win totals:

1. AL East median ranking: 10
2. NL West median ranking: 14
3. AL Central median ranking: 15
4. AL West median ranking: 16
5. NL East median ranking: 17
6. NL Central median ranking: 21.5

West Is The Best

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DENVER - SEPTEMBER 25: Troy Tulowitzki #2 of the Colorado Rockies celebrates with Huston Street (L) and their teammates after he hit the game RBI double to score Carlos Gonzalez #5 against the San Francisco Giants in the 10th inning at Coors Field on Sep

My final rankings combine the scores for all of the categories discussed on previous slides.  Right now is the part where I expect the most criticism because the weights I have assigned to each ranking are somewhat arbitrary, but without much more in depth research I decided it was best to rate each category equally.  Defense, pitching, and offense were each 20% of the ranking with the win total score making up the reminder.  Without further ado, here are the rankings:

 MLB Divisional rankings 2010:

1. NL West overall ranking: 10.4
2. AL East overall ranking: 11
3. NL East overall ranking: 15.8
4. AL Central overall ranking: 17
5. AL West overall ranking: 17.2
6. NL Central overall ranking: 19.4

 The NL West was the best overall division in 2010

A Review

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SAN FRANCISCO - OCTOBER 03: Buster Posey #28 and Brian Wilson #38 of the San Francisco Giants celebrate after they beat the San Diego Padres to win the National League West Title at AT&T Park on October 3, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Ez

I am actually shocked that the AL East is not on top.  I made a significant effort not to let super teams ruin my efforts to create a complete division picture but I thought that the combined might of the Rays and Yankees would offset the Orioles terrible play.  The NL West’s position should not be a complete shocker, when you consider how far superior the pitching and defense in the division is when compared with the rest of the league.  It also helped three teams had over 500 records with another 81 win team.  The AL East is a very top heavy division and while the NL West might be the best division top to bottom, the best of the AL East is probably the best in Baseball.

The bottom of the rankings should come as no surprise.  The AL West after Texas ranged from mediocre to terrible.  Meanwhile the NL Central has two disaster teams in the Cubs and Pirates.  The middle two divisions had their mix of good and bad teams.  The Phillies are single-handedly responsible for the NL East not being at the bottom.  The Braves fade in the last month combined with teams like the Nationals and Mets really dragged down the division at the end of the season.  All that need be said about the AL central is that they had a great team in first place, a terrible team in last, and a .500 team in the middle.  It was a very average division