Taking A Break

Only a short break. Baseball Playoffs Now is moving states, so baseball news will have to take a breather.

Back on Track

Baseball Playoffs Now returns from the Tuscan sun with a long-awaited database and stats update.  I caught up on baseball news upon returning home...

Poor National League - an All-Star loss plus sinking further in the interleague battle.  No wonder my computer is virtually laughing at any NL team in the rankings.

Here's how I did on the July predictions (using rankings as of July 23, the date of my return, even though this post is only being written five days afterward):

1. "Toronto overtakes Baltimore, but can't get any higher than 4th in the AL East." -- Perfect.  The Jays are 1.5 games up on the Orioles, but stuck in 4th place 6 games behind the Yankees.
   
2. "Kansas City, tied for last in the Central, earns it by losing at a faster rate than Cleveland." -- Almost, but not quite.  Kansas City remains tied for last, but ranked 0.001 above the Indians in win-loss percentage.
   
3. "Philadelphia and Washington anchor the top and bottom of the NL East, but when we return, the central three teams will rank #2 Atlanta, #3 Florida, #4 Mets." -- Ouch!  I was way off on the NL East, which ended up seeing the Mets power to first, leading Philly, Florida, Atlanta, and Washington, respectively.
   
4. "Pittsburgh falls behind Houston for last place in the NL Central." -- Only a game off, but Houston still earns last place, a dramatic fall from a month or so ago (2nd in the Central by far).
   
5. "The NL West remains boring and noncompetitive. Arizona will still be in first place and will have a sub-.500 record." -- Spot on.  The Diamondbacks' 50-51 record is good enough for first place in the West.  No other division has more than 2 teams with fewer than 50 wins.  The West has four.
   
6. "Milwaukee leapfrogs St. Louis for the #2 position in the Central and consequently is in the wild card lead. Bratwurst around the nation quiver in fear as Brewer Nation assembles to tailgate. Troubled pitcher Eric Gagne returns to Miller Park -- but only as a Sausage Race runner. Randall Simon attends a game to give Gagne the cathartic thumpin' Milwaukee fans need." -- Tongue-in-cheek but pitch perfect.  The Brewers start hitting crazy good after the All-Star break and add CC Sabathia to create a scary pitching corps (at least for the NL).  Eric Gagne does indeed return to the team and wins 3 of 5 games.  Brewers' late-summer-collapse watch begins in earnest.

Of six predictions, I correctly foresaw three situations, got 2 of them half-way, and completely airballed the last.  That's pretty good for a three-week vacation.

Baseball Playoffs Now Hiatus

Baseball Playoffs Now is taking a few weeks' break for a much-needed vacation. We'll be bumming around Europe without the computer power necessary to update you with the best power rankings and playoff predictions. Enjoy the All-Star Game and break, as well as Independence Day and the dog days of summer.

Three cheers for the NL in the All-Star Game -- they need all the help they can get in the World Series.

Finally, as long as Baseball Playoffs Now is in the prediction business, here are the next three or four weeks:

1. Toronto overtakes Baltimore, but can't get any higher than 4th in the AL East.
2. Kansas City, tied for last in the Central, earns it by losing at a faster rate than Cleveland.
3. Philadelphia and Washington anchor the top and bottom of the NL East, but when we return, the central three teams will rank #2 Atlanta, #3 Florida, #4 Mets.
4. Pittsburgh falls behind Houston for last place in the NL Central.
5. The NL West remains boring and noncompetitive. Arizona will still be in first place and will have a sub-.500 record.
6. Milwaukee leapfrogs St. Louis for the #2 position in the Central and consequently is in the wild card lead. Bratwurst around the nation quiver in fear as Brewer Nation assembles to tailgate. Troubled pitcher Eric Gagne returns to Miller Park -- but only as a Sausage Race runner. Randall Simon attends a game to give Gagne the cathartic thumpin' Milwaukee fans need.

We'll see how these predictions pan out when we return in the last week or so of July. In the meantime, Happy Birthday USA and for the love of all that is good on this Earth, National League, win some games!!!

Home Field Advantage & The Five-Run Rule

Home teams are doing famously well this year. I can't pinpoint a cause like some intrepid accusers, but I can give the numbers:

Home teams: 672-511 (.568)
Away teams: 511-672 (.432)
Home team runs on average: 4.68
Away team runs on average: 4.37

The home team therefore has a 13.6% better chance at winning the ballgame, using 0.31 more runs on average to do so. We've already cited Cy Morong's Historical Trends in Home Field Advantage as a good source of HFA history, and it bears noticing that the average home field advantage is around 10%. Given baseball's long seasons, adding 3.6% more to HFA is equivalent to almost 6 more wins. That's the difference between playing in October and going home.

In other news, teams who have scored 5 runs or more in a ballgame this season have gone 465-90 (.838). If you play in one of the 47% of games in which one team scores at least 5 runs, it better be you. If it's not, you have less than a 20% chance of winning the game.

Angels Take Red Sox For 5-Game Ride In Divisional Series; Fall Short

Major League Baseball Playoff Prediction

The Angels finally make it into the Divisional Series, beating out Oakland by a game for the West title. Yes, we know that Los Angeles's record has shown their strength for quite a while now, but the Athletics only this past weekend fell below the level of the Angels. Even though the A's series win against Florida was impressive, the Angels were even more so as they swept Philly in Pennsylvania.

By pure run differential, Oakland is by far superior at 1.226 runs scored per 1 run allowed to Los Angeles at 1.043 runs scored. The basic Pythagorean final record prediction places the A's at 93 wins (current record of .547 plus .592 over the remaining games) and the Angels at 91 wins (.605 now plus .519 the rest of the way), giving Oakland the AL West championship. However - and this is a big however - Oakland's play against strength of schedule and just plain win-loss record does not bear out the prediction that they can win 93 games in 2008. Baseball Playoffs Now employs a "gravitate towards the mean" filter to punish teams who have excellent run differentials but mediocre win-loss records, and to reward teams who have poor differentials but mediocre records.

Adding each team's propensity to actually win games - and not just score runs - Oakland loses 4 wins and Los Angeles loses 1 win, placing the A's at 89 wins and the Angels at 90. Hence, Los Angeles wins the division and the right to lose to Boston in the first round of the playoffs.

American League Divisional Series
No. 1 seed BOS over no. 3 seed LAA in 5 games.
No. 2 seed CHW over no. 4 seed TAM in 5 games.

National League Divisional Series
No. 1 seed CHC over no. 3 seed ARI in 3 games.
No. 2 seed PHI over no. 4 seed STL in 5 games.

American League Championship Series
No. 1 seed BOS over no. 2 seed CHW in 6 games.

National League Championship Series
No. 1 seed CHC over no. 2 seed PHI in 5 games.

*** World Series Projection***
*** No. 1 seed BOS over no. 1 seed CHC in 7 games. ***

NL Central Retakes Position As Second-Best Division

NL Central yesterday: Cincinnati lost to the Dodgers, Milwaukee beat Toronto, St. Louis fell to Kansas City, Houston gave up an extra-inning battle to Baltimore, the Cubs lost both the game and Zambrano to Tampa Bay, and Pittsburgh couldn't keep up with the White Sox.

All in all, it was a pretty bad day for the NL Central. Yet they retook division place #2, since yesterday's second-place AL West also hit bottom:

A Mets 10th-inning home run beat the Angels, Florida trampled Seattle, Arizona absolutely blew away Oakland by 10 runs, and Texas didn't win at home against Atlanta.

As much as the league rankings show an American League dominance, it's nice to know that the NL is giving licks as well as taking them.

MLB League Rankings
1 - AL - 62.3%
2 - NL - 37.7%

Baseball's Top Ten Ballclubs
1 - BOS
2 - TAM
3 - CHW
4 - CHC
5 - OAK
6 - NYY
7 - LAA
8 - PHI
9 - TOR
10 - BAL

MLB Division Rankings
1 - AL-E - 100.0%
2 - NL-C - 49.4%
3 - AL-C - 48.5%
4 - AL-W - 46.7%
5 - NL-E - 39.6%
6 - NL-W - 0.0%

AL Power Ratings
1 - BOS
2 - TAM
3 - CHW
4 - OAK
5 - NYY
6 - LAA
7 - TOR
8 - BAL
9 - MIN
10 - DET
11 - TEX
12 - CLE
13 - KAN
14 - SEA

NL Power Ratings
1 - CHC
2 - PHI
3 - STL
4 - ATL
5 - MIL
6 - FLA
7 - ARI
8 - NYM
9 - PIT
10 - LAD
11 - CIN
12 - HOU
13 - COL
14 - SFO
15 - SDG
16 - WAS

American League Sucker-Punches NL, Grabs 64% Of Power Ratings

MLB League Rankings
1 - AL - 63.6%
2 - NL - 36.4%

MLB Division Rankings
1 - AL-E - 100.0%
2 - AL-W - 56.3%
3 - NL-C - 55.8%
4 - AL-C - 46.8%
5 - NL-E - 39.2%
6 - NL-W - 0.0%

Ouch. The AL won 12 of 14 interleague games last night and severely damaged the senior circuit's rankings both in league measures and in the division rankings. The AL West pushed to #2, embarrassing the NL Central who only a few weeks ago was the undisputed leader of divisions. The NL East also felt the blow, reeling towards division rank #5 -- and the East was ranked #2 just twenty days past.

The latest interleague play records are:
AL - 59-42 (.584)
NL - 42-59 (.416) - equivalent to a team winning only 67 games in a regular season

Out-of-division standings:
1. AL East - 118-86 (.578)
2. NL Central - 126-105 (.545)
3. AL West - 98-97 (.503)
4. NL East - 104-106 (.495)
5. AL Central - 94-110 (.461)
6. NL West - 88-124 (.415)

As per the past week or two, the NL Central holds onto the no. 2 division standings in pure wins and losses and the NL East retains the no. 4 position. The reason that the Baseball Playoffs Now rankings stated at the top of this post switch the standings between #2 and #3, and #4 and #5, is that there is a very distinct difference in overall power rankings between AL teams and NL teams. The American League has simply done very well in interleague play, and the division rankings are a secondhand reflection of this record. By wins and losses alone, the NL is a small percentage behind the AL. But by strength of schedule and run differential, the AL increases its lead by a substantial amount.

Baseball Rankings Now: June 18, 2008 -- Crazy Good AL Holds 80% Of Top Ten

Only two NL teams are currently in the top 10. Even Baltimore and Texas made it ahead of St. Louis: Baltimore is over .500 in the toughest division and Texas is at .500 in the second-toughest division. Today Cleveland is also ranked above St. Louis, but the numerical ratings are only 14-hundredths of one percent different and I think the system is just reacting to the AL's dominance by ranking the Indians' schedule that much more difficult. The Cardinals are pretty clearly superior to Cleveland.

Even though Atlanta has been in the top five teams in the National League since the beginning of the week with a series win against the Angels in California, we'll see how long that lasts. The Braves have a 27th-best ranking over the last 10 games (only three wins) and are on track to win only 84 games, according to Baseball Playoffs Now's final record prediction algorithms.

Overall Power Rankings
1 - BOS
2 - TAM
3 - CHW
4 - OAK
5 - CHC (NL)
6 - LAA
7 - PHI (NL)
8 - NYY
9 - TOR
10 - BAL
=======
11 - TEX
12 - CLE
13 - STL
14 - DET
15 - MIN
16 - ATL
17 - MIL
18 - FLA
19 - PIT
20 - NYM
=======
21 - KAN
22 - ARI
23 - CIN
24 - LAD
25 - HOU
26 - SFO
27 - COL
28 - SEA
29 - SDG
30 - WAS

---

AL Power Ratings
1 - BOS
2 - TAM
3 - CHW
4 - OAK
5 - LAA
6 - NYY
7 - TOR
8 - BAL
9 - TEX
10 - CLE
11 - DET
12 - MIN
13 - KAN
14 - SEA

NL Power Ratings
1 - CHC
2 - PHI
3 - STL
4 - ATL
5 - MIL
6 - FLA
7 - PIT
8 - NYM
9 - ARI
10 - CIN
11 - LAD
12 - HOU
13 - SFO
14 - COL
15 - SDG
16 - WAS

Yankees, Indians Teams To Watch -- Brewers Slipping

Teams on the Rise
1 NYY
2 CLE

Teams on the Fall
1 MIL

The Teams to Watch ranking is something of an über-metric within Baseball Playoffs Now. First we strip out all teams in 1st, 5th, and 6th places in the division. There is no reason that a 1st place team should be a team on the rise, since everyone already knows they are pretty good. Likewise, there is no reason that a 5th or 6th place team should be a team on the fall, since it's common knowledge that club is having a rough season.

For the same reasons, we strip out the top 8 teams by win-loss percentage for teams on the rise, and the bottom 8 teams by WL% for teams on the fall.

There are four important indicators in Teams to Watch that signal a team's direction: run differential, overall ranking, overall ranking versus win-loss percentage, and trends over the past 10 games. The first two make sure of a team's quality, the third - also known as overrated/underrated teams - is sort of a hidden measure of how a team is doing against public perception, and the fourth keeps this formula current.

Teams on the Rise must have above-average numbers in every single one of those measures, and Teams on the Fall must have below-average numbers in all of those indicators. Only one to five teams qualify for each label at any one time, and we present the top three to you.

The Milwaukee Brewers are 12th in win-loss percentage with a 36-33 record (.522), earning third place in the second-toughest division in baseball. Last month the Brew Crew stunk up the joint and plummeted to last in the division, but a recent surge put them right back in the running. After an interleague fight with old AL Central foe Minnesota, however, Milwaukee is beginning to need life support. Their vital signs:

- 0.957 runs scored for every 1 allowed
- #15 overall ranking, with a rating of 49.6% (relative to the Cubs at 100% and the Mariners at 0%)
- an overrated team, with their 12th-place win-loss percentage too good for their 15th-place ranking
- below-average record over the last 10 games (losing a series at home to the Twins and only going 3-3 against Colorado and Houston, two teams in fifth place)

On the other hand, the Yankees are 10th in win-loss percentage (37-33, .529) and 3rd in the AL East, with promising indicators: 1.055 runs scored for every 1 allowed, #8 overall (combined with a 10th-place win-loss percentage to make them an underrated team), and excellent 7-3 last 10 games (second-best in baseball).

Likewise, the Indians are 20th in WL% (33-37, .471) and 3rd in the AL Central. They score 1.076 runs for every 1 allowed, are #13 overall (much better than their win-loss percentage ranking), and are 8th in baseball over the last 10 games (6-4, with 2-2 away and 4-2 home).

It's also worth noting that the Yankees and Indians are in the top half of the strength of schedule rankings. Since the overall ranking indicator takes into account an infinite strength of schedule, the quality of opponents is a somewhat-large factor in the Teams to Watch measure.

Rays, Jays Fight Toughest Schedules In Baseball

Strength of schedule is calculated by adding wins and losses of each team's opponents, with allowances for home field advantage (currently 14.32%) and history (recent games weighted a bit more than earlier games). Toronto, Baltimore, Kansas City, Seattle, and Cincinnati are around the bottom of their divisions, so it's easy to see why they have tough schedules. But other teams are not so obvious. Tampa Bay is 2nd in the AL East yet has played the toughest schedule in baseball. Not only is the East is the top division by far, but the Rays have played a brutal out-of-division schedule including the Angels, White Sox, and Cardinals. Schedule is an important reason that the Rays are #4 overall and the Blue Jays are #9 overall, even though they are second and last in their division, respectively.

Major League Baseball Strength of Schedule Rankings
1 - TAM
2 - TOR
3 - BAL
4 - SEA
5 - KAN
6 - MIN
7 - CIN
8 - OAK
9 - BOS
10 - NYY
11 - DET
12 - CLE
13 - PIT
14 - LAA
15 - CHW
16 - TEX
17 - HOU
18 - WAS
19 - MIL
20 - COL
21 - ATL
22 - NYM
23 - LAD
24 - SFO
25 - FLA
26 - SDG
27 - PHI
28 - CHC
29 - STL
30 - ARI

Yankees on the Rise, Mets on the Fall

Here's another quick stats buffet for you. The Yankees are on the rise - finally - with the 2nd-best record in the past 10 games, and the Mets are falling with the 26th-best record over the last 10. In addition, the Yankees earned a positive run ratio (1.055 runs scored for every 1 run allowed) and the Mets, though they also have a positive run ratio at 1.011 : 1, fell barely under the average in that metric.

Underrated Teams
1 TOR
2 CHW
3 OAK

Overrated Teams
30 ARI
29 STL
28 FLA

---

Teams on the Rise
1 NYY
2 CLE

Teams on the Fall
1 NYM
2 FLA
3 MIL

---

Best Away Clubs
1 LAA
2 STL
3 PHI

Worst Away Clubs
30 ATL
29 SEA
28 COL

---

Best Home Clubs
1 BOS
2 CHC
3 TAM

Worst Home Clubs
30 SFO
29 SEA
28 WAS

A's? Angels? Who Knows?

The Athletics have been the West champions for quite a while now in Baseball Playoffs Now. Their run differential and quality wins have far outstripped the current division leader Angels. But Oakland might not last much longer.

The latest AL Power Rankings have Los Angeles trailing Oakland by only one place:

AL Power Ratings
1 - BOS
2 - TAM
3 - CHW
4 - OAK
5 - LAA

Of even more ominous import, check out their computer model ratings (on a scale from 0.0000 to 1.0000):

OAK: 0.6666
LAA: 0.6659

and final record prediction:

OAK: 90 - 72
LAA: 89 - 73

I'll leave all demonic 666 implications aside, but the bottom line is that Los Angeles is on the brink of eclipsing Oakland in the computer models. Because the models take into account infinite strength of schedule, Los Angeles has taken a while to build up enough good opponents to rival Oakland, and Oakland has choked just enough on their schedule to allow the Angels to catch up. Today's game could throw the entire division championship prediction to Los Angeles.

The same thing happened to Atlanta over the past couple of weeks. A great run differential was smashed by the later-blooming Phillies and a sputtering Braves offense. No prediction lasts forever.

Large Rift Between Two Great Baseball Divisions And Mediocre Followers

I have been more and more surprised over the past few days to see how the Baseball Playoffs Now algorithms have been ranking divisions. Take a look at the current numbers:

MLB Division Rankings
1 - AL-E - 100.0%
2 - NL-C - 95.9%
3 - AL-W - 37.4%
4 - NL-E - 29.5%
5 - AL-C - 9.0%
6 - NL-W - 0.0%

The discrepancy between the #2 division and #3 division is frankly startling, and I set out to explore why the formulae think the AL East and NL Central should get all the glory.

Divisions are ranked by averaging the Power Ratings of all teams within the division on a couple different scales. First, let's look at the Power Ratings for some divisions:

AL East (#1 ranked division)
BAL : 0.5125
BOS : 0.8681
NYY : 0.4939
TAM : 0.8476
TOR : 0.6290

NL Central (#2 ranked division)
CHC : 0.9769
CIN : 0.4909
HOU : 0.5185
MIL : 0.6365
PIT : 0.5180
STL : 0.6829

AL West (#3 ranked division)
LAA : 0.6659
OAK : 0.6666
SEA : 0.1034
TEX : 0.4611

NL East (#4 ranked division)
ATL : 0.4621
FLA : 0.4130
NYM : 0.3601
PHI : 0.7772
WAS : 0.0396

Power Ratings are equal measures of a team's pure wins and losses against infinite strength of schedule and a team's runs scored and runs allowed against infinite strength of schedule. They're very accurate and excellent tools for rating the past performance of teams.

But the division ranking system also explores the divisions' records when playing out-of-division games. Here are the quality wins of all divisions when playing outside their division (measured in percentage, where 1.000 is the best and 0.000 is the worst):

AL-E : 0.899
AL-C : 0.000
AL-W : 0.265
NL-E : 0.459
NL-C : 1.000
NL-W : 0.146

The NL Central holds a tenuous lead on this statistic, going 118 - 89 (.570) outside the Central. The AL East owns a record of 104 - 79 (.568), but Baseball Playoffs Now factors in additional numbers to create "quality wins:" home field advantage, run differential, and more weight to recent games. The NL Central widens its lead by doing well in these categories.

Moving down a rung on the out-of-division records, the NL East's mediocre WL% of 91 - 95 (.489) is not enough to hold off the AL West at 89 - 88 (.503), yet quality wins again make the difference. The NL East has been playing well as of late outside the division, and doing so more often outside their home ballparks with larger run differentials. But that's not enough to save the East. Quality wins outside the division only counts for about a third of a division's rating, and the NL East suffers from low Power Ratings in the other two-thirds.

For as many missteps as the AL West has made (Oakland has recently lost series to Toronto and the New York Yankees, Texas fell to Tampa and Cleveland, and Seattle has choked on everything), the NL East kept pace. Washington is the worst team in baseball and the Mets are #22.

Even as the #3 ranked division, the AL West rates only 37.4% on a scale from the AL East (top) to the NL West (bottom). Both the AL West and the NL East have a lot of work to do if they hope to compete with the top two divisions.

Soccer (and Euro 2008) No Match For Baseball

I had an interesting discussion today with my German colleagues, who firmly believe that baseball is far more boring than soccer could ever be. We all realize that the best game is what you grow up with, so there can be no true resolution to this question. But I did throw out the following truth:

The average soccer game features 2.67 total goals scored over 90 minutes of play (but in reality, about 2 hours in front of the TV).

The average baseball game this season featured just over 9 runs total (4.75 runs for the home team plus 4.29 away; stats calculated on my own computer). The average game lasts 2:52 (but we'll say three hours for simplicity).

Soccer, therefore, offers the fan 1.33 goals per hour. By comparison, baseball's average scoring is 3 runs per hour -- a 2.25x advantage for America's pastime. So while the Euro Cup 2008 is interesting because of its rabid fans and playoff format, I still can't bring myself to watch the games like the Germans do. Luckily, my colleagues and I have both come to accept it.

Never Mind, AL West - You Win

Further to the news of yesterday, in which the AL West choked away its lead over the AL Central:

I wrote, "In other words, the AL Central is better because it has the power to match the West's best teams - yet its weakest link is not nearly as poor as the West's worst."

That statement is no longer true. There is still a suspicious difference between the West's best and worst teams, enough to create a 10% difference between the divisions in that part of Baseball Playoffs Now's division rankings. But the Central lost that last hope last night as Cleveland lost to Texas, Detroit lost to Oakland, and Minnesota lost to Baltimore. Of the AL Central teams, only the White Sox won yesterday, and that was over fellow division member Kansas City.

As of now, the AL Central isn't skating by on the measure of divisional cohesion. Even though Seattle lost again and there continues to be a growing divide between the Western teams, that statistic - meant to be a sort of tiebreaker between divisions - has been overpowered by interdivisional play.

Blue Jays Fly Higher Than Angels

I just came across an interesting series by Sport Crack called Powerless Rankings, and I wanted to publicize my response to his latest rankings:

SportCrack
Worst: Rockies, then Royals, Mariners, Padres, and Tigers
Best: Cubs, then Rays, Angels, Phillies, Red Sox

Baseball Playoffs Now response
"The Powerless Rankings look good, though Detroit deserves a tiny bit more credit for playing the 12th-hardest schedule in the majors and playing better than half of baseball over the past ten games. I'd stick San Francisco there instead, but it's really a tossup.

I'm also impressed by the Cubs - Rays - Phillies - Red Sox picks, but I thoroughly disagree with your Angels #3 ranking. I'd place them around tenth in the league; their wins in very close games against sub-par opponents (22nd-hardest schedule) don't speak very well to their long-term viability. The Angels will win about 88 games - and lose the division to the A's by 2 games with no chance at the wild card.

Instead, give it up for the Toronto Blue Jays. They have consistently high numbers: 8th in quality wins, 9th-hardest schedule, best in baseball over the last 10 games, 4th overall in computer models against infinite-depth-of-schedule (that is, taking into account their opponents' opponents' opponents ad infinitum).

Baseball Playoffs Now Power Rankings
1 - CHC
2 - BOS
3 - TAM
4 - TOR
5 - PHI

Runners-up: White Sox, A's, Braves, Brewers, Angels"

NL Central Rebounds; AL West Chokes

We're back to status quo. The NL Central had faltered for a few days, falling behind the NL East to 3rd place among the divisions, and the AL West had moved from 5th place to 4th over the slumping AL Central.

Neither move lasted more than a week. Today's division rankings are back to their expected levels.

MLB Division Rankings
1 - AL-E - 100,0%
2 - NL-C - 85,7%
3 - NL-E - 77,1%
4 - AL-C - 35,1%
5 - AL-W - 32,0%
6 - NL-W - 0,0%

Measuring quality wins over the past 10 games, the teams in the NL Central have ranked an average of 7th place in the majors while the NL East teams ranked an average of 16th place.

The American League is a bit more complicated. The AL West has scored slightly better than the Central over the past 10 games (an average of 18th place on average versus 18.6th place on average for the AL Central), yet the West has fallen in our rankings. The reason is that when averaging the Baseball Playoffs Now rankings of each team in a division to produce the division's average rating, we use multiple types of averages.

Normal averages do not reflect the general tendency of a certain group of numbers. An arithmetic mean (normal average) can be skewed by either an unusually high or low number in the group, or it could fail to recognize the difference between a group of numbers that are very close in value and a group of numbers very disparate in value.

The latter problem applies to the AL Central - AL West division rankings. The Central's average ranking is 46.89% and the West's average ranking is 47.12%, so on the surface, the West is doing a bit better.

But using a function called the geometric mean, we see vast differences in the two divisions. The Central's geometric mean is 42.17% and the West's geometric mean is 32.82%, because the West's teams are far more spread out in their strengths than the Central's:

AL Central
CHW - 0.7714
CLE - 0.4897
DET - 0.3838
KAN - 0.1754
MIN - 0.5242

AL West
LAA - 0.6142
OAK - 0.7369
SEA - 0.0534
TEX - 0.4806

You will notice that the Central is grouped pretty securely around both 47% and 42%, their arithmetic and geometric means, respectively. But the West has huge differences between the top team(s) and the bottom team, which means that this division on the whole is somewhat weaker than the Central. In other words, the AL Central is better because it has the power to match the West's best teams - yet its weakest link is not nearly as poor as the West's worst.

The Underrated Pittsburgh Pirates

One look at the Pirates' last-place standing in the NL Central, trailing the Cubs by 9.5 games, and their four-games-under-.500 record, it's easy to dismiss this team. FOX notes that the Pirates are getting "nowhere near the seasons they expected from Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny" and various media rankings place Pittsburgh in the middle third of ballclubs at the very best:

AOL: 21st overall
CBS: 19th
ESPN: 23rd
FOX: 23rd

It's true that the Pirates have a quality win percentage that's about 20th in Major League Baseball. But the national sportswriters failed to notice that Pittsburgh has played the hardest schedule in baseball to date: membership in the NL Central means taking on teams currently ranked #1, #10, #14, #15, and #16 overall. Over the past half-month, the Pirates have won series against the Cubs (#1 in baseball) , St. Louis (#14), and Atlanta (#8) while barely losing a rubber match against the Cubs again on May 18th.

Baseball Playoffs Now recommends the Pirates...cautiously. They rate fairly high on our Watch List, as their playoff rating (wins against schedule) is high and Pittsburgh has been the 11th-best ballclub over the past 10 games. But the Pirates' scoring capacity is suspect: for every 1 run allowed to score, Pittsburgh only scores 0.921 runs themselves (23rd in the majors). Because of their current inability to match opponents run for run, we place the Pirates' final record at 23rd-best (75 wins).

Baseball Playoffs Now's prediction algorithms places Pittsburgh's ranking alongside that of major networks: around 22nd in baseball. Yet when we create power rankings, it's important to note the path that teams took to get to today. The Pirates have nothing to be ashamed of, and we pencil them in at 13th overall.

NL Central Tumbles to Third-Best Division

The once-mighty NL Central - home to the mauling Cubs, resurgent Cards, surprising Astros, and on-again off-again Brewers, Reds, and Pirates - reached another nosedive milestone last night as the NL East overtook them for 2nd-best division in baseball.

Though the NL Central still outpaces the East in terms of wins and losses (.526 to .519, respectively), the NL East wins in every other category:

Average runs scored per 1 allowed:
NL Central: 1.040 runs scored
NL East: 1.087 runs scored

Projected average record by season's end:
NL Central: 83-79 (.515)
NL East: 86-76 (.528)

Average overall rating (v. strength of schedule):
NL Central: 12.83th place out of 30 teams (57.23th percentile)
NL East: 12.6th place out of 30 teams (58th percentile)

Overall rating by team:
Cubs (#1 overall)
Astros (#9)
Cardinals (#11)
Pirates (#16)
Brewers (#17)
Reds (#23)

Phillies (#5)
Braves (#7)
Mets (#12)
Marlins (#14)
Nationals (#25)

The pure averages of the Central and East's ratings are for comparison only; we use a more complex formula to determine which division is stronger (i.e. rating averages weighted towards the division's middle team(s) as well as results of games played outside the division).

Braves Bandwagon Part I

Jayson Stark's Rumblings and Grumblings on ESPN:

"Which team this year is most likely to come from even a couple of games back in the pack and show up in October? ... [O]ur pick would be the Braves. They have a better run differential (plus-48) than six of the eight teams that would make the playoffs if the postseason started today. They rank first or second in the league in batting average, ERA and rotation ERA. And the biggest reason for their .500-ish record (28-25) is their 2-14 record in one-run games.

"I'm going to predict this right now," said one NL scout. "I think Atlanta wins that division."

Jayson and unnamed NL scout, welcome to Baseball Playoffs Now, where Atlanta has been winning the NL East since April 22, when by record they were fourth in the division - but by our ratings easily on top.