No Mediocre Week

What a difference a week makes. On May 24th, the Phillies had just lost a stunner to the Marlins and were sitting in the basement of the National League East at 7.5 games out and 5 games under .500. Now, on June 4th, they are 2 games over .500 and are only 1.5 games out of first. Amazingly, the Phillies are still in last, and technically it was a week and a half, but still, the outlook for the division has completely changed.

Being a .518 team and only 1.5 games out of first place, while still being in last brings up an interesting question...Has there ever been a division in baseball where every team was over .500 this late into the season? No, we don't know the answer here at Midway Phillies, somebody please chime in if they do. This is an anomoly for sure, and very hard to accomplish with the number of inter-division games that have been played.

It seems that the baseball world is unsure what to make of this situation in the N.L. East. Phil Sheridan at Philly.com characterizes the National League East as a "down division" stating that "we can safely say this is not a banner year for the NL East". Talking baseball with Cub fan friends in Chicago, one of them remarked that the N.L. East is a mediocre division.

Let's take a closer look at the numbers to see how "mediocre" this division really is. To begin with, the teams in the N.L. East have played 55% of their games against each other, posting a combined 75-75 record. Certainly a well-balanced division, but are these teams having a down year?

It seems that the argument being made is that the stronger teams are those playing over .600; the Cardinals, Padres, Orioles and White Sox. However, each of these teams has played a large portion of their games against division rivals, and each has teams in their division playing with winning percentages under .400. Meaning, the Padres get to beat up on the Rockies, the White Sox get to beat up on the Royals, etc. Here are the intra-division records of the teams playing over .600.

21-4 Cardinals
20-4 White Sox
18-8 Orioles
15-12 Padres

At best this shows a disparity between the best and worst teams within a division. To determine the strength of a division, we must look at the inter-division records, as these are the common teams that each team within a division is facing (interleague games aren't included since there aren't as many common matchups). Here's how the divisions stack up:

67-63 (.515) A.L. East
65-64 (.504) A.L. Central
67-73 (.479) A.L. West
63-47 (.573) N.L. East
67-75 (.472) N.L. Central
54-62 (.466) N.L. West

The N.L. East has the best winning percentage in inter-league games, showing they clearly have the strongest set of teams thus far into the season. This can hardly be considered a "mediocre" or "down division", in fact these numbers suggest that this is the most competitive division in the majors.