National League domination

by Peter Bendix on May 30, 2008 7:38 PM EDT

According to VORP, 25 of the top 30 position players so far this year play in the National League. Additionally, of the five AL players who crack the top 30, three (Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, and Ian Kinsler) play for the Texas Rangers.

Also of note, the Pittsburgh Pirates have three of the top 30 players (Nate McLouth, Jason Bay, and Xavier Nady).

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It's counterintuitive

but this is another data point in favor of the AL being the stronger league. The larger the distribution of talent, the lower the overall quality. In fact, Clay Davenport has mentioned that as a quick-n-dirty approximation of league quality - compare the league leading ERA with the league leading BA. The larger the difference, the worse the league. In college, you’ve got sub-2.00 starters and .450 hitters. The further down you go, the more dramatic it gets - Johns Hopkins (the runner up in the D3 world series) has three or four .450 hitters in their lineup this year.

Also, cheese.

by Jeff Sackmann on May 30, 2008 8:49 PM EDT reply actions

yes, but..

..Hamilton and Bradley were just in the NL. Hamilton’s OPS+ went from 131 in the NL to 163 in the AL, Bradley’s from 167 with SD to 174 with TX. Yes, Hamilton is probably a special case, as is Carlos Quentin (OPS+ 115 and 63 in the NL, 163 in the AL). Still, there are a lot of league-switchers on the OPS+ leaderboards, and I am seeing precisely none who fit your hypothesis.

If these VORP numbers were really a testament to a low-quality high-variance distribution in the NL vs a high-quality low-variance one in the AL, league-switchers would regress strongly moving from NL to AL. Instead I’m seeing randomness. These names look good for the NL. Cabrera (OPS+ 150 NL, 125 AL) or Volquez (another special case, but ERA+ 100 AL to 304 NL) look good for the AL.

I don’t know which league is better for sure, though my intuition says that more revenue is in the AL so more talent should be, too. Still, I think I can state pretty conclusively that the league-switchers aren’t showing the consistent jumps/drops you’d expect if your hypothesis were even slightly true.

by wcw on May 31, 2008 1:11 PM EDT up reply actions