There’s been a lot of rumbling over the years about major league baseball’s divisional format and the impact it has on postseason play. Specifically, guaranteeing a spot in the playoffs to each division winner has led to instances of teams in strong divisions missing the playoffs even though they had better records than some division winners. This year the conversation, touched on recently by Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs, has been sparked by the strength of the NL Central.
As of this writing, the Cardinals lead that division with the best record in baseball at 82-46. The Pirates sit at second place at 78-49 and the Cubs occupy third at 73-54. That’s quite the top three. The issue here is that both the Cubs and Pirates currently have better records than the Mets and Dodgers, the leaders of the NL East and the NL West, respectively. If the season ended today, the Mets and Dodgers would be locked to play each other in the NL Division Series while the Pirates and Cubs would have to play a Wild Card play-in game to actually make the playoffs. That means a team with a better record would be going home while a “lesser” team, based on record, continues playing.
This is nothing new. Coincidentally, the last time this happened it also included the Pirates. In 2013 they finished the regular season in second place behind the Cardinals, yet had a better record than the NL West-winning Dodgers and were forced to play the Reds in the Wild Card game (which they won). Before the second Wild Card was established, our 2008 Mets missed the postseason even though they had a better record than the NL West champion Dodgers.
Again, this scenario is nothing new. It’s certainly an issue that the league may someday address, and there are several articles online that discuss it, but this piece is not one of them. This piece addresses a fundamental problem with those articles popping up at this point in the season, they’re approach to the situation, and specifically how they relate to the Mets. That is, we need to take into account what the Mets as a team are now and assess them in the context of their current roster and performance vice what they were before their current run of success.
The NL Central is certainly a very challenging division. The three aforementioned teams are well over .500 with the Brewers and Reds the only doormats. The NL East, on the other hand, has the Mets at 71-57, the underachieving Nationals hovering around .500, and three of the worst teams in baseball based on record. This is important to note because teams play other teams in their division the most in any given season. So, a weak division means the better teams in said division benefit from beating up on the weaker competition. This is where the negative critiques of the Mets come into play in the context of the issue at hand.
What the Cardinals, Pirates, and Cubs have done is impressive because they have to play each other so often, while the Mets have trashed teams like the Marlins and Phillies all season. The Mets are 51-24 against teams under .500 while only 20-33 against teams over .500. That won’t get much better since they only have nine games remaining against teams over .500 the remainder of the season, assuming the Nationals stay above that mark.
What’s really throwing their record out of whack is their 9-20 mark against the NL Central. For the sake of argument, and because it’s fluky and in line with a single-season anomaly, if we remove this chunk the team is 11-13 against winners. This is still not on par with how the three NL Central teams have done, but more palatable for a postseason contender. Obviously it’s a bit much to just throw out what the Mets have actually done against strong competition, but it’s an interesting data point.
More to the point is that this Mets team is not the same team that was swept twice by the Cubs and once by the Pirates, while being outscored 15 to 48, before their deadline moves. Since July 25th, the start of the Mets “resurgence,” they’ve gone 6-4 against teams above .500 including being swept in a very competitive series against the Pirates. If we look further back, they’ve gone 8-10 in the second half against teams with winning records. This is a far cry from what their overall record against winning teams looks like.
Obviously results matter and we can’t just throw them out the window when it’s convenient for us. Indeed, as yours truly has written this very season, the Mets need to beat good teams to be taken seriously. The core issue here is that articles like Cameron’s at this point in the season are a bit premature and leverage the quality of the division to pass judgment on the true talent level of a team.
If the season were to end today, the fact that the Mets are a lock while two teams with better records will need to fight for the final playoff spot highlights an issue we’re all keenly aware exists. But the season doesn’t end today, and the Mets are only two wins and three losses worse than the Cubs. Let’s not act like these two teams are in completely separate classes here. The fact that this Mets team is dramatically different roster-wise since the deadline isn’t even addressed in these assessments, either.
Finally, if we really want to discuss context-neutral performance and compare how teams have performed to date (and what their records “should” be), we need look no further than FanGraphs’ own BaseRuns standings for the teams in question.
| Team | Wins | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| Cardinals | 73 | 55 |
| Pirates | 72 | 55 |
| Mets | 70 | 58 |
| Cubs | 68 | 59 |
Interesting. True, this still doesn’t account for teams benefiting from being in weaker divisions, but it sure does bring to light the true performance level of the teams in question. So while it’s a shame that deserving teams will still continue to be on the outside looking in because of the divisional format, can we please stop acting like the Cardinals, Pirates, and Cubs are in a class way above the Mets?
No one should have a problem when in any give year, one team has an easier path than the others to the playoffs. I think what should matter is if a team has a consistently easier path over multiple seasons.
Good point. From the Pirates perspective it’s got to be a bit frustrating, though. This will be the third year that they have to play the WC game.
Brian is right. This is a state of constant flux and so evens out as a function of time. The belly aching of Cubs and Pirates fans falls on deaf ears. The division format is not leaving us. The main arguments against divisions continue to be balanced schedule and top 5 records, typically with a game reduction to 154.
All the arguments are preposterous from a reality standpoint, and that reality is money.
Divisions generate a lot of revenue because of traveling fans, and desire to teams from the same regions play, where the fan bases for each are strong. It is natural to get more people in. The balanced schedule fails to reel in the problem with travel, as hideous as it is already. A balanced schedule would place travel demands well beyond reason. Lastly no player or team wants to remove gate receipts (25 M$ alone) and TV ad sales for 8 games. That could be a total of 50M$ left off the table…oh yeah, and ask those players to not take 8 games of salary.
Expand to 32 teams, end inter league play, and play balanced schedules. Two divisions in each league, 2 division leaders and then the next 4 teams with best record. Two pay in games for the Wild Cards and then the 5 game and 7 game series.
Not in a million years. The balanced schedule is ridiculous. No player wants it, no team wants it and the MLB doesn’t want it. The only people who do are fans, and when it comes everyone would hate it.
End inter league play is just as ridiculous. It’s a hallmark of selig and manfred loves it.
As Chris said, the balanced schedule is not something that is likely to happen. Here’s a quote from Tyler Clippard from the Jared Diamond article that Cameron linked to:
“You can’t have a balanced schedule in baseball because we play every single day,” he said. “It just cant happen.”
Team travel is a huge burden to overcome and is the result of so many teams from literally all corners of the country.
“can we please stop acting like the Cardinals, Pirates, and Cubs are in a class way above the Mets?”
*Mets lose two straight the Red Sox*
Ugh.
The only way to ensure that the best records get in every year would be to set up the leagues like the NHL or NBA does and open up the playoffs to half of your teams. That would be way too much of a headache, so it’s not happening.
Teams have to just deal with the misfortune and hope that they’re on the good end of that in a particular year.