Levels of Opposition

Sunday, March 20 2011 @ 10:45 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

In his AL Central preview, Alex noted that the Minnesota Twins like to beat the stuffing out of the bad teams, especially the ones in their own division. I thought the whole subject deserved a closer look.

The AL divides quite neatly into three groups. Four teams won 90+ games and went to the post-season. They are the Good teams.

Four teams lost 90+ games and went someplace dark and evil. They are the Bad teams.

The other six teams won 80 something games. They are the Medium teams. (I'll grant you that the Red Sox and White Sox, winners of 89 and 88 games respectively, were probably much closer to Texas than they were to Detroit. To which my retort is... well, I don't really have one. Sue me.)

So, here's everyone's record against the four good teams:

Team          W     L    Pct 

TAMPA BAY    19    13    .594
TORONTO      31    24    .564
NEW YORK     16    16    .500
MINNESOTA    12    12    .500
BOSTON       23    28    .451
ANGELS       19    24    .442
DETROIT      17    25    .405
BALTIMORE    21    33    .389
TEXAS         9    15    .375
OAKLAND      17    30    .362
SEATTLE      17    31    .354
CHICAGO      14    26    .350
KANSAS CITY  14    29    .326
CLEVELAND    12    29    .293

The 2010 Blue Jays played more games against the four 90 win teams than any other team in the league. It's a good thing they played this well (and a wee bit surprising, to me anyway - I had rather casually assumed that the biggest reason the Jays had won eight more games than they lost was the way they abused the Orioles all year long...)

Against the Medium teams:

Team          W     L     Pct

TAMPA BAY    41    27    .603
BOSTON       29    21    .580
MINNESOTA    38    28    .576
NEW YORK     38    30    .559
CHICAGO      28    23    .549
DETROIT      26    22    .542
TEXAS        40    36    .526
CLEVELAND    36    36    .500
OAKLAND      24    26    .480
TORONTO      22    28    .440
BALTIMORE    30    39    .435
ANGELS       24    33    .421
KANSAS CITY  28    40    .412
SEATTLE      21    50    .296

They Jays' struggles here are to some degree the result of my Executive Decision to regard the Red Sox as a Medium team (well, ask them - they didn't think it was a Good year.) The Jays went 6-12 against the Bostons...

Against the Bad Teams:

Team          W     L     Pct

NEW YORK     30    14    .682
OAKLAND      32    15    .681
MINNESOTA    36    18    .667
TAMPA BAY    29    15    .659
TORONTO      25    14    .641
TEXAS        27    17    .614
ANGELS       26    18    .591
CHICAGO      31    22    .585
SEATTLE      14    11    .560
BOSTON       24    19    .558
CLEVELAND    16    15    .516
KANSAS CITY  17    16    .515
DETROIT      27    27    .500
BALTIMORE     8    13    .381

The Twins were very good against the Bad teams, but the Yankees were even better. The Twins, of course, got to play an additional 10 games against lousy teams.

Admire the logic of Tampa Bay - they played .594 against the Good teams, .603 against the Medium teams, and .659 against the Bad teams. (The Other League pushed them around a bit, but we should start getting used to that.) It's the type of symmetry you would expect. You also see it from the Yankees (.500/.559/.682). In fact, eight of the 14 teams followed this pattern - better against the Medium teams than the Good ones, and better against the Bad teams than the Medium ones.

The exceptions? Boston and Detroit (both played better against the Medium teams than the Bad ones); the Angels (were a shade better against Good teams than Medium teams); Seattle and Toronto (played quite a bit better against the Good teams than they did against the Medium teams); Baltimore (completely backwards - lousy against the Good teams, even worse against the Medium teams, and worse still against the Bad ones).

And finally, against the Other League:

Team         W     L   Pct

CHICAGO     15     3    .833
TEXAS       14     4    .778
BOSTON      13     5    .722
ANGELS      11     7    .611
DETROIT     11     7    .611
NEW YORK    11     7    .611
SEATTLE      9     9    .500
KANSAS CITY  8    10    .444
MINNESOTA    8    10    .444
OAKLAND      8    10    .444
BALTIMORE    7    11    .389
TAMPA BAY    7    11    .389
TORONTO      7    11    .389
CLEVELAND    5    13    .278

The Blue Jays have struggled against the NL for a long time (in the past ten seasons, they've had a winning record against the NL twice, in 2003 and 2006 when they went 10-8). And of course, the gap between the two leagues is narrowing quickly. Which probably means they'll finally turn that around...

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