100 Games in -- Let's Go

Well, the 2011 MLB season has been well underway for some time -- more than enough to get a nice sample size in both the Premiership and Championship divisions of baseball. I want to start out with a big old tip of the cap to http://www.baseball-reference.com, without which this site would be impossible.

This season, I've overhauled the Excel spreadsheet, dramatically increasing its robust productivity (robustivity) to bring the data to you more quickly. I might even go weekly here, people. Take a moment to catch your breath.

First, a brief reminder of what Premiership baseball is all about:

• The current MLB measure of success is the win. Win a much higher percentage of games than you lose (within a roughly-geographical grouping of other teams within yet another group decided by the presence of pitchers in the lineup as a matter of course), and you go to something called the "playoffs," an elimination tournament wherein the last team standing is crowned World Series Champion (of the only two countries in the known world). Luck is nice and all, but I think we can do better.
• The rawest measure of a baseball team's success is how well they A) score runs and B) prevent the opponent from scoring runs. Subtract their runs allowed from their runs scored and you get run differential (RD), which is how I'll judge success.
• I started out by splitting the major league clubs into two divisions based on their 2009 end-of-season RD -- the Premiership (teams with positive RD) and the Championship (teams with negative RD). At the end of every season, the three (note: number subject to change) teams with the lowest RD in the Premiership switch places with the teams holding the highest RD in the Championship.

At the end of last season, the Dodgers, Marlins and Blue Jays suffered relegation, while the Padres, Reds and A's earned a year's stay in the top flight. So after 100 games, I'm eager to see how things are shaping up in 2011.

PREMIERSHIP STANDINGS (MLB)

POSITION	TEAM	GAMES PLAYED	WINS	LOSSES	RUNS SCORED	RUNS ALLOWED	RUN DIFF	Win PCG
#1	Boston Red Sox	96	59	37	519	401	118	0.615
#2	New York Yankees	96	57	39	486	369	117	0.594
#3	Philadelphia Phillies	97	61	36	415	322	93	0.629
#4	Texas Rangers	99	56	43	489	416	73	0.566
#5	Atlanta Braves	99	58	41	408	351	57	0.586
#6	Tampa Bay Rays	97	52	45	403	371	32	0.536
#7	Cincinnati Reds	98	48	50	450	422	28	0.490
#8	St. Louis Cardinals	98	51	47	456	429	27	0.520
#9	San Francisco Giants	99	57	42	361	343	18	0.576
#10	Los Angeles Angels	99	53	46	376	365	11	0.535
#11	Colorado Rockies	99	47	52	446	443	3	0.475
#12	Oakland Athletics	98	43	55	345	363	-18	0.439
#13	San Diego Padres	99	44	55	344	363	-19	0.444
#14	Minnesota Twins	98	46	52	380	449	-69	0.469
#15	Chicago Cubs	99	39	60	397	500	-103	0.394

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS (MLB)

POSITION	TEAM	GAMES PLAYED	WINS	LOSSES	RUNS SCORED	RUNS ALLOWED	RUN DIFF	Win PCG
#1	Toronto Blue Jays	99	50	49	476	451	25	0.505
#2	Pittsburgh Pirates	96	51	45	373	360	13	0.531
#3	New York Mets	98	49	49	430	422	8	0.500
#4	Arizona Diamondbacks	99	53	46	439	432	7	0.535
#5	Cleveland Indians	97	51	46	425	419	6	0.526
#6	Chicago White Sox	98	47	51	390	397	-7	0.480
#7	Milwaukee Brewers	100	53	47	436	444	-8	0.530
#8	Washington Nationals	98	48	50	379	388	-9	0.490
#9	Detroit Tigers	98	52	46	438	449	-11	0.531
#10	Los Angeles Dodgers	98	43	55	353	394	-41	0.439
#11	Seattle Mariners	98	43	55	319	360	-41	0.439
#12	Florida Marlins	99	47	52	389	433	-44	0.475
#13	Kansas City Royals	98	40	58	422	474	-52	0.408
#14	Baltimore Orioles	95	39	56	394	497	-103	0.411
#15	Houston Astros	98	33	65	381	492	-111	0.337

PREMIERSHIP STANDINGS (TRUE)

POSITION	TEAM	GAMES PLAYED	WINS	LOSSES	RUN DIFF	CHAMP RD
#1	Philadelphia Phillies	43	27	16	43	50
#2	New York Yankees	45	26	19	31	86
#3	Cincinnati Reds	40	22	18	27	1
#4	Boston Red Sox	46	29	17	23	95
#5	Tampa Bay Rays	44	23	21	23	9
#6	Texas Rangers	44	21	23	4	69
#7	Atlanta Braves	44	24	20	-2	59
#8	San Francisco Giants	50	28	22	-6	24
#9	Colorado Rockies	42	18	24	-6	9
#10	St. Louis Cardinals	45	23	22	-8	35
#11	Minnesota Twins	35	16	19	-8	-61
#12	Los Angeles Angels	47	21	26	-14	25
#13	Oakland Athletics	45	19	26	-23	5
#14	San Diego Padres	50	20	30	-29	10
#15	Chicago Cubs	42	14	28	-55	-48

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS (TRUE)

POSITION	TEAM	GAMES PLAYED	WINS	LOSSES	PREM DIFF	RUN DIFF
#1	Cleveland Indians	44	29	15	-51	57
#2	New York Mets	43	26	17	-41	49
#3	Milwaukee Brewers	33	20	13	0	32
#4	Toronto Blue Jays	39	21	18	1	24
#5	Arizona Diamondbacks	45	25	20	0	7
#6	Chicago White Sox	45	21	24	-12	5
#7	Florida Marlins	44	23	21	-43	-1
#8	Washington Nationals	50	25	25	-8	-1
#9	Baltimore Orioles	41	21	20	-89	-14
#10	Pittsburgh Pirates	54	26	28	29	-16
#11	Los Angeles Dodgers	36	15	21	-24	-17
#12	Detroit Tigers	55	28	27	7	-18
#13	Seattle Mariners	42	15	27	-9	-32
#14	Houston Astros	46	18	28	-77	-34
#15	Kansas City Royals	43	17	26	-11	-41

Now, in the Premiership, newly advanced Oakland and San Diego find themselves in trouble, along with my beloved Cubs, who barely made the cut in 2010. It's a similar tale of woe for the recently demerited -- if the season ended today, the Jays, Marlins and Dodgers would remain in the relegation pool, giving way to the unlikely trio of Cleveland, Milwaukee, and the Mets. But with 60+ games remaining, anything could happen.

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One more note: in last season's concluding post, I noted that the teams with the highest CRD (Championship run differential) either made the playoffs or were edged out by another team on the list within their division. If we apply the same criterion to the current standings, then this (very rudimentary) rubric finds the following clubs playing in October (* indicates a fair [read: completely nonmathematical] degree of certainty):

*Boston 95 -- AL East Champions

*NY Yankees 86 -- AL Wild Card

*Texas 69 -- AL West Champions

Atlanta 59 -- NL East Champions

*Cleveland 57 -- AL Central Champions

Philadelphia 50 -- NL Wild Card

St. Louis 35 -- NL Central Champions

*San Francisco 24 -- NL West Champions

The race for the NL Central is very, very close -- the Cards have only a 3-run advantage over Milwaukee. And I have to mention: for the second year in a row, the Pirates are on track to do twice as well against the top teams as against the second-tier sides. I don't see them making the playoffs.

But I do see them finishing about .500 for the first time since 1992.

The Inaugural Season

Welcome to the Inaugural 2010 Season of Premiership Baseball! Here I will explain the theory and the practice behind an idea I dreamed up this month (though maybe someone else has beaten me to it, I'm claiming it as my own). In theory, it would revolutionize baseball as we know it. In practice, it's a fresh way to look at America's Pastime.

With all the talk of realignment in MLB recently, I had an odd thought. It would never happen, and I'd be opposed to it myself for historical reasons. However, please participate in a little experiment with me. Imagine, if you will, a world where Major League Baseball operates on a system similar to that of English Premier League soccer.

Let's start with the theory of the plan. We'll need upper and lower baseball divisions (no, not the American and National leagues; work with me here). I think the fairest way to do this at the moment is to split the teams up into two groups: those with a positive run differential in 2009, and everyone else. Happily, this criterion gives us two groups of 15 clubs. I have decided to name the two groups as they do across the channel -- Premiership is the upper division, and Championship is the lower. Here's how the two shake out:

Premiership Baseball (highest to lowest run differential):
Los Angeles Dodgers
New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Los Angeles Angels
Philadelphia Phillies
Atlanta Braves
St. Louis Cardinals
Colorado Rockies
Minnesota Twins
Tampa Bay Rays
San Francisco Giants
Texas Rangers
Chicago Cubs
Toronto Blue Jays
Florida Marlins

Championship Baseball (highest to lowest run differential):
Detroit Tigers
Oakland Athletics
Chicago White Sox
Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati Reds
Seattle Mariners
Arizona Diamondbacks
New York Mets
Cleveland Indians
Houston Astros
San Diego Padres
Pittsburgh Pirates
Baltimore Orioles
Kansas City Royals
Washington Nationals

If this were a real league scenario, the teams in each league would compete within their league. The All-Star break is toast, replaced by a mid-to-late season FA Cup-style tournament involving all 30 teams ... and their AAA clubs just for kicks. Who wouldn't watch the Durham Bulls beat the Orioles? And what does the winning team get? What's on the line? A shiny trophy and bragging rights! Certainly not homefield advantage for the World Series!

The teams that finish 1-4 in Premiership play do the usual best-of-seven postseason to determine the overall season victor, because we can't do away with the Fall Classic. The bottom 5 teams in RD in the Premiership get relegated down to the Championship. The top 2 in the Championship get promoted to the premiership; the teams that finish 3-4 in Championship play have a 1-game playoff at #3's home park for the right to promotion. The teams at the bottom of the Championship get to wonder why their front offices make such horrible decisions.

Farm systems remain intact to feed the big league clubs. Venues would remain unaffected, and travel would not be so much more difficult than it is now. Hard to say how this would affect revenue -- certain rivalries would be eliminated in some years, but undoubtedly new rivalries would arise.
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Enough of the theory; let's get to the practice. I'll be keeping track of W/L and RD stats within both divisions throughout the season. It's easy to just jot down the scores from real MLB games and figure the standings based on these. However, I'll also keep track of W/L and RD within the divisions. See the standings that follow this post for details on how that works. You'll pick it up quickly, I promise.

If it holds my interest enough, maybe I keep it going. There are several baseball sim programs that I could use to run something like this, but player data for 2010 won't be available until the season's over, so to get an accurate read on this whole scheme, we'll have to wait. Until then, welcome to the site, and play ball!