| It's
got be the American League East, right? With the Yankees
and Red Sox in that division, it seems like a
straight-forward answer.
However, it's not just two teams that make up a
division. Let's look at the whole division, from top to
bottom. We will do this by adding up the wins and losses
of the entire division to calculate each division’s
winning percentage.
Of course, if teams only played games in their own
division, the winning percentage in every division would
be .500. The reality is that more than half of each
team's games (56%) are outside of the division
(including 10% interleague games).
The All-Star Game week is a good time to ask this
question. All the interleague games have been played.
Adding in the other interdivision games we now have a
total of 62% of all interdivision games completed for
the season. We have a good idea which divisions are
beating up on the other divisions and which ones are
taking a beating.
Here are the 2007 divisional standings without the
intradivison games (through games of Thursday, July 12).
| Division
|
W |
L |
Pct. |
| AL West |
137 |
118
|
.537 |
| AL Central
|
154 |
137
|
.529 |
| NL West |
139 |
125
|
.527 |
| NL East |
129 |
135
|
.489 |
| AL East |
145 |
159 |
.477 |
| NL Central |
133 |
163 |
.449 |
Who would have thought the only American League
division below .500 would be the AL East? |