The Weaker Circuit

In old baseball parlance, the National League is the "senior circuit." This is because it's the older league of the two, of course. It also conveys the vague sense that the NL is the more traditional, purer league of the two, what with its holdout against the DH and its outmoded reputation as the league which plays a more "smallball"-oriented game, with more frequent bunting, hit-and-runs, double switches, etc. This reputation has been logically extended to the managers, in the sense that the NL is said to boast a more cerebral brand of baseball, thanks primarily to the strategy added by having the pitcher bat.

Needless to say, smallball is The Three Run Homer's mortal enemy, and the traditional profile of American League baseball--branded by the immortal "pitching, defense and the three run homer" strategy of our hero, Orioles manager Earl Weaver--is the way we'd like to see the game played. But in the 21^st century, whatever truth that existed in the disparate profiles of the two leagues has long since been washed away, due to free agency and, generally, an enhanced understanding of what constitutes winning baseball.

That there are no longer huge differences in how the game is played between the two leagues, however, is not to say that the level of play in the two leagues is the same. In fact, my long-winded introduction was all a lead-up to the point that I'm trying to make: the Senior Circuit has very much transformed into the junior, as in, the younger sibling to the American League's big bullying brother.

Is the American League, as a whole, really that much better than the National League? Without a doubt. Last year, there were definitely four AL teams that would have been head-and-shoulders above every NL team in quality: the Yankees and Red Sox, the Indians, and the Angels. I would throw Detroit and Seattle in that category as well, which both won 88 games (Arizona and Colorado led the NL with 90 wins). The American League won 137 of 252 interleague games last year, a winning percentage of .544. That's a statistically significant sample, as they say in the trade, and a very meaningful result, not noise in the data. That, in other words, is dominance. And the AL has been dominating for some time now. In 2006, it went an astounding 154-98 against the weaker circuit, and 136-116 in 2005. Over the past three year, then, the American League has a winning percentage of .565 versus the NL.

The American League only got stronger when the Marlins dumped one of the most valuable commodities in the game in Miguel Cabrera, along with a quality starter in Dontrelle Willis, on the Tigers in exchange for Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, two strong prospects whose stars had each lost luster over the past year. With that trade, the AL Central turned into a two team deathmatch between Detroit and Cleveland, a race that should be extremely fun to watch next year. The AL East is, of course, the battleground for the Cold War matchup between the Yankees and Red Sox. A third team will join that mix by 2009--the Rays have the best collection of young talent in the game, which is all starting to mature at the same time, prompting what could be a dynastic run. And the Blue Jays would almost definitely be a perennial playoff contender in the National League, no matter how poorly they've been run over the past several years.

The AL Central and East are baseball's twin killing fields, with the AL West lagging somewhat behind, at least until the haul that Billy Beane took in exchange for ace righty Dan Haren matures. The National League, in contrast, is operating in a lesser solar system. Right now I would rank the Cubs and the Diamondbacks as the two best NL teams, but both have significant flaws, and are well below the AL contenders in terms of overall quality.

Why the discrepancy between the AL and the NL? One of the reasons, I believe, is that the quality of the front offices in the AL is significantly higher. Here's my ranking of the 30 organizations in baseball, ordered by the general strength of their talent stock and the headiness of their baseball operations personnel:

1. Boston Red Sox
2. Cleveland Indians
3. Tampa Bay Rays
4. New York Yankees
5. Detroit Tigers
6. Oakland Athletics
7. Los Angeles Angels
8. Arizona Diamondbacks
9. Minnesota Twins
10. Los Angeles Dodgers
11. Seattle Mariners
12. Atlanta Braves
13. Chicago Cubs
14. Milwaukee Brewers
15. New York Mets
16. Toronto Blue Jays
17. Florida Marlins
18. San Diego Padres
19. Colorado Rockies
20. Kansas City Royals
21. Philadelphia Phillies
22. Texas Rangers
23. Pittsburgh Pirates
24. Washington Nationals
25. Cincinnati Reds
26. Chicago White Sox
27. San Francisco Giants
28. St. Louis Cardinals
29. Baltimore Orioles
30. Houston Astros

I wouldn't argue if you wanted to move the Diamondbacks up a spot or two on the list, but you can see the general point--the AL just has far superior organizations, from major league talent stocks to farm systems to front offices. Let's examine that latter issue a little more in-depth. Who do you think of when you list the top General Managers? No doubt Theo Epstein, Mark Shapiro, Billy Beane, Dave Dombrowski, and Brian Cashman come to mind. All run AL clubs.

In the National League, perhaps the brightest brain trust resides in the Josh Byrnes-led Arizona front office. John Schuerholz is fazing himself out of the operations in Atlanta, and the Braves' talent is not as good as it typically was each year during the team's run of division titles. Chicago has a good team on hand, but the Cubs are run by Jim Hendry, whose greatest skill is signing his name with a flourish. Omar Minaya has shown the propensity to galvanize impact players into signing with the Mets and pull off the outstanding trade, but he has been making questionable moves with alarming frequency over the past year, and operates too frequently upon consultation solely with his gut, rather than the numbers. The Dodgers have the most talented NL group of young players, but Ned Colletti is a threat to trade any and all of them away as soon as he steps into Chavez Ravine. The list goes on: Doug Melvin's motto in Milwaukee seems to be two steps forward, one-and-a-half steps back, the Larry Beinfest-Mike Hill duo in Florida is doomed to perpetually rebuild, like a latter-day sports Sisyphus, as long as the Miami stadium fiasco lacks a resolution, Kevin Towers can't get over the hump in San Diego, Dan O'Dowd lucked his Rockies into the playoffs last year, Jim Bowden of the Nationals alternates between inspired and horrid decisions, with precious little middle ground, etc., etc. New front offices are in place this year in Pittsburgh and St. Louis, so there's reasonable hope that those two franchises could get turned around before too long. There isn't really any hope in San Francisco or Houston, however, and I would posit little in Cincinnati either as long as Wayne Krivsky is making the decisions, although the Reds could actually win the pathetic NL Central this year with a little luck.

In conclusion: the majority of the money, talent, and baseball decision-making acumen resides in the American League right now. Until that starts to change, you can treat the ALCS as if it were the World Series, which it was in 2007.