The Early Going: AL

Dave Paisley

With the end of April almost upon us as I write this, I figured now would be a good time to take stock of the season so far. In the American League, there aren't too many surprises. The Chicago White Sox in the positive sense, perhaps the Texas Rangers in the negative. Without getting into serious details of individual performances, I thought I'd take a look at team totals to see who has the good offense and who has the pitching/defense. So here's a division by division look at just that.

East
To figure out the good or bad numbers, I've taken the league average for team runs scored and allowed per game, and calculated the differences from that average as percentages. So in the following table, the numbers show the Yankees have an offense that's 13% below average, while their pitching has been 13% better than average.

So, if you assume that average runs scored is equal to average runs allowed (which it is, at 5.5 runs per team per game) then you'd figure the Yankees must be breaking even on runs, which they are, and that they're darn lucky to be 14-8 at this point. And you'd be right on every count. They've won a lot of tight games late (witness the combined 6-0 record of bullpen staples Jeff Nelson and Mariano Rivera) and been blown out a few times, hence the pretty record.

Team	Wins	Losses	Offense	Pitching/ Defense	Total Rating
New York	15	8	-13%	13%	0%
Baltimore	14	10	11%	-1%	10%
Boston	12	9	4%	28%	32%
Toronto	12	14	3%	-23%	-20%
Tampa Bay	9	15	3%	-23%	-20%

Baltimore has been doing quite well with better-than-average offense (just don't expect Mike Bordick to keep slugging .700, OK?) and about-average pitching. How you explain Jose Mercedes (6.38 ERA, 2-1 record) and Mike Mussina (3.83, 1-2) is beyond me, though. Meanwhile, Boston should be doing a lot better than 11-9, due to their absolutely phenomenal pitching -- best in the league by far, at 28% above average. Maybe Jeff Fassero has finally found that anti-homer pill?

Toronto and Tampa Bay are identically bad, in that they have average offenses and really terrible pitching. Given the SkyDome run explosion, I expected to see their offensive totals higher than this, but I guess they've been stifled quite a bit in other games.

The numbers indicate that the Yankees are quite vulnerable this year, and that Boston is the team who should be able to give them a run for their money. Wouldn't that be nice?

Central
Well, the White Sox are quite a shock, being something of an offensive juggernaut with the return of the real Frank Thomas and the coming-out of Paul Konerko. With seven regulars slugging over .500 you can expect to put a few crooked numbers up. When you factor in the loss of Jaime Navarro, the South Side pitching staff is even able to turn in an average kind of performance. I don't expect them to keep this up, but they will still be better than I expected.

Team	Wins	Losses	Offense	Pitching/ Defense	Total Rating
Chicago	17	8	35%	1%	36%
Cleveland	13	8	8%	18%	26%
Kansas City	12	13	-5%	-14%	-19%
Minnesota	11	15	-8%	-7%	-15%
Detroit	6	17	-42%	-9%	-51%

Meanwhile, the Indians are in the unusual position of chasing another team, but are doing fine themselves. The addition of Chuck Finley has helped their pitching improve, while the Tribe offense is still a modest 8% better than average. Expect the offense to improve and the pitching to drop off a bit. Whatever happens, though, they'll be hot on the trail of the White Sox.

Without all those walk-off homers, Kansas City would have a record that reflected their sub-par offense and pitching, with Minnesota in just about the same position. Pity the poor hapless Tigers, a stunning 42% off the average in offense. No surprise maybe, with Tony Clark hitting .115 and Juan Gonzalez either MIA or hitting like Luis Polonia. Juan Encarnacion must be what aliens kidnapped the rest of the team. With a sub-par pitching staff to go with it, it's small wonder they lead the league in losses.

The Central is shaping up as a nice little dogfight between the Indians and White Sox. It'd be nice to see this one decided in September instead of June.

West
Over in the West, it isn't much of a surprise to see Seattle doing well both offensively and defensively. I would discount the offensive numbers a bit because of the 47 runs scored at SkyDome in three games, but this team can still put runs on the board in bunches, despite the loss of, er, whats-his-name-Jr. The M's pitching number reflects an across-the-board improvement, from the starters to the pen.

Team	Wins	Losses	Offense	Pitching/ Defense	Total Rating
Seattle	13	10	21%	12%	33%
Anaheim	13	13	-5%	1%	-4%
Oakland	12	13	-4%	9%	5%
Texas	9	15	-9%	-4%	-13%

Anaheim has to be something of a surprise, but they've been able to hang in there as surprisingly average. It helps that Darin Erstad is having a year as good as last year was bad. It's also nice to see that last year was something of a fluke. Maybe Jim Edmonds was like kryptonite to him? Oakland has to be marked down as something of a disappointment so far, although I didn't expect them to race away with the division anyway.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to many has been the Texas Rangers. With an offense at 9% and pitching at 4% under, the numbers don't indicate that this team is particularly terrible. However, late-inning failures do tend to have a way of maximizing the losses. Maybe the Texas bullpen's 1-6 record has something to do with it. And poor Jeff Zimmerman is finding out that the law of averages is tough to beat. Last year the hero, this year the 0-3, 7.00 ERA goat. C'est la vie.

From the numbers, I'd say Seattle is looking to be a good bet to win the division handily.

about the author

For the last time, Dave Paisley did not buy the Bill Buckner World Series ball. Ignore his mournful cries of "Mooo-kie!" at drdjp@strikethree.com.