The relative parity in the American League may tempt some folks to assume that it means mediocrity as well. Don't you believe it, though, because as Darren Everson of the Wall Street Journal notes this morning, the AL continues to be the far tougher league:
Even though the NL's Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series last season, the AL -- which has dominated interleague games the past four seasons -- still appears to be the stronger, deeper league. This is reflected in the performance thus far of players who have switched leagues during the offseason.
A month into the season, most of the new AL players are experiencing a dramatic decline in performance versus their NL statistics last season, including Los Angeles Angels reliever Brian Fuentes and Oakland Athletics outfielder Matt Holliday, teammates last year with the Colorado Rockies. Before last night, Mr. Fuentes's ERA (7.88) was up a full five runs versus last season, despite moving from hitter-friendly Coors Field. Mr. Holliday was bound to be hurt by leaving Coors, but his .638 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) in road games this season is significantly worse than his .892 road mark last year.
I'm an NL guy, so this stuff pains me to some degree, but the numbers, as they say, are the numbers. Interleague play will, as always, tell us a lot more about the relative strengths of the leagues than this anecdotal stuff does, but at this point the burden seems to be squarely on NL supporters to make the case that things aren't continuing on the way have for the past several years in this regard.
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There's a good reason Brian Fuentes could be doing so poorly. He didn't do much during spring training. He missed some time dealing with a son who was sick. When he got back from that he had a bad back. He wasn't ready when the season started. I don't think he's real closer material but I think he can do a lot better than he has so far.
Well, as Craig said, interleague is the real test. And I'll bet it will continue to show that the AL is stronger (non-Orioles division).
Everson uses 9 examples (strangely omitting Ibanez in his chart), 8 of whom have had worse numbers in the AL. First of all, 9 cherry-picked players is not a particularly meaningful sample size, it seems to me. It gets more problematic when one considers that one of those examples is Takashi Saito, who the Dodgers did not sign because they thought he would not be as effective due to injury. Fuentes has pitched all of 9 innings this year, and as BrianC notes, he missed time in Spring Training. Sabathia was actually worse than this last April (7.51 ERA). I'm not going to go through everyone on the list, but these fluctuations are going to happen regardless of whether players switch leagues or even teams - for example, Teixeira's hitting much worse than he did last year with the Angels, Adam Dunn is hitting significantly better than he did with the Reds, as are Ryan Zimmerman and Robinson Cano with the same teams. Overall, the stats Everson cites are far from conclusive; the AL may still be better, but I don't think this article contributes a great deal to the evidence for that case.
Wait, so nine randomly selected players' stats a month into the season is how these things are determined? Maybe the WSJ should stick to economic matters. And yea, I'm an NL fan and I think the AL is better, but this is hardly a convincing way to prove that.
Defenitly the american league it is stronger but I'm rooting for
the marlins.