Infinite Sums examines the proposition that the AL is a better league than the NL. They find that theory lacking:
In conclusion, the data points out some really interesting things. The NL allows any given team a chance to make the World Series and the NL, as a whole, can hang with the AL when something of value is on the line. The AL? Well, let’s just hope you wound up in the right division. As to AL dominance: it’s not a better league, but it does have a couple bullies.
The whole article is worth the read.
Huh?
The data in the article show that the AL *is* a much better league.
Yes, it’s true, there are two extremely good, winning teams in the AL. And that’s part of the reason that it’s a much better league. People who think the AL is much better do not claim that there is no explanation for why it is better!
I didn’t think the article was worth much at all, David.
I just skimmed the article. But including this year, the AL has won 52.2% of the interleague games over all of the years and 55.5% from 2005-2011.
Using the binomial distribution, I came up with a standard deviation of 0.0082, given the number of observations and assuming a p of .5.
So over the 14 years, the AL’s pct. is about 2.69 SDs above .500 or the expectation. I also came up with a cumulative probability that the AL would have that pct. or higher of 0.0037.
Not sure if I did any of that right. I hope someone else does it, too. It looks like it might be statistically significant. It would be more so just from 2005-2011.
The Al is inherently better just by playing under modern rules. The NL plays under some bizarre pre-1973 retro rules and should not be even considered in such a discussion.