What if the Jays Had Been in the AL Central During Ricciardi's Regime?

Saturday, May 10 2008 @ 09:12 PM EDT

Contributed by: Pepper Moffatt

A common theme around the Box for the last 6 years is the claim that being in the AL East is killing the Jays. If only they were in a weaker division, like the AL Central, where teams do not have to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox. Then the Jays would be contenders!

But if you look at the data, it is almost impossible to draw that conclusion...

An AL East team plays their division rivals 72 times a year, and plays AL Central teams 35 times a year (roughly, since there is the occasional game missed by rainout or whatever). If the Jays switched over to the Central, they would be switching about 37 games from being against East teams to being against Central teams. Then the theoretical upper-bound of extra wins a move would give them is 37 - a situation which would arise if they always lost to East teams and always beat Central teams. Even in an absolute best case scenario such a move would not turn the 2004 Jays into the 2001 Mariners. A more realistic swing would be the situation where a team was a .450 club against the East and a .550 club against the Central. Moving that team from the East to the Central would give them about 3-4 extra wins a year. That is not a huge amount, but it could easily be enough to turn a very good team into a division winner.

I decided to take a look at Toronto's record against the Central and the East for each of the 6 years under J.P. Ricciardi. The Jays in 2004 were a .387 team against the East and a .406 team against the Central. That 19 point difference, spread over 37 games, would give the Jays an extra 0.84 wins. Round up, and we give the Jays one extra win in 2004 by moving them to the Central.

This a very rough, back-of-the-envelope method with sample-size issues abound - but it gives us a rough idea of the magnitudes involved in a league switch. I suspect a more sophisticated method would provide very similar results.

Here are the win adjustments for the Jays in the 2002-2007 period:

2002: -2 extra wins (78 wins to 76)
2003: 5 extra wins (86 wins to 91)
2004: 1 extra win (67 wins to 68)
2005: -3 extra wins (80 wins to 77)
2006: -3 extra wins (87 wins to 84)
2007: 0 extra wins (83 wins to 83)

If we drop those totals into the standings for the AL Central (and create an NL-Central like 6-team division), without adjusting the win totals for the other teams, here are the year-by-year standings:

2002
------
MIN 94 67 .584
CHW 81 81 .500 13.5
TOR 76 86 .469 18.5
CLE 74 88 .457 20.5
KCR 62 100 .383 32.5
DET 55 106 .342 39

2003
------
TOR 91 71 .562
MIN 90 72 .556 1
CHW 86 76 .531 5
KCR 83 79 .512 8
CLE 68 94 .420 23
DET 43 119 .265 48

2004
-------
MIN 92 70 .568
CHW 83 79 .512 9
CLE 80 82 .494 12
TOR 68 94 .420 24
DET 72 90 .444 20
KCR 58 104 .358 34

2005
-------
CHW 99 63 .611
CLE 93 69 .574 6
MIN 83 79 .512 16
TOR 77 85 .475 22
DET 71 91 .438 28
KCR 56 106 .346 43

2006
-------
MIN 96 66 .593
DET 95 67 .586 1
CHW 90 72 .556 6
TOR 84 78 .519 12
CLE 78 84 .481 18
KCR 62 100 .383 34

2007
-------
CLE 96 66 0.593
DET 88 74 0.543 8
TOR 83 79
 0.512 13
MIN 79 83 0.488 17
CHW 72 90 0.444 24
KCR 69 93 0.426 27

Other than 2003, which:

the Jays would finish 3rd twice and 4th three times. And by this method, 2003 is at best a coin-flip for the division title. Their best showing outside of 2003 is probably 2006, where they finish with 84 wins, in 4th place, but "only" 12 games out of first.

Can we please let this "if only the Jays were in the AL Central" meme die already? There is no credible evidence that, outside of 2003, it would have made any difference.

13 comments


https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20080510211236721