AL vs NL vs NPB vs AAA (2)
=== On the NL ===
We're all used to thinking of NL ballplayers as stars, but ...
... man!, a .387 winning percentage (63 wins, 99 losses) against the AL?! over a 10-year period?! Baseball Prospectus sets .351 (57 wins, 105 losses) as the definition of replacement level.
Objectively speaking, the NL has been performing, in interleague play, at not much above RL.
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Not sure we get to throw out the NL Central, and say, well, the best 8 NL teams are equal to the average AL teams. You could take the 8 best AL teams also, and match them against the entire NL...
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=== On the Mariners ===
Anybody disagree that the 2010 Seattle offense was considerably below replacement level?
I mean, they're going to win 61-63 games, and they had 101 pitching. The offense was 20 wins below average.
Something reallllllly wrong when you can start with Ichiro and have a lineup that is a good two yards worse than the waiver wire is supposed to be...
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And an interesting comment on the validity of RL. You're supposed to be able to pick up RL players at the drop of a hat, correct?
Jack Zduriencik, one of the game's best GM's wasn't able to -- at least not in the context of his bigger-picture responsibilites.
Even if you argued that RLP's were available, but that Jack chose to invest time in developmental players instead, that would still argue against the concept of "easily available" players. If waiver guys are square pegs that don't fit in round holes, they're not "available," right?
Hmmmm....
Anyway. I've long suspected that this concept, "Anybody can score a -20 runs player at any position, any time they want," would get voted off the island by 30-of-30 GM's.
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=== On NPB ===
Thunderous as all of Matty's logic is, the one weak link in the chain I can see is ... the notion that after you edit out NPB stars, then everybody else is "replacement level" in NPB.
That's possible, if you're talking about the hitters, but I (and Bobby Valentine) would be pretty skeptical...
Personally I would more-or-less rule out the idea that any good pitcher in Japan would be a 5.50-ERA cakewalk for MLB hitters. Could be wrong.
There is also the Darwinian factor: do other leagues produce this kind of strata between their tiers of players? Don't most AVG and HR and OBP and etc. tables graduate smoothly?
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Not sure where NPB ranks. Would put it quite a ways above AAA, though... the MLB players who get wiped out by Japan every WBC would agree.
Would AAA All-Stars nuke the WBC as Japan does?
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The semantics are amusing. Matty calls the NL and NPB "the game's elite minor leagues" whereas Dr. D considers them both major leagues -- and considers the AL, at the moment, a super-league. But, to each your own.
Good stuff,
Dr D