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Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Why the imbalance between AL and NL?
From 2004-2008, the total NL payroll was 5.9 billion dollars. The total AL payroll was also 5.9 billion dollars. Presuming that both leagues spent the money efficiently (which they more or less pretty much did), then it seems that talent is equally split between the two leagues.
Except, the NL has 16 teams and the AL has 14 teams. The effect is that the average NL payroll for those five years is 74MM per team, and the average AL payroll is 84MM. Each AL team has 10MM more dollars of talent than the NL teams. In this time period, the AL has won over 55% of their games against the NL.
From 2000-2003, each team spent around 53MM per team, in the AL and NL. In this time period, both leagues have close to a 50/50 W/L record.
I would not be surprised that if you go to the payrolls of the other leagues that we’ll find similar breakdowns. The reason one conference wins more than the other is that the better conference is buying better players.