IGT 9/27/26, Mets at Nationals, 1:05 PM

[Cowtipper]

Put it in the books. 

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Don't dream, it's over.

[Cowtipper]

Did that season even happen? Jorge Polanco? Luis Robert? Were they even real? 

[whippoorwill]

2 hours ago, Frayed Knot said:

GKR talking about this year's AL West and 1973's NL East, but they were really very different stories.

The NL East that year was a collective 30 games under .500 that year, 20 of that belonging to the Phillies [Mets +3, StL even, PIT -2, MTL -4, CHC -7, PHI - 20] iow, it was mostly a division bunched towards the middle rather than a basket of deplorable.s. This year's ALW is a collective 81 games under .500 with no one above break even. At the moment it's HOU & TEX and one game under, then SEA at -9 followed by ATH at -33 and LAA at -37

Now part of the is the current set-up. A smaller pct of games within division can lead to wider dispersal. But in 1973 both Atlanta and San Diego had worse records than Philly 

iow, in '73 the NL East bet up each other to a greater degree than they did get their collective asses kicked by the West. This year's AL West simply suxx.

I commented on the Mets ‘73 barely over .500 season to hubby today when the Pirates or the Phillies announcers (I forget which, we were switching back and forth) mentioned the AL West standings 

[Gwreck]

5 hours ago, Frayed Knot said:

iow, in '73 the NL East bet up each other to a greater degree than they did get their collective asses kicked by the West.

I don’t think the data bears that out at all.  

The 1973 NL West had 4 teams (of 6) over .500 with their fourth place team (the Astros) only a half a game behind the Mets (who didn’t make up one rainout).

Where did all those wins come from?  A whole lot of winning against the East of course.  Of the 6 NL West teams, only the truly awful Padres had a losing record against the East.  
 

The 1973 NL East was just a lot of mediocre teams.  Sometimes the talent shakes out like that.

[Edgy MD]

However you want to look at the numbers, they are there waiting to be looked at.

The 1973 National League East had a 201-231 (.479) record against teams outside of their division.

The 2026 American League West had a 233-316 (.424) record against teams outside of their division.

That is, unless I added, multiplied, or divided wrong.

[Frayed Knot]

7 hours ago, Gwreck said:

The 1973 NL East was just a lot of mediocre teams.  

That was my point all along. Of course the East lost a majority of games to the West, there's no way for the division to be under .500 otherwise. 

But assuming Edgy's math above is correct: the '73 NL East won out-of-division games at the rate that a team going 78 - 84 over a full season wins them [77.6 wins/yr if you want to get technical). That's not a good team but also not a horrible one.

This year's AL West  crew was collectively akin to a team winning 68.7 G/yr, 2+ games worse than 1973's last place Phillies.. One team lost 100 games, another just missed (64 - 98), and even the 3rd place team was worse than the '73 NLE was as a whole.

 

1973 NL East: a mostly mediocre crew [top five clubs a collective 10 G-under .500] with one bad team (- 20).

2026 AL West: a whole lotta suck (83 G under .500)