The All-Star stat that's hard to make sense of
Or, the joy of a good puzzle ruined because you can't look up the solution to see if you're right
In these times of extreme polarization, it couldn’t be more important to tell the truth. Never has our country needed a brave soul to emerge from the darkness without regard to political correctness and say what needs to be said. For too long, no one has been brave enough to pierce the veil of ignorance with the barbed words that will strike at the heart of even the most jaded cynic. For too long, society has cried out for an icon, and for too long those cries have gone unheard.
So it falls, once again, to me.
The National League sucks ass at the All-Star Game.
The American League is currently riding a 9-game winning streak in the All-Star Game, with the 2012 game (known around here as the Giants Game, because the Giants’ representatives — Melky Cabrera, Matt Cain, Pablo Sandoval, and Buster Posey — did the lion’s share of the work in building the NL’s big lead in their eventual 8-0 win. This would not be the last time Justin Verlander pitched poorly against members of the San Francisco Giants in the year 2012) being the last time the NL won. Even worse than that, 2012 was the end of a 3-game winning streak for the NL, which came on the heels of a 13-year stretch in which the AL went 12-0-1 (damn you for that tie, Selig).
Since 1997, then, the National League is 3-21-1 in All-Star Games. If we go back another 9 years, since 1988, the National League is 6-27-1 in All-Star Games.
That is a staggering degree of ineptitude. That the National League, the Senior Circuit — sure, that name is an anachronism, but on the other hand we’ve all still heard it, so it must still mean something! — could be that bad for that long is honestly astonishing. Remember, these are the best players in a league. An entire league! And over 35 years, they’ve been significantly worse than the best players in the other league.
Now, it’s possible that there is some talent gap between the leagues that explains this. After all, in interleague play, the AL is 300 games over .500, and since interleague play started in 1997, that 3-21-1 record seems pretty relevant. So, talent gap, right? Has to be a talent gap?
Well, uh, no? Sure, the AL is 300 games over .500, but that’s just a .522 winning percentage, which is good, but not that good. The 2023 Giants, for example, currently have a .544 winning percentage, and their best players aren’t better than the league’s best players by enough for any kind of competition to end up 21-3-1.
I don’t know what that competition would be, and please do not ask.
The point is, that record doesn’t point to utter dominance in any way. And it seems simply impossible that the best players in the AL are that much better than the best players in the NL. I know that in previous years, before the universal DH, there was a theory that big stars were more likely to sign with an AL team because they’d be able to stash him at DH for the last few years of his contract while an NL team would not, but again, we’re talking 21 wins in 25 tries. A couple declining players around the margins — players disproportionately likely to get into the game based on name recognition when they are no longer the best in the league based on pure talent — just wouldn’t explain that.
So what would explain that? What’s the thing that you can point to and say, “That’s the guy, officer. Book him,” and then get berated by the police officer that you’re not his boss and you don’t give him orders? I mean, I don’t know. No one knows. But basically, it’s either luck or cheating.
God, what a disappointing answer. It’s like in the book of Job, when Job finally asks God what’s up with all the suffering and whatnot, and God’s all, “Uh, do you run a universe? No? Then how bout you shut your pretty little mouth?”
I’m doing that from memory, but I think I got the quote right.
But that’s not the answer you want, is it? You want some definitive thing that says, here’s why the AL has been better, and here’s how the NL can rebound to be more competitive. They’re too anxious and swinging at the first pitch, maybe. Their pitching staff is missing locations. Something like that.
Nothing like that could possibly be it. Sure, there are guys on the team year after year, but for the most part, these are entirely different teams comprised of entirely different players with entirely different coaching staffs. It simply doesn’t make sense for there to be a rational, normal, on-field explanation for this kind of record. There isn’t one thing the NL has been doing wrong for my entire lifetime. This one simple trick will not make you 10 years younger and add 40 pounds of muscle. Either the AL has taken some kind of unseemly advantage — which is, to put it mildly, unlikely — or this is a case of bad luck, and maybe some psychological “The AL always wins stuff” that gets in the back of everyone’s minds.
No larger explanation, no grand design. Nothing but pure chance. From 1960 through 1987, the NL went 25-4-1 against the AL. Then the tables turned. Nothing happened, other than the tables deciding they were in the wrong position. One day, it’ll happen again. Hopefully that day will be today, because I don’t really want to watch another 4-1 AL victory.
As an old guy, I miss the days of the NL dominance. Also, that’s not a bad paraphrase of God’s response to Job.