Given the relative success so far this season of teams like the Marlins and Cardinals, whom I had not expected to do well, I was curious as to whether strength or weakness of schedule had helped or hurt teams so far this season. Using Baseball Prospectus’s adjusted standings page, and specifically BP’s stats for Equivalent Runs, Equivalent Runs Allowed, and the adjusted sets of those numbers (see the notes on the BP page and their glossary for the math), we can indeed determine which teams in baseball have had the toughest and easiest schedules through games of yesterday, May 5:
Toughest Easiest
Rockies Cardinals
Nationals Cubs
Pirates Phillies
Giants Marlins
Reds Braves
We can immediately see from this that the AL has a lot more parity right now, with five NL teams having tougher schedules than any AL team (toughest schedule so far in the AL is Tampa Bay), and six NL teams having an easier schedule than the AL’s easiest (the Angels). Given what we know about the teams other than their records and schedules, it’s fair to say the Marlins are a sandcastle, and the Cards’ position is not sustainable. The Giants have had a tough stretch of their schedule, and perhaps that is reason to hope that their winning percentage, better than I for one expected it to be at this point, can actually be sustained. (Of course, it would still mean 90 losses.)
Remember, it’s only been 30-odd games, and so small-sample-size caveats apply.
