Monday, March 31, 2008

ESPN isn’t biased...

It’s just that the teams in the west suck really bad. At least, that’s the impression I’m left with after reading their predictions for the upcoming baseball season.

First of all, a small historical note: in the last 8 years, every division has won the World Series at least once.

Re-read that again: every division, even the woeful AL West (Anaheim Angels, 2002), has won the World Series at least once since 2000.

That’s parity the NFL can only envy since 2000, where the AFC North and East have combined to win 5 of the last 9 superbowls , and two divisions haven’t won since the late 90’s.

ESPN’s got a lot of confidence that the Central and East divisions are where it’s at this year in baseball, with 89% of the experts picking the World Series winner to come from one of those divisions.

Even more glaring is the section on individual awards: 53% of the MVP/Cy Young/Rookie of the Year voting goes to players from the East, 49% goes to players from the Central, and a scant 8% from players in the West.

But I guess that explains why so few experts predict the World Series winner to come from the West: those guys are seriously amateur out there.

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