Reviewing 2020, first half of 2021, in triennial baseball leagues

Of all the baseball leagues we run on these pages, the only one that actually happened in 2020 was the triennial regional alignment corresponding with the correct alignment for interleague play. We can compare 2020 with the first half of 2021.

It's the All-Star break in 2021 and we still haven't gotten around to publishing the results from the only baseball competition on these pages that survived coronavirus in 2020, the triennial regional leagues.

We track these leagues during the years, ideally one out of every three, in which MLB aligns the divisions for interleague play so east plays east, etc. In an ordinary season, if every team in both central divisions play each other, we end up with a round-robin, though still unbalanced, schedule of 96 games. And if we get rid of the National League and American League labels, the 10 teams in each of the three resulting leagues can be divided into two regionally interesting divisions.

As it happens, the ideal alignment for running these leagues actually has been popping up much more than every three years, due to travel cautions over coronavirus. Indeed, 2021 is the third year of the last four to be aligned this way, and the second year in a row. We tracked for the first time in 2015, the alignment returned in 2018 and it was going to come back for 2021, anyway, but 2020 was forced by the virus.

So, when we look at these leagues now for 2020, we can compare them directly with how they shape up at the All-Star break in 2021.

We'll start with the East League, where the Boston Red Sox show their cyclical tendencies. In 2015, the first year we tracked, the Red Sox were all the way down from their 2013 World Champions, 78-84, and in the East League they were 48-48, second division overall and second from the bottom of the North Division. 

The 2018 edition ended with the Red Sox dominating, as they actually did. In the East League, they were 68-28, 11 games ahead of the nearest contender. Over the full season, they won 108 during the regular slate, then won the World Championship with three playoff wins in which no opponent beat them more than once.

But we revisited the triennial leagues prematurely in 2020 because of coronavirus, and the timing was poor for the Red Sox, who perhaps didn't have enough time in a 60-game campaign and finished 24-36. Then again, Chris Sale was out for the year with Tommy John surgery, so it might have been to no avail.

We don't have this in the agate, but the playoff championship in the 2020 East League would have gone to the Rays. If two division champs in one of these leagues meets in the playoffs, we count that as the league championship series, and the Rays beat the North Division champs, the New York Yankees, in a five-game ALDS.

We come now to the All-Star break in 2021 and the Red Sox, still without Sale, are leading the East League, holding on tight with a two-game lead on the Tampa Bay Rays, who blitzed through last year's regional season with a 40-20 record, winning the East League overall and the East League South on their way to a six-game loss to the Dodgers in the World Series.

The very next year, this year, the Yankees are hapless against Eastern competition, 21-30 in this East League, protected from the bottom only by the Baltimore Orioles. Thus, it looks like the East League in 2021 will come down to the Rays and Red Sox, though the Toronto Blue Jays, third-place at the break, can be influential, as they are in the same Major League division.

The difference a year makes in the Center League is rather stark. In 2020, the Twins blew through a 60-game season at 36-24. They were the regular season champions across the league, the premiers, as they are sometimes called in Australia. 

At the All-Star break in 2021, the Twins were 39-50, a .438 winning percentage. In the Center League, they were much better, 24-27, .474. In the Center League, they're a middle entry, the top team in the second division. In the North Division, they're fourth out of five.

The Twins nosed out the Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Indians by one game and the Chicago Cubs by two in a thrilling race last year. Through Sept. 18, the White Sox held a two-game lead on the Cubs, a three-game lead on the Twins and a five-game lead on the Indians. But the White Sox lost seven of their last nine. A six-game losing streak during that span involved getting swept four in Cleveland. Meanwhile, the Twins were winning four in a row, including two against the Cubs. By the final weekend, the Twins were a game up on the Sox, two up on Cleveland and three up on the Cubs. 

The Twins lost two of three during the final weekend at the Cincinnati Reds, who were fighting to enter the expanded playoffs. The Indians won two of three at home against cellar-dwelling Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cubs beat the Sox two out of three at the South Side venue. 

As the visiting Twins licked their wounds in Cincinnati, having lost a chance to clinch the Center League by losing, 5-3, on the final day of the season, the Cubs and White Sox were putting the finishing touches on a strange game. A loss by the Twins and a Sox win would tie them atop the final standings, and the Twins certainly lost. But anyone watching the scoreboard would also have given up on the Sox, who trailed, 10-1, after seven innings.

In the eighth, new Cubs reliever Brailyn Marquez really needed to just throw strikes with a 10-1 lead and six outs to get. But he walked the first two batters of the eighth before wild pitching them to second and third. A ground ball scored the lead runner. The next hitter struck out. The inning should have been over. Then, a walk, a hard single that advanced each runner two bases, a wild pitch, a double ... Then a new pitcher, another wild pitch and another hit. Five runs brought the White Sox within 10-6.

The second Cubs pitcher in the eighth, Duane Underwood, Jr., allowed a leadoff single in the ninth, followed by Yasmani Grandal's homer. 10-8. Two outs later, with a runner at third, still another reliever, Andrew Chafin, struck out Nomar Mazara looking at a 2-2 pitch. Game over. All around Minnesota, we presume, toasts were raised to Andrew Chafin for helping the Twins win the Center League and its North Division. The Cubs got to spoil the White Sox ... Chafin, by the way, was having quite a nice year for the Cubs in 2021 as a specialty left-hander out of their bullpen before they traded him just now to Oakland.

At the All-Star break in 2021, the White Sox and Indians have returned as contenders, but the Twins and Cubs have not. Instead, we see the Reds sitting one game behind the Sox at the pause. The Brewers, the top team in the 2021 NL Central, are strangely low in these standings, seven down at the break. In fact, the Brewers swept three from the Reds right after the break, and later won two of three from the White Sox, so they have moved to within five games of first place ten games after the break.

We've seen the Dodgers run hot before. The 41-8 run in 2013 was one for the ages. But the Dodgers were on just a slightly slower pace during the 2021 regular season, 43-17. Play at the clip over 162 games and you're finishing with 116 wins. Not happening.

So, the Dodgers won the West League without a fight. The San Diego Padres, up and coming, still were close to a week behind the Dodgers in the end. After the strong third-place Oakland Athletics, the remaining seven teams in the 2020 West League finished with losing records.

Flash forward to the West League in 2021 and we've got a smoking race with the Dodgers, Padres and San Francisco Giants all within a game of the top, and the Houston Astros three games down.

That was at the All-Star break, these standings. Since then, and including games through July 28, the Dodgers have found rough sledding in the west, going 6-6, including four losses in six games to the Giants. Those are the only games the Giants have played in the West, while the Astros were 5-1 against the West and the Padres were 1-1.

Put it all together and the Dodgers were tied with the Giants in first place, one game ahead of the Astros and 1½ ahead of San Diego.

Second Division race highlights 2021 baseball pyramid at break

Halfway into the 2021 baseball season, the Second Division is producing a race such as we have never seen. All eight clubs are separated by less than two games.

A look at the standings through the baseball pyramid at the All-Star break reveals a thick race at the top and in the middle of the First Division, an incredibly tight Second Division from top to bottom, little suspense in the Third Division and another quandary such as only the baseball Fourth Division can produce.

Starting at the bottom, we see the Chicago White Sox on a clear path to winning the Fourth Division and entering next year's Third Division and Super League. They are clearly the best team in the American League Central, and it happens that the Fourth Division contains two divisional underlings, the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers, against whom to ring up many victories.

A different circumstance confronts the San Diego Padres, who have emerged this season as a national factor across the big leagues, but they are trapped in this Fourth Division with no one to play. 

In no other ordinal division of any other sport that we track on these pages do these sorts of problems arise, because the other sports play some kind of round robin schedule. But baseball's schedule, being imbalanced as it is, sometimes puts us in a tough spot with the Fourth Division. The problem is intensified because the division has only six clubs, rather than eight.

It often happens, like this year, that some team just stomps through the division, and it's hard sometimes to qualify a second club for promotion. Various rules have been tried here, and remain in force. But the Padres are "trapped," as it sometimes happens, because they're a division that lays out so they only get seven games, all against the Miami Marlins.

We do have a precedent in the Fourth Division that amounts to making the Padres eligible for promotion if they win five of those seven games. If they don't, we might have a problem, because it's likely every other team in the Fourth Division will have a losing record, except the White Sox. If the Padres win four, this becomes quite thorny. 

We might end up biting the bullet and saying that just in this one special case, the Fourth Division in baseball, the second promotion will be a judgment call. Hate to do that. Hope we don't have to. Because if you're looking at the teams in the Fourth Division, the White Sox and the Padres are the teams that have to go up. The White Sox will make it. And one supposes the Padres would make it if they played enough games. They might end up making it, though, simply because no one else reaches a winning record. 

In that case, we would have to suspend certain minimum requirements for promotion, but that sometimes becomes necessary to promote two Fourth Division teams. And why is it necessary to promote two Fourth Division teams? So that two Third Division teams can be demoted. There's usually no problem producing two teams that deserve it.

In the Third Division, we have no race to speak of. The San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners have raced way out in front of the pack, and it's likely they will be the two clubs promoted to next year's Second Division and Super League. At the bottom of this pile, we find the Pittsburgh Pirates and Texas Rangers, both apparently completing the long decent to the bottom tier.

The Rangers played among kings in the early days of this pyramid, which began tracking in 2010, but they now are facing their second straight demotion and the queasy reality of the Fourth Division for the first time. The Pirates were an original Fourth Division club in 2010, but they won it in 2012 and then won the Third Division in 2014. They spent five years in the Second Division before their demotion off 2019 and now they, too, face their second straight demotion.

Our Second Division is the stuff that dreams are made of, all eight teams riding within 1½  games of each other with many games remaining for each of these teams. The schedule lightweight here is Oakland, which has nine of its 22 Second Division games remaining. Everyone else has 15-20 games remaining. The A's come out of the All-Star break with a Second Division home series against the Cleveland Indians.

This is one division where every game is going to count. The top two finishers go to next year's First Division, and the top three finishers will be in the Super League. The bottom two finishers are going down. 

This is a tough, even assembly of teams, and one can see it from the fact that the Red Sox are 11-10 here. In every other division we run, and in the real standings, too, the Red Sox are a behemoth. But in this Second Division, they are 11-10.

One benefit of introducing the Super League is that it makes the whole First Division more interesting. There is a race for championship in the top tier, but, obviously not a race for promotion, so putting the top half of the First Division into the Super League raises the stakes in the middle of the league. 

When all the smoke clears, the only teams in the First Division now left standing still are the fifth-place and sixth-place teams, who occupy a middle station between Super League glory and Second Division banishment. They merely get to remain in the First Division.

We're pretty sure by now that the Arizona Diamondbacks will be banished, as they reached the All-Star break 3-21 in the top level. We ended up skipping 2020 in the pyramids because the teams didn't get around enough, but it remains that games were played, timed passed and the Diamondbacks declined so much from 2019 to 2021 that they are misplaced and not even competitive in this year's First Division. 

If we could have played the pyramids in 2020, the Diamondbacks would have been demoted then, probably, and they now would be fighting to stave off relegation to the Third Division. Instead, they're getting their brains beat in against the First Division.

At the top of the First Division, the Dodgers are one-half game ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers, no doubt a benefit of having the Diamondbacks in this company. A mere two games separates the third-place St. Louis Cardinals from the sixth-place New York Yankees. Add another half-game and we can throw in the Minnesota Twins, if they actually can win enough games against this group to reach the top half.

Yanks, D-Backs hold Second Division lead

It's still early, of course, but the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks are the top two clubs right now in the Second Division across big league baseball. The First Division, meanwhile, is as tight as ever, with five clubs within a game of the top.

Starlin Castro is batting .368 (14-for-38) for the New York Yankees in their Second Division games this season (Arturo Pardavilla III/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

Where our ordinal divisions with promotion and relegation are concerned, the big winner has to be the First Division champion, obviously. Next in line, though, are the clubs that win their way into the First Division for the following season.

So, the early returns in the baseball season point to the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees, tied on top of the Second Division, each at 6-3. But it is early, and there's nothing to be gained from calling favorites.

The entire rest of the Second Division, excepting the New York Mets, is within two games of the top. And because of how inter-league play is set up this season (NL West vs. AL Central, NL Central vs. AL East and NL East vs. AL West), all of the Second Division has a thick schedule.

That is, every Second Division club except the last-place Mets. But the Mets still have another 20 games within the Second Division. They're not done, either.

The First Division has tightened up a bit since we checked a couple of weeks ago. Now, the top five clubs are within a game of each other.

The same can't be said in the Third Division, where the Houston Astros have opened up a three-game lead.

The Third Division lines up in an oddly balanced way. The Angels, the Houston Astros and the Seattle Mariners all are in the AL West, so they will play each other a lot. The Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies all are in the NL East, so they will play each other a lot. The remaining two clubs are the Chicago clubs.

The Chicago clubs are lightly scheduled in the Third Division this year, which means they must make the best of the few opportunities out there. Entering May 19, the Cubs have 21 more games, and the White Sox have 20, including their May 19 game against the Mariners.

So, it is early for the White Sox, but they are in relegation position and it isn't that early. And it's early for the Cubs, but they are in promotion position and it isn't that early.

Cubs deny Tribe Selig East three-peat

The Cleveland Indians made a nice bid for their third consecutive Bud Selig East championship, but no one was going to beat the Cubs, who won two-thirds of their games after July.

The Cleveland Indians fell short in their bid for an unprecedented three-peat in the Bud Selig East, overtaken by the hard-charging Chicago Cubs in the final two months of the season.

A tight race at midseason became a Cubs romp as the Chicagoans went 26-13 down the stretch to prevail by five games.

On July 31, The Cubs, Indians, New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox all were within 1½ games of the league lead. But while the Indians (20-15 in the last two months) and the Yankees (17-13) won going down the backside, neither could keep up with the Cubs.

The Cubs became the fourth club to win the Bud Selig East in the league's six-year history. The Yankees and Indians each have won twice and the White Sox have won it once.

Ruling pushes White Sox out of Fourth Division

We needed a special ruling in 2015 to dig up two teams to promote from the Fourth Division. As a result, the Chicago White Sox finally have escaped. along with the New York Mets.

The Fourth Division is always a little difficult to figure, and the 2015 race even required a special ruling.

We dislike special rulings and hope to have everything covered in the rules, but new contingencies arise in new enterprises like this.

The problem with the Fourth Division is that it's desirable to promote two teams (that is, after all, the practice), but the Fourth Division often doesn't have two teams that can make a strong case for promotion. Quite often, one team will wipe out the Fourth Division and leave no one else with a winning record.

With only six teams in the Fourth Division, games already are harder to come by, and the 2015 six came from five different Major League divisions. In the larger and higher divisions, there is more crowding and more games because of it. So, in those divisions, it is required that no team can be promoted without at least 10 wins, no team can be demoted without at least 10 losses, and any team being promoted or relegated must face at least three other teams within that division.

In the Fourth Division, being smaller, we say its necessary to play at least two of the other clubs in the division. What of the win requirement? The 10-win requirement never was really tested until the end of 2015.

Until then, we said that a team that doesn't win 10 within the Fourth Division can't be promoted unless it has won at least 70 percent of its games and there is no other team with at least 10 wins and at least a .500 record to be promoted in its place.

Ending 2015, though, neither of those conditions held.

So, we had the Chicago White Sox, 8-4 in the Fourth Division and clearly the leading team. If the White Sox had just won one more game to go 9-3, there would be no decision here, but 8-4 is just less than 70 percent.

It's murky in the Fourth Division, and it's hard to get out of there. The Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates were in the original Fourth Division in 2010 and it took them each three years to escape. The Kansas City Royals were a Fourth Division original needing four years to escape. The Houston Astros fell to the Fourth Division in 2011 and they're still not getting out. The White Sox fell to the Fourth Division in 2012 and they're just now getting out with a special ruling.

The Orioles and Mets are original Fourth Division clubs that found their way out and back. In 2014, for example, the Orioles were in the Third Division, battling with the Kansas City Royals for promotion to the Second Division. But when the two clubs met in the American League Championship Series, the Royals won a four-game sweep, pushing themselves up to the second tier and pushing the Orioles back into the Third Division basement and demotion back to the Fourth Division.

The Royals are moving up to the First Division in 2016 after splitting the Second Division title in 2015. Meanwhile, the Orioles are doomed to another Fourth Division season in 2016.

Elsewhere in the Fourth Division, the New York Mets are 16-13 in 2015, clearly receiving a promotion to the Third Division in 2016. But the Mets were the second-place team (.583). What about the first-place team?

Who would you promote instead of the White Sox? In third place, we had the San Diego Padres, 9-7. They present the same questions as the White Sox, except their record isn't as good. In fourth place, we had the Houston Astros, 8-8, hardly the breakout season we have seen in the Major League race. Next down, it's the Miami Marlins at 12-17 and the Baltimore Orioles at 8-12. Can't promote either of them.

So, the White Sox will join the Mets in promotion. And the promotion policy will remain as stated above, with one addendum: If there is no team with fewer than 10 wins and a winning percentage of 70 percent or better, and there is no team with at least 10 wins and a .500 record, then a team with fewer than 10 wins and a winning percentage of .600 or better will receive preference for promotion.

A rule change, which is being considered, would lower the promotional requirement to eight wins within the Fourth Division. Supporters of the change say it would be a more realistic measure of promotional merit in a smaller division. Opponents say the 10-win requirement promotes excellence.

We're not sure what promoting excellence is supposed to do with the Fourth Division, but we cite the Oakland Athletics, who were 25-7 in the Fourth Division in 2013. No one else in the Fourth Division had a winning record that year and the second promotion went to the Royals, who were 17-17. So, the A's and Royals went to the Third Division in 2014.

And it was interesting how the Third Division shook out in 2014. Pittsburgh came in as the clear winner at 25-11. At the end of the regular season, Kansas City was second at 11-10, but the A's (17-17) were right there, as were the Orioles (13-14).

As it happened, the American League playoff race took the Athletics to Kansas City for that year's wild card game in the American League. The Royals won, as everyone knows, and they later swept the Orioles, dropping them to last place in the division at 13-18.

So, with that wild card game, the fortunes for the Royals and A's changed a lot. The A's came back in 2015 as the last-place team in the Third Division, which means their immediate future is somewhere down below. They will be joined in the 2016 Fourth Division by the Colorado Rockies.

Harmon Killebrew Award: Jays to tackle Twins for trophy

Two teams with very different fortunes in the Harmon Killebrew Award will meet for the prize Sunday in Minneapolis, where the Minnesota Twins will meet the Toronto Blue Jays in the rubber game of their three-game series. The starting pitcher for each club has been through some strange times this year.

Drew Hutchison will try to pitch the Toronto Blue Jays to their first Harmon Killebrew Award in more than a year Sunday afternoon in Minnesota (Keith Allison [cropped]/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

In addition to being named after the greatest player in their history, another prosperous relationship has cropped up between the Minnesota Twins and the Harmon Killebrew Award. 

The Twins are winning it. The Twins lead the American League this year with two Killebrew captures, a record of 13-7 in Killebrew games and 14 days with the prize in 2015. And they're going for their third consecutive title defense Sunday at Target Field, when they take on the Toronto Blue Jays in the rubber game of a three-game series. 

The Twins also won the Killebrew five times in 2014, more than any other club. In the three years that the Killebrew was observed before 2014, the Twins won it a total of three times.

By stark contrast, the Blue Jays haven't won the Killebrew since Sept. 1, 2013, when they completed a three-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals. The Jays made only one successful title defense, sweeping the Twins Sept. 6-8 at Target Field. Last season, the Jays played for the Killebrew only once, losing two of three last April 15-17 in Minneapolis as the Twins made their only successful defense of their first Killebrew in 2014. The Blue Jays, who are taking their first crack at the Killebrew in 2015, were the only American League club to not win the Killebrew in 2014.

Sunday's pitching match-up presents a rather odd mix of ill and good fortune. The starting pitchers, Ricky Nolasco for the Twins and Drew Hutchison for the Blue Jays, both are sitting on a 5.12 ERA this season (around 30 percent higher than the American League ERA of 3.92 entering Saturday's games) and, yet, they have a combined record of 9-2, with Nolasco at 5-1 and Hutchison at 4-1.

We might write off Nolasco's ERA as an artifact of his first start, a disastrous performance in which he allowed six earned runs in three innings of an 11-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers on April 8. Right after that, he went on the disabled list with inflammation in his right elbow. He has come back to go 5-0 this month, even though his ERA is of 3.77 in those games is more befitting a 3-2 pitcher. But the Twins have scored 32 runs in those five starts, averaging 6.4 runs of support per outing. That will make almost anybody 5-0.

Another oddity about Nolasco is the huge differential between his ERA and his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) mark of 2.86. His ERA is a whopping 2.26 runs per nine innings higher. Nolasco has helped bring that about by allowing only one homer in his 31 2/3 innings this year, an average of 0.3 homers per nine innings. For his career, Nolasco allows 1.1 homers per nine innings, almost a full home run more.

According to Fangraphs.com, the 2.26 run differential between Nolasco's ERA and his FIP is the third-highest in the game among pitchers with at least 30 innings this year, behind the Miami Marlins' Mat Latos (2.66) and the Washington Nationals' Stephen Strasburg (2.58). Nolasco's Twins teammate, Trevor May, is fourth on the list at (1.96).

By the numbers, as one might expect from all that, the Twins aren't much of a defensive team. Entering Saturday's games, Baseball-reference.com put their defensive efficiency at .691, 11th in the AL and below the league average of .697. Baseball-reference also puts the Twins at minus-0.9 in defensive WAR and minus-11 in fielding zone runs above average. Not exactly according to form when we look at the better Twins teams General Manager Terry Ryan has put together through the years.

Hutchison also appears high on the Fangraphs list of ERA/FIP differential, 11th across the Major Leagues at 1.39. It's different with the Jays, though, as baseball-reference marks them up as a good defensive team – second in the AL at 25 zone runs above average (the Kansas City Royals lead with 26), tied for fifth at .705 defensive efficiency and 2.2 runs to the good in defensive WAR. 

Somehow, apparently, the Jays don't support Hutchison defensively they way they support their other pitchers. But they support Hutchison huge offensively. They have averaged 7.03 runs of offense in his 10 starts, and have scored fewer than six runs in his starts only twice.

In four different starts this year, Hutchison left the game in fewer than five innings, allowing four, six, six and seven earned runs in those starts. In every case, the Blue Jays scored enough to take him off the hook for the loss.

Hutchison was pretty good in his last start, though, tossing a complete game, four-hit shutout while striking out eight and walking no one for a 6-0 win against the Chicago White Sox on May 25.

If he shows up that way Sunday, the Jays are quite likely to win the Harmon Killebrew Award for the first time in more than a year, breaking the longest drought in the league.

Fourth Division: Mets might make it, Sox are sunk

The New York Mets are off to a good start in their bid to finally escape from the Fourth Division after two straight years of limited opportunity. The Chicago White Sox are all but certain to remain stuck in the bottom tier for another year, but they've blown three straight seasons of opportunity to escape.

Chris Sale pitched the Chicago White Sox to a 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles Thursday, but the White Sox have almost no chance of escaping from the Fourth Division this year (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Fourth Division has been pretty slow going until this week, when it has picked up with a torrent of games involving five of the six clubs in this lowest echelon of ordinal competition.

The New York Mets, long overdue for a good shot at advancement to the Third Division, now hold first place in the fourth tier with a 7-2 record, and they play three at home this weekend against the floundering Miami Marlins. The Chicago White Sox, who have blown legitimate opportunities to escape from this cellar for three straight years, already appear to be trapped in the Fourth Division for another year.

The Major League schedule obviously isn't built to make sure all the teams in each division play each other, so the rules for promotion and relegation have to be rigged a little.

The top three divisions, which each include eight clubs, require that any club win 10 games to be promoted or lose 10 to be relegated and, in either case, a team must play at least three others within the division to be promoted or relegated.

The Fourth Division, with only six clubs, relaxes those restrictions, a little. A team can be promoted with fewer than 10 wins, but only if that team wins at least 75 percent of its games and plays at least two Fourth Division opponents, and that team can't stand in the way of promoting another team that wins at least 10 and finishes at least .500 in the Fourth Division.

A light schedule in the Fourth Division will work against some club's chance of advancement, and that has been the plight of the Mets for the last two years. Last season, the Mets finished 9-7 in the Fourth Division, the exact same .563 winning percentage as the Minnesota Twins, who won the division at 18-14. The Mets certainly would have advanced, and won the division, with one more victory. As it was, they had to move over for the Colorado Rockies, who finished 16-16.

But the Mets have a robust opportunity to advance this year with a thick Fourth Division schedule. The lowest division includes the Marlins from within the National League East, the San Diego Padres from within the National League, and the Baltimore Orioles, who the Mets face in interleague play.

The White Sox are on the short end of the stick this year, with only a dozen games in the Fourth Division, six each against American League counterparts Baltimore and the Houston Astros. The Sox split a doubleheader Thursday in Baltimore and now are 1-2 in the Fourth Division with three coming up this weekend in Houston.

The White Sox would just about have to win out in the Fourth Division for any chance of advancement, and they probably don't have that kind of club. But they have nothing about which to complain. The White Sox are in their fourth season at this lowest tier. In two of the previous three, they finished in last place. Last year, their best showing, turned up a 14-17 record against the Fourth Division. Combined in the last three full seasons, the White Sox are 42-61 in the Fourth Division.

2014 Bud Selig East standings and summary

Despite falling from first place in the Joe Cronin League, the Cleveland Indians defended their championship in the Bud Selig East. The Indians won the 2014 Selig East title by three games over the New York Yankees and four over the Tampa Bay Rays.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Cleveland Indians finished their 2014 Major League season at 85-77, three games out of the American League playoffs. But the eastern crop of teams in the Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney Leagues was so weak that the Indians still won the Bud Selig East for the second consecutive season.

The Indians finished 47-35, three games ahead of the New York Yankees and four ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays. Another interesting contrast between how the Major League season plays out and what can happen in a league like this. As subtraction tells us, the Indians were 38-42 against clubs that aren't in the Cronin or Feeney Leagues.

Among Bud Selig East teams, the Indians had the best Major League record, with the Yankees right behind them at 84-78. Every other team in the Bud Selig East was below .500 during the Major League season.

2014 Joe Cronin League standings and summary

The Angels took the Joe Cronin League in a dominant performance in 2014. The Angels' .704 winning percentage was the highest ever in the Joe Cronin, the Chub Feeney or either Bud Selig League. The Angels won it by 10 games over the defending champions, the Cleveland Indians.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Angels came from almost nowhere to win the Joe Cronin League in a romp in 2014.

In four previous seasons, the Angels never finished within five games of the Joe Cronin League lead. But they cruised in 2014 to a 50-21 record. Their .704 winning percentage was the highest ever in the Joe Cronin, Chub Feeney or Bud Selig Leagues.

The Angels finished 10 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians, who were defending their 2013 Joe Cronin championship. The Texas Rangers, who finished only three games behind the Indians in the 2012 Joe Cronin standings, fell all the way to last place in 2014, 22 1/2 games behind the Angels.

Finishing 29 games over .500 in the Joe Cronin League, the Angels built about half of that cushion against their Joe Cronin competition from the American League Central, hitting a combined 17-3 against the Indians, Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins.

2013 Bud Selig East standings and summary

The Cleveland Indians won their first Bud Selig East title in 2013, taking advantage of an expanded field to beat out the Cincinnati Reds and the Tampa Bay Ray. The Indians had never before finished higher than fifth in the Bud Selig East.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Just as the Cleveland Indians made a big move up in the Joe Cronin League, they also came a very long way in the Bud Selig East as the 2013 season developed. 

In the first three years of the Bud Selig East, the Indians finished fifth twice and sixth once in a six-team circuit, never finishing within 13½ games of the lead. In 2013, though, the Indians dominated in every way, winning the league by 3½ games over the newly entered Tampa Bay Rays and five games over the Cincinnati Reds.

During the 2013 Major League season, the Indians finished 92-70 for the first wildcard. They ended up losing that wildcard game to the Rays.  

The Indians' rise in the Bud Selig East and the Joe Cronin League somewhat is in step with their rise in the American League Central division. The difference is that the Detroit Tigers stood between the Indians and the AL Central title, whereas the Tigers are no part of the Joe Cronin or Bud Selig Leagues.

2013 Joe Cronin League standings and summary

The Cleveland Indians improved from worst to first in the expanded Joe Cronin League, winning a red hot race with the Texas Rangers by three games. The Indians did all of their damage against the Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

A new alignment in the Joe Cronin League helped to produce a worst-to-first scenario.

Because the Houston Astros were moved in 2013 from the National League to the American League, they also had to be moved from the Chub Feeney League to the Joe Cronin League. In the interests of evening out all of these leagues, it became necessary to add an eight team to the Joe Cronin League, leading to the addition of the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays made a nice showing in their Joe Cronin debut, finishing in third place. But the winners were the Cleveland Indians, who finished last in the Joe Cronin League in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, the Indians rolled over the Joe Cronin League, much as the Chicago White Sox did in 2012.

The Indians actually were much better than that, 48-22. Despite their dominant .686 winning percentage, the Indians still won the Joe Cronin League by only three games over the Texas Rangers, who were 46-26. The Rangers finished with a .639 winning percentage, same as the Rays. But the Rays were 39-22, so they finished 4 1/2 games behind the Indians.

The Indians were a combined 36-9 against the White Sox, Astros and Minnesota Twins, meaning they were only 12-13 against the other Joe Cronin teams. The White Sox fell hard in the league, all the way from first place to seventh, 23½ games behind the Indians.

2012 Bud Selig East standings and summary

The Bud Selig East came down to a battle between the champions of the Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney Leagues. In the end, the Chicago White Sox out of the Cronin prevailed, beating the Reds by 1½ games. Oddly enough, the White Sox and Reds never played each other, even though the interleague schedule in the Major Leagues pitted the Central divisions of each league against each other.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

For the second straight year, the winners of the Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney Leagues were in the same Bud Selig division, the Bud Selig East.

So, it was a close race between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds for the Bud Selig East title. The White Sox prevailed by 1½ games. The Reds and White Sox should have played each other in 2012, as the Major League interleague play schedule put the AL Central against the NL Central. But the Reds, for whatever reason, didn't play the White Sox. Instead, they played the New York Yankees. And the Sox, instead of playing the Reds, played the Dodgers.

The Reds and White Sox played out a tight race even though neither club was especially good in interleague play. The Reds were 6-6 against teams from the Joe Cronin League and the White Sox were 7-8 against clubs from the Chub Feeney League.

2012 Joe Cronin League standings and summary

The Chicago White Sox came from nowhere in 2012 to win the Joe Cronin League, winning nearly two-thirds of their games and romping to the title by seven games over the Angels and New York Yankees. The White Sox finished fourth out of six teams in the first two years of the Joe Cronin League.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Chicago White Sox finished in fourth place the first two years of the Joe Cronin League. And from looking at the American League standings in 2012, there's no reason to suspect the Sox should have done any better.

But the White Sox dominated the Joe Cronin League in 2012, winning almost a full two-thirds of their games to take the competition by a whopping seven games over the Angels and New York Yankees. As to their Major League performance, the White Sox finished a lackluster second place in the American League Central division at 85-77.

It just happened, as it sometimes does, that the Joe Cronin teams were the teams against whom the Sox prospered in 2012. They were 5-2 against the Yankees, 14-4 against the Twins and 6-3 against the Texas Rangers. The Sox were 6-12 against both the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals, but neither of those is a Joe Cronin team.

2011 Bud Selig East standings and summary

The New York Yankees won their second consecutive Bud Selig East title in 2011, beating the Cincinnati Reds by 7½ games. The Yankees claimed something of a double championship, as they also won their first title in the Joe Cronin League.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The New York Yankees cruised to their second consecutive title in the Bud Selig East in 2011.

Once again, it came to the Yankees against the Chub Feeney League champs, the Cincinnati Reds. However, the Reds faltered badly in their interleague games, going a combined 2-7 against the Yankees and Cleveland Indians. Thus, the Yankees prevailed over the Reds by 7½ games in 2011 after beating them by only one-half game in 2010.

The Reds actually finished closer to last place than to first place. The Chicago Cubs, the last-place team, finished 14 games behind the Yankees.

2011 Joe Cronin League standings and summary

The New York Yankees, who have won more World Championships than any other professional sports franchise in world history, won the Joe Cronin League for the first time in 2011. The Yankees beat out the Angels and the Texas Rangers for the honor.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Minnesota Twins fell from first to worst in the American League Central from 2010 to 2011. They didn't fall quite that hard in the Joe Cronin League, barely missing the cellar.

The New York Yankees prevailed by 4½ games on the Texas Rangers and 5½ games on the Angels. The difference, much of it, anyway, was the Yankees' 7-2 record against the Rangers head-to-head.

The Angels made a huge move up after finishing last place in 2010.

The Twins finished in fifth place, 12 games out of first. The Cleveland Indians were the last-place club in this group, finishing 13½ games behind the Yankees.

2010 Bud Selig East standings and summary

A superior performance in games against Chub Feeney League clubs propelled the New York Yankees to the first championship in the Bud Selig East. The Yankees barely beat out the Cincinnati Reds, who won the Chub Feeney League.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The New York Yankees finished second in the Joe Cronin League in 2010, while the Cincinnati Reds won the Chub Feeney League.

But mix those two leagues together, throw in their interleague games and divide the whole thing in half, and you get different results. The Reds and Yankees both land in the Bud Selig East, which the Yankees won over the Reds by a mere ½ game.

The Yankees made up the difference with their 8-4 record against NL teams in the Bud Selig League (Houston, the Dodgers and the New York Mets). The Reds were 4-2 in their games against Joe Cronin clubs, but that difference between the Yankees and Reds in these games is a full game, which put the Yankees over the top.

2010 Joe Cronin League standings and summary

The Minnesota Twins topped off a year in which they won the American League Central with additional championships in the Joe Cronin League and the Bud Selig West. The Twins won the Cronin by 3½ games over the New York Yankees. The Texas Rangers, who actually won the American League pennant, finished third in the Cronin.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Minnesota Twins had a big year in 2010, winning not only the American League Central Division, but something of a double championship in these idiosyncratic half-leagues, taking the Joe Cronin League and the Bud Selig West.

In the Joe Cronin League, which consists of American League teams in one man's proximity from time to time, the Twins won by 3½ games over the New York Yankees. Out of six teams in the Joe Cronin League, three went were among the four that went to the American League playoffs, so this was a tough group.

The other AL playoff team in this mix, the Texas Rangers, finished third in the Joe Cronin League, seven games behind the Twins. 

In the real American League competition, the Yankees actually had the best record among the Joe Cronin group, even though they went in as the wildcard with 95 wins. The Twins finished the AL season with 94 wins, while the Rangers won the AL West with 90 victories.

The Twins also won the Bud Selig West, which is the western half of the blend of teams from the Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney Leagues. 

2014 Fourth Division standings and summary

The Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies aren't for long staying in the Fourth Division. They finished one-two in the bottom tier in 2014, securing their advance back to the Third Division for 2015. The New York Mets, once again the second-place team, once again didn't win the 10 games they needed to advance.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies must be joined at the hip. At the least, they are joined in the last three years of these standings.

The Twins and Rockies both were demoted from the Second Division to the Third Division for 2013, then from the Third Division to the Fourth Division for 2014.

Now, they're both headed back up to the Third Division  for 2015. The Twins won the 2014 Fourth Division outright at 18-14. The Rockies actually finished third, behind the New York Mets. However, the Mets, again, didn't win enough of their few games to earn promotion. They finished 9-7 and would have advanced with one more win. But they didn't get it.

Once more, the Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox failed to advance, meaning the Astros will spend their fifth straight year in the Fourth Division, and the White Sox will be there for the fourth straight year.

2012 Fourth Division standings and summary

Following the Fourth Division results from 2012, the Kansas City Royals will be the last original bottom division team in 2013. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles are moving up.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals finally showed real signs of improvement within the Fourth Division in 2012. 

The Pirates and Orioles both improved enough to win Third Division promotion for 2013. The Royal remain the only team in the original 2010 Fourth Division to remain in the basement level.

The Pirates finished with the best winning percentage, though the Orioles didn't finish any games behind them. The Pirates, 79-83 during the Major League season, still didn't go to the playoffs, but the Orioles (93-69) entered as the second wild card in the American League.

The Houston Astros were spared a second consecutive cellar finish, thanks to the tumbling Chicago White Sox, who finished nine games from the top.

Center League: Royals struggle against Twins, White Sox

The Kansas City Royals are down a bit in the Center League because they have built their 12-6 overall record with a 5-1 mark against the American League West. This weekend, however, they will get a crack at the Detroit Tigers, who still lead the Center League.

Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus has his club leading the Center League (Gabbo T/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Looking at the regular Major League standings right now, the Kansas City Royals are right there with the Detroit Tigers, only one-half game down in the American League Central.

Looking at the Central League, the Royals are barely above water, 7-5, putting them 3 1/2 games behind the Tigers.

The difference is that the Royals have played about one-third of their games against the American League West, going 5-1 combined against the Angels and Oakland Athletics. But those aren't Central League games, so they don't help the Royals here.

It also doesn't help the Royals that they get into more fights than they can handle. Nor are they handling the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins, neither of which has given even the impression of being a contender for the last three years.

The Royals swept the White Sox in three at home during the first weekend of the season, as the club and its fans celebrated an apparent rebirth. Since then, though, the Royals have only matched the Twins, splitting their six games. And the Royals lost two of three just now to the White Sox in Chicago, the two losses being counted on April 26.

So, the Royals are nowhere to be found at the top of the Central League standings. Instead, we find the Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. Both of those teams began the week outside of the league, then came back later to each win two of three against a league cellar dwellar — the Tigers taking the Cleveland Indians at home and the Cardinals handling the Milwaukee Brewers on the road.

But a lot could change in these standings (or not) during the back part of the coming week — Tigers at Royals, four games, Thursday through Sunday in Kansas City.

Games of April 20

Chicago (NL) 5, at Pittsburgh 2.

Cincinnati 6, at Milwaukee 1.

at Chicago (AL) 4, Cleveland 3.

at Kansas City 7, Minnesota 1.

Games of April 21

Chicago (NL) 9, at Pittsburgh 8.

Cincinnati 16, at Milwaukee 10.

Cleveland 6, at Chicago (AL) 2.

at Kansas City 6, Minnesota 5.

Games of April 22

at Chicago (AL) 6, Cleveland 0.

Minnesota 3, at Kansas City 0.

Cincinnati 2, at Milwaukee 1.

at Pittsburgh 4, Chicago (NL) 3.

Games of April 23

Kansas City 3, at Chicago (AL) 2.

at Milwaukee 4, Cincinnati 2.

at Pittsburgh 5, Chicago (NL) 4.

Games of April 24

Cleveland 13, at Detroit 1.

Chicago (NL) 7, at Cincinnati 3.

St. Louis 3, at Milwaukee 0.

Games of April 25

at Detroit 4, Cleveland 1.

St. Louis 5, at Milwaukee 3.

Games of April 26

at Detroit 8, Cleveland 6.

Chicago (NL) 5, at Cincinnati 2.

at Chicago (AL) 3, Kansas City 2.

at Chicago (AL) 5, Kansas City 3.

at Milwaukee 6, St. Louis 3.