Run differential is a very good tool to evaluate teams. Generally speaking good teams have positive run differentials and poor teams have negative run differentials. Obviously there are outliers from year to year but that’s why they are considered outliers. Seattle was incredibly lucky this year to be where they ended up. I mean we only have to look no further than the NL to make an argument counter to the Seattle team. The Brave had a +134 run differential and only won 88 games. The Brewers had +115 run differential and won 95 games. So are the Brewers a better team than the Braves. That question will be answered this week. So back to Seattle’s situation, they win 90 games and have a -51 run differential. The Oakland A’s have +56 run differential and they finish in 3rd place. To me that sounds like Oakland is clearly the better team. They outscored Seattle by over 100 runs. That’s not an insignificant amount of runs. Yet here we are with Seattle barely missing out and Oakland scratching their head.
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