The Strongest Division in 2026: The Wins Say AL East, the Runs Say NL Central
Strip out intra-division games and the AL East is 237-195 vs everyone else — but the NL Central's +185 run differential is the stronger claim. A dated audit.
Statistics · Analytics · Data science
Baseball, run through the numbers.
Independent, original MLB analysis built on public data and open, re-runnable code. Explainers, tutorials, and deep dives — with every statistic traced back to a real data pull, never invented.
Stat Explainers
The Magic Number, Explained: Every 2026 Clinch Countdown, Computed
The clinch formula from scratch — why the +1, what makes it fall — plus all 18 live 2026 countdowns: the Rays' 25 baseball's smallest, the Orioles' 38 most alive.
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Is Beating Your Run Differential a Skill? 90 Season Pairs Say No
Teams that beat their Pythagorean record don't repeat it: residuals carry over at r=0.00 across 90 season pairs (2021-2024) — and each lucky win costs a win back.
Two Teams, One Town: MLB's Crosstown Pairs Sit Farther Apart Than Strangers
MLB's four shared markets, 2015-2024: crosstown pairs averaged 19.4 wins of separation — more than random pairs (15.0) — and won together in just 7 of 36 seasons.
Hitting vs. Pitching: Which Side of the Ball Bought Wins in 2024?
Team OPS tracked 2024 win% at r=+0.79 and team ERA at −0.74 — hitting edged pitching, flipping 2023's verdict, and together the two explain 91% of the standings.
The .500 Gravity Well: MLB's Winners Regress Harder Than Its Losers Recover
Across 210 back-to-back season pairs, 2015-2024, a .600+ finish cost 11.0 wins the next year — 51% of the edge over .500. Sub-.400 teams won back just 36% of theirs.
What Is Banana Ball? Every Rule, Explained
Banana Ball, explained rule by rule: points per inning, the two-hour clock, ball-four sprints, fan-caught fouls, the Showdown, and the Golden Batter.
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Old games, new lenses.
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How the models think.
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Signal over narrative.
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Data Deep-Dives
Long-form, data-first investigations into league-wide trends — usage patterns, rule-change effects, and the stories hiding in the aggregate numbers..
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Banana Ball
The exhibition league MLB can't stop watching: the rules, the teams, and what the two-hour, win-every-inning format actually tests — sourced, never invented..