NL vs. AL

It's almost interleague play season, and that means speculation about the two leagues can once again begin. While there are plus sides to each league, one has to wonder which league is actually easier to play (and win) in.

For the sake of arguement, I'm going to use the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals as my examples. Last year, the NL central and the AL central played against each other in interleague, bringing some very interesting numbers. While Cardinals fans tout the "best team in baseball," one look at their games against the AL central division should lead some to highly doubt that speculation.

In interleague play, no NL central teams had a winning record against their AL central counterparts (the best record was 7 wins from Houston). St. Louis went 5-10, with 4 of those wins coming against the Royals. Barring games against the Royals, the Cardinals were a mere 1-8. That's so bad that not even the Royals can pull that off. Meanwhile, the Royals pulled a 10-8 record (8-4 without the Cards games) with the second best interleague record on the AL side (the Indians posted an 8-10).

What's the big difference between these two leagues? Sure there's the whole 'pitcher hitting vs. designated hitter' but how much can it hurt an NL team when visiting their AL rivals? They've got plenty of guys that they can throw in there that will be an upgrade from the usual 9 spot pitcher. If anything, interleague play should be beneficial to NL teams because the AL teams are the ones having to jump the most hoops!

In my opinion, this is just one of the many proofs that the Cardinals are not all they're cracked up to be and, were they to switch to the American League, they wouldn't have the same track record and would probably lose a good amount of their fair weather fan base.

I wrote this a while back, but would just like to throw a heads up at Chipper Jones' opinion. There's a lot of merit to what he's saying, and I agree that the hometown rivalry is a bit overrated (playing the Cardinals 6 times is more than enough). If interleague is something that is necessary (I think it's a nice break for the Royals to get a few wins in, honestly), keep it in the same divisions to keep the "fairness." Then again, why does this pertain to the Royals and their playoff chances when they've got about a .01% chance of making it? Why do 18 games a season really make that big of a difference? Hell, for all you know, they could help you out!