To date this is a division that only the Bad News Bears could love. If they were to continue to lose at the rate they are going they will end the 2007 season as the worst National League division since divisional play started in 1969. They would be the second-worst division overall. The NL Central has compiled mind numbing 46-79 W/L record outside of the division. This works out to an anemic .368 winning percentage. Every team in the division has a sub-.500 record outside of it. The disease is pandemic.
Here is list of the five worst divisions since the start of divisional play in 1969:
1994 AL-West: The only division to not have a single club play at least .500 baseball. The only thing that stood between a sub-.500 team and the playoffs was the fact that a strike wiped out the 1994 postseason.Code:Year League Wins Losses Pct. 1994 AL-W 199 256 0.437 2007 NL-C 131 164 0.444 2002 AL-C 366 442 0.453 2003 AL-C 370 440 0.457 1999 AL-C 368 437 0.457
2007 NL-Central: Ugly is as ugly does. Consider:At the end of play on the 9th of May Milwaukee led the division by 6.5 games with a record of 24-10. Since then they have gone 4-12, and yet only lost 1.5 games off their lead. The division's record in that time is 33-66. The NL-Central has won only one out of every three games. A .333 winning percentage. Or if you want to be positive - a .667 losing percentage. The Reds were 10 games at the end of that day, have gone 4-13 since then, and yet have only dropped half a game.
2002 AL-Central: A solid Minnesota club was dragged down by the efforts of 100-loss teams Kansas City and Detroit.
2003 AL-Central: Back-to-back miserable seasons by the AL-Central. It took a yeoman's effort by the 119-loss Detroit Tigers to ensure this division finished in the bottom five.
1999 AL-Central: A fine 97 win showing by Cleveland was more than negated by the sub-.500 sludge that every other team in the division was mired in.
Your bottom five divisions since the dawn of divisional play.
