NL Central? The same NL Central that houses St. Louios, Chicago, and Houston? Milwaukee and Cincy have had success over the last decade as well.
And please dont confuse "worst" with "competitive".
Yeah, that one, historically have been bad...Aside from from the Cardinals none of those teams are comparative to the elite teams from, say, the AL east...but thats neither here nor there, the NL west is the worst, and has been...your division sucks when a near .500 record gets you into the playoffs. Theyre competetive with eachother, if you want to call it that. And how are you defining success? Because I define success as winning a world series, and none of the NL teams you mentioned except the Cards and the Astros have gotten to a world series in the last decade, and that Astros team was as assembled as much as any Yankees team. NL West is the weakest division absolutley. Take the Padres, Giants or Dodgers and plug them into any other division and they wouldnt compete with Philly, the NY Mets, The Cards, or even the Brewers. Let alone the AL, the AL west is the only place they would stand a chance. But break it down, the Padres are just on a tear, the Giants blew their payroll on essentially 5 players and are screwed as soon as next season, or when someone gets hurt, especially since their farm system sucks. The only deep enough team that would compete is the Dodgers. And the Dodgers are just not playing good baseball early in the season, and thats what it is, is early. I would not be surprised if the Dodgers have a firm grip on the division by July.
Um, the NL West was the best National League division, if not the best in baseball last year. MAYBE the AL East was a little better, but i wouldnt even say that. The NL West last year was the only division with 3 teams with 88 wins or more, and most divisions only had 1 team with more than 87 wins.
Is that why the NL West didnt make it to the WS? What difference does it make if they have a more wins when they come against other crappy division rivals and they arent competetive agains any other division? The AL East was exponentially better last year. NY and Boston had better records then every other division regardless of league. Maybe the NL West was the closest division, but the best? Not even close.
