Who's at the top of the A.L???

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An arguement has been brought up recently that really bugs me because the question is really, uhm silly to say the least. The question is "Who is the best team in the A.L?" The top candidates are the New York Yankess, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Texas Rangers.

Usually you can't say look at the win-loss record of the teams to automatically rule out any or all the rest, but in this case, the Hard-Hitting Texas Rangers are ruled out standing at an impressive but second tier record of 61-44. By no means are those numbers laughable, especially as they are 6.5 games ahead of the beloved Blue Jays but the two teams really competing for the A.L (East) lead and perhaps as the best team in Major League Baseball are the Yankees and Rays.

If you compare the numbers, both teams have 5 more wins than the Rangers, and stand 5 games ahead of them, but what is more impressive is that both these teams play in a division way better than the AL West. The East has 279 wins,over 5 teams compared to the West's 207, the imaginary team to fill out the 4 team division would need over 70 wins to smooth the numbers out. A more appropriate stat to compare would be division winning percentage.
AL East : 279/ 527 = .529
AL West : 207/ 423 = .489

When they are crunched, the AL East is home to a much more competitive division, with four play-off quality teams pitted against each other. These characteristics rule out the Texas Rangers as the American Leagues best team.

So who is better? New York or Tampa Bay? Well head to head the Rays have won the series so far this year 6-5. The series is not over, with another seven games down the stretch that will undoubtedly play the largest role in determining which of these two teams are baseballs best, regardless of the league. I have to give the edge to Tampa Bay, mainly for putting together a solid team, without spending a billion dollars, well actually 206,000,000 (206 million). On the list of MLB team payrolls, Yankees are first, where as the Rays slide in at number 21, spending 135 million dollars less. In all comparison I believe the Rays are the best team in the A.L and the MLB because they have spent 1,089,749 dollars per win, compared to the Yankees 3,126,263.

NYY - $206,333,389
TBR - $71,923,471
TR - $55,252,545

Disagree? Feel free to comment, either here, or on the Facebook page if you do not own a google account.
P.S There won't most likely won't be a post, for those of you who know me, I'm heading back home tomorrow, but the next post I put out might be knocking the Yankees. Not a big fan... Just sayin. Thanks for checking again!

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/ Standings in the AL
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/salaries/teams Team Caps