Competitive Balance in the NECBL

A few years ago, Matthew Namee of Bill James Online came up with the index of competitive balance. Devised to measure how balanced major league baseball currently is and how it's evolved over time, I decided to apply it to the NECBL.

Namee's formula is very simple, as for each league/year, he subtracted each team’s winning percentage from .500; then, he took the absolute value of that number and multiplied it by 1000. Here's the 2012 Northern Division.

Team	Pct.	Score
Newport	.756	256
New Bedford	.595	95
Laconia	.415	85
Sanford	.366	134
Mystic	.225	275

You then calculate the average score, which, in this case, was 169. That is the division's Competitive Balance Score or CBS. Theoretically, a perfectly balanced division/league would be zero, and a totally imbalanced league would score at 500. Of course, those extremes would never happen as every year in NECBL history has scored from 58 to 133.  At 169, the 2012 Southern Division was the most imbalanced division in league history.

On the contrary, the most balanced division in the NECBL's 21-year history was the 2013 Northern Division. This was a league that was decided on the last week of the season, as just 5 1-2 games separated teams one through four.

Team	Pct.	Score
Keene	.614	114
Vermont	.545	45
North Adams	.500	0
Holyoke	.489	11
Saratoga	.467	33
Danbury	.395	105

There is no visible trend over time, as the league has alternated between balanced years and very imbalanced years. Here's a look at the average CBS scores over time.

2014	111
2013	60
2012	127
2011	127
2010	87
2009	108
2008	104
2007	76
2006	109
2005	83
2004	70
2003	120
2002	119
2001	105
1999	129
1998	109
1997	58
1996	122
1995	76
1994	133

As you can tell, it's gone up and down. There's a good bit of year-to-year variation, but it can be broken up into ERAs. From 2011-12, the league had two of it's most unbalanced seasons while the stretch from 1998-2003 was very similar. Here's a chart of the year-by-year outlook.

This year, the NECBL is dropping again. Even with bottom-feeders Danbury and Keene pushing up the score, the league is currently on pace for their second-lowest season in the past five years. The Northern Division is currently at 79, but the top five teams, removing 8-22 Keene from the picture, are just 48.

As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to drop a comment with your thoughts below, and reach out to me on Twitter @bradleysmart15.