Still more baseball questions from my dad

Whenever I watch a ballgame with my dad, he asks me a lot of questions. He doesn’t really care who’s up or down, he’s more interested in macro stuff... What percentage of left-handed hitters are really right-handed? and How many players are from the Dominican? On the face of it, his questions seem simple, but in actuality require a lot of research to answer, or at least a subscription to Baseball-Reference’s Play Index.

Is the American League still better than the National League?

Betcherass. American League teams have won 109 games against the National League this season, against 98 losses, for a .527 winning percentage.

How long has the AL been better?

The American League has won the season series against the National League every year for the last ten years. Their winning percentage over that time is .548.

Why are they better?

I think it mostly has to do with money. From 2005-2012, the American League outspent the National League by about $11 million per team, per year.

I also think American League teams have been quicker to adopt sabermetrics than NL teams, and that this has contributed to the AL’s ascendancy, but I couldn’t really prove it.

I’ll buy that. What percentage of runs are scored off of home runs?

It fluctuates a bit from year to year. This season, major-league teams have scored 35.5 percent of their runs from home runs.