"An American League Offense in the National League"

I forget who said that, but it seems to be a common theme in discussing the upcoming Phils-Yanks World Series. It also sounds pretty catchy. But it's by no means true.

The Phillies are, without a doubt, the hardest hitting team in the National League. They led the league in runs scored, homers, slugging, and isolated slugging. They're the only team with 4 players who've hit 30+ homers. In the NLCS they outscored the Dodgers 35 to 16, averaging 7 runs per game. ESPN analyst John Kruk, argued on air that the Yankees just won't be able to handle the Phillies "offensive onslaught" and would lose in 6. But are they really an American League caliber offense? Not really. When you consider that the Yankees beat two better hitting teams to get to the Fall Classic the argument that falls apart. The Phillies' knocking the Dodgers out of the park had as much to do with Torre's horrible starting pitcher selection as it did the Phillies' offensive capabilities. I wouldn't even call the Phils an AL East quality offense.

In OPS, the Phillies are fifth in the majors, behind the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, and Rockies. In runs scored they're fourth, behind the Yankees, Angels, and Sox. And they only scored three more runs than the Twins. And for all the power the Phillies lineup has, the Yankees hit 20 more homers and are, I believe, the only team in history with seven players with 20+ home runs. I won't deny their a great hitting team, but in the AL they'd be nothing special.

The Phillies run total is drastically inflated by the fact that they got to face the Nationals (5.02 team ERA) and the Mets (4.46 team ERA) and feast on their terrible pitching 18 times each. Against the Nats, the worst throwing team in MLB, they scored 116 of their 820 runs, almost 1/7th of their total runs even though they only played 1/9th of their games against them. The Phillies team OPS was .880 against the Nats, 100 points higher than their regular season average.

The most damning proof of this is looking at the third-order runs scored from Baseball Prospectus adjusted standings. These take into account the quality of opponents' pitching. The Yankees led the majors in adjusted equivalent runs, with 948. The Phillies scored 791 adjusted equivalent runs, which is good for second in the NL after the Rockies. But it would be good for 5th in the AL East, behind the Yanks, Rays, Sox, and Jays(!). It's 14 runs fewer than the Twins, and 87 runs fewer than the Angels. If they were in the AL, the Phillies would be tied for 8th with the Rangers in adjusted equivalent runs. That puts them...right in the middle of the road in terms of offensive power.

The Phillies have a strong offense, but there's no denying that the Yankees are stronger. It's time for analysts to stop pretending they're a more slugging team than the Yanks.