2023 Domination Index Scores
Updating The Stats
2023 Domination Index Scores
Apologies for being a bit late on this. I’ve updated the Domination Index scores for all 2023 teams, both in the United States and Japan. Let’s get on with the show!
If you don’t know what we’re talking about, read this first:
“Gap” in the graphs below refers to the difference between the runs scored and runs allowed part of the Domination Index.
National League
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves continued their domination of the National League in 2023. The 2022 Dodgers set a new record for the highest Domination Index score of all time, and followed that up with the 56th highest score of all time in 2023:
Nobody’s going to call the 1983 Braves or 1934 Giants one of the greatest teams of all time. However, there are a lot of teams in this list that are commonly considered among the greatest, including the 1976 Reds, the 1909 Pirates, and those frustratingly elusive 1994 Expos.
The 2023 Braves, meanwhile, are now #29 on the list of highest Domination Index scores of all time:
A special award for futility belongs to the 2023 Colorado Rockies, who are one of the worst teams of all time:
On to the American League.
American League
It will probably surprise Tampa Bay fans to see the 2023 Rays with the best Domination Index record in the entire league. One wonders if home attendance at their two Wild Card games might have been a bit higher if people had known this.
That 2.393 Domination Index ranking is good, but not quite all time great good:
Tampa Bay’s 2023 season currently ranks 91st on the all time leaderboard. Some of the adjacent teams are well known, such as the 1960 Yankees, the 1920 Indians, and the 1982 Brewers. Others, like the 1952 Indians, are much less known.
How about those awful Oakland Athletics?
Well, I suppose the “good news” is that this wasn’t the worst Athletics team in history. But it was close.
The 1916 Athletics, by the way, have the worst Domination Index score in American League history. In other words, the 2023 Oakland team came very close to setting a new record.
Sure, Washington D.C. has had some bad teams — but nobody plays bad baseball like the Athletics.
Japanese Central League
Let’s look at the Japanese leagues as well. We’ll start with the Central League:
Hanshin won the 2023 Japan Series in 7 games. They were close to being the most dominant regular season team in Central League history, ranking 19th all time:
Now, I wrote about Chunichi earlier this year:
How did they wind up?
Chunichi was bad, but not all-time bad. However, their offense was horrid:
The 2023 Chunichi Dragons had the worst offense in Central League history, somehow surpassing their horrible performance in 2021. I’m astounded that they only managed to score 390 runs in a league that averaged over 500.
Japanese Pacific League
On we move to the Pacific League:
The Orix Buffaloes came within a game of winning the 2023 Japan Series. Here’s how their 2.088 Domination Index ranking looks compared to the rest of the league:
That rating was good enough for 47th on the all-time leaderboard. This isn’t stupendously good, but it’s also not bad.
More
I’ve updated the files in the member’s area for paying subscribers:
If you’re interested in playing around with these numbers, please consider becoming a paid subscriber! It costs $5 a month, allows you to comment on all posts, and provides access to my growing baseball media collection.