East is East & West is Worst

A glance at the NL standings verifies the counterintuitive truth that, somehow, even after dropping 4 straight to the Mets, the free-falling Diamondbacks find themselves in second place. Another gander confirms that the last place Mets sport a better W-L than the West leading Padres. Obvious stuff.

But how bad is the West, really? The unbalanced schedule suggests that the West's results are padded by playing each other more than the superior competition from the NL East and Central. For example, the Padres are currently at .500 overall, but remove their 24-20 record vs the West and the Pads drop to 39-43(.476), still good enough for first. Here's what the division looks like after subtracting the West's intradivisional games:

San Diego  39-43 .476

San Fran    32-47 .405

LA            31-47 .397

Col           32-50 .390

Ariz          31-49 .388

Forget about the Mets for a second. A more intriguing question might be: How would the Brewers, Reds or even the Pirates fare in 78 games per annum against these jokers?