How far back are the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals?

The standings say that the New York Yankees are 8.5 games out of first place while the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals are 8.0 games back. At first glance, the Yankees are technically farther out, but in reality it's the Cardinals who are further back. New York is in second place while St. Louis is in fifth. The Cards would have to leapfrog past four teams, not just one, to get to first place.

Here's a little system for determining what I think would be a better games back number. It's not just games behind the first place leader, it's games behind, period. Here's today's National League Central standings:

Simply add up the number of games behind each team. The Cardinals are 8.0 behind Milwaukee, 1.5 behind Houston, 1.0 behind Chicago and 0.5 behind Pittsburgh. That's 8.0+1.5+1.0+0.5 or 11.0 games back.

A new standings chart could look like this:

G1 is games behind the 1st place team and GB is a more accurate representation of how far the team really is out of first place.

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